The Primitive Mind Cure - The Nature and Power of Faith; Or Elementary Lessons in Christian Philosophy and Transcendental Medicine

William Al-Sharif, Warren Felt Evans

Description

“The Primitive Mind Cure” is an 1885 treatise on the ability of the mind to heal with reference to Christian philosophy and transcendental medicine, by Warren Felt Evans. This vintage book is highly recommended for those with an interest in the power of the mind and the New Thought movement in particular. Contents include: “What are Ideas, and What is Idealism?”, “The Application of the Idealistic Philosophy of the Cure of Mental and Bodily Maladies”, “The Triune Constitution of Man and the Discovery of the True Self”, “The Saving Power of the Spirit of Man”, “Happiness and Health, and Where they are to