Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing

George Barton Cutten

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Three Thousand Yearsof Mental Healing, by George Barton CuttenThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: Three Thousand Years of Mental HealingAuthor: George Barton CuttenRelease Date: October 22, 2007 [eBook #23101]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF MENTAL HEALING*** E-text prepared by David Clarke, Turgut Dincer,and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team(http://www.pgdp.net) THREE THOUSAND YEARS OFMENTAL HEALING BYGEORGE BARTON CUTTEN, Ph.D.(YALE)PRESIDENT OF ACADIA UNIVERSITYILLUSTRATED NEW YORKCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS1911printer's mark. BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING THE GALLICÆSCULAPIUS DISPATCHING A DEMON. BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING THE GALLIC ÆSCULAPIUSDISPATCHING A DEMON THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORYOFArtemus Wyman Sawyer, D.D., LL.D.PRESIDENT OF ACADIA UNIVERSITY1869-1896HE HID FROM US HIS HEART WHILE WE THOUGHT THAT HE LOVEDONLY HIS STUDIES; WE LATER LEARNED THAT HE LAIDEMPHASIS ON THAT WHICH HE LOVED ONLY LESS—TRUEKNOWLEDGE, IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT INTRODUCEIT TO THOSE THAT HE LOVED MOST—HISPUPILS. HE TAUGHT AS NONE OTHERCONTENTSCHAPTER PAGEI. Introduction—Mental Healing ...

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• Publié par: feak
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 42
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg
eBook, Three Thousand
Years of Mental Healing,
by George Barton Cutten
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg
License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing
Author: George Barton Cutten
Release Date: October 22, 2007 [eBook #23101]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF MENTAL
HEALING***
E-text prepared by David Clarke, Turgut
Dincer,
and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)




THREE THOUSAND
YEARS OF
MENTAL HEALING

BY
GEORGE BARTON CUTTEN, Ph.D.
(YALE)
PRESIDENT OF ACADIA UNIVERSITYILLUSTRATED



NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1911
printer's mark.

BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING THE GALLIC
ÆSCULAPIUS DISPATCHING A DEMON.

BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING THE GALLIC Æ
SCULAPIUS
DISPATCHING A DEMON

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY
OFArtemus Wyman Sawyer, D.D., LL.D.
PRESIDENT OF ACADIA UNIVERSITY
1869-1896
HE HID FROM US HIS HEART WHILE WE
THOUGHT THAT HE LOVED
ONLY HIS STUDIES; WE LATER LEARNED THAT
HE LAID
EMPHASIS ON THAT WHICH HE LOVED ONLY
LESS—TRUE
KNOWLEDGE, IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT
INTRODUCE
IT TO THOSE THAT HE LOVED MOST—HIS
PUPILS. HE TAUGHT AS NONE OTHER
CONTENTS
CHAPTE PAG

R E
I. Introduction—Mental Healing 3
II. Early Civilizations 19
III. The Influence of Christianity 35
IV. Relics and Shrines 61
V. Healers 110
VI. Talismans 138
VII. Amulets 158
VIII. Charms 189
IX. Royal Touch 224X. Mesmer and After 249
The Healers of the Nineteenth Centu
XI. 273
ry
Index 273
PREFACE
The present decade has experienced an intense
interest in mental healing. This has come as a
culmination of the development along these lines
during the past half century. It has shown itself in the
beginning of new religious sects with this as a, or the,
fundamental tenet, in more wide-spread general
movements, and in the scientific study and application
of the principles underlying this form of therapeutics.
Many have been led astray because, being ignorant of
the mental healing movements and vagaries of the
past, the late applications, veiled in metaphysical or
religious verbiage, have seemed to them to be new in
origin and principle. No one could consider an
historical survey of the subject and reasonably hold
this opinion. It is on account of the ignorance of similar
movements, millenniums old, that so much, if any,
originality can be credited to the founders.
The object of this volume is to present a general view
of mental healing, dealing more especially with the
historical side of the subject. While this is divided
topically, the topics are presented in a comparatively
chronological order, and thereby trace the
development of the subject to the present century.The term "mental healing" is given the broadest
possible use, and comprehends any cures which may
be brought about by the effect of the mind over the
body, regardless of whether the power back of the
cure is supposed to be deity, demons, other human
beings, or the individual mind of the patient.
It is hoped that this may contribute to the knowledge
of a subject which is of such wide-spread popular
interest.
George Barton Cutten.
Wolfville, Nova Scotia,
December 1, 1910.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Bas-relief representing the Gallic Æsculapi
Frontispie
us
ce
dispatching a demon
Facing

Page
Cure through the Intercession of a Healing
72
Saint
Valentine Greatrakes 134
Sir Kenelm Digby 152
King's Touch-pieces 226
F. A. Mesmer 232
John Alexander Dowie 276
George O. Barnes 290Mary Baker Eddy 302
THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF
MENTAL HEALING
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION—MENTAL HEALING
"'Tis painful thinking that corrodes our
clay."—Armstrong.
"Oh, if I could once make a resolution, and determine
to be well!"—Walderstein.
"The body and the mind are like a jerkin and a jerkin's
lining, rumple the one and you rumple the
other."—Sterne.
"I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are
more than married, for they are most intimately united;
and when the one suffers, the other
sympathizes."—Chesterfield.
"Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body,
that for a time can make flesh and nerve impregnable,
and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak
become so mighty."—Stowe.
"The surest road to health, say what they will, Is never
to suppose we shall be ill; Most of those evils we poormortals know From doctors and imagination
flow."—Churchill.
The fact that there is a reciprocal relation between
mental states and bodily conditions, acting both for
good and ill, is nothing new in human experience.
Even among the most crude and unobserving,
traditions and incidents have given witness to this
knowledge. For centuries stories of the hair turning
white during the night on account of fright or sorrow,
the cause and cure of diseases through emotional
disturbances, and death, usually directly by apoplexy,
caused by anger, grief, or joy, have been current and
generally accepted. On the other hand, irritability and
moroseness caused by disordered organs of
digestion, change of acumen or morals due to injury of
the brain or nervous system, and insanity produced by
bodily diseases, are also accepted proofs of the effect
of the body on the mind.
Recent scientific investigation has been directed along
the line of the influence of the mind over the body, and
to that phase of this influence which deals with the
cure rather than the cause of disease. In addition to
what the scientists have done along this line, various
religious cults have added the application of these
principles to their other tenets and activities, or else
have made this the chief corner-stone of a new
structure. There are some reasons why this
connection with religion should continue to exist, and
why it has been a great help both to the building up of
these particular sects and the healing of the bodies of
those who combine religion with mental healing.We must not forget that in early days the priest, the
magician, and the physician were combined in one
person, and that primitive religious notions are difficult
to slough off. Shortly before the beginning of the
Christian era there were some indications that healing
was to be freed from the bondage of religion, but the
influence of Jesus' healing upon Christians, and the
overwhelming influence of Christianity upon the whole
world, delayed this movement, so that it did not again
become prominent until the sixteenth century. About
this time, when therapeutics as a science began to
shake off the shackles of religion and superstition,
another startling innovation was noticeable, viz., the
division of mental healing into religious and non-
religious healing. This change came gradually, and as
is usual in all reform, certain prophets saw and
proclaimed the real truth which the people were not
able to follow or receive for centuries.
Paracelsus, who lived during the first half of the
sixteenth century, wrote these shrewd words:
"Whether the object of your faith is real or false, you
will nevertheless obtain the same effects. Thus, if I
believe in St. Peter's statue as I would have believed
in St. Peter himself, I will obtain the same effects that I
would have obtained from St. Peter; but that is
superstition. Faith, however, produces miracles, and
whether it be true or false faith, it will always produce
the same wonders." We have also this penetrating
observation from Pierre Ponponazzi, of Milan, an
author of the same century: "We can easily conceive
the marvellous effects which confidence and
imagination can produce, particularly when both
qualities are reciprocal between the subject and the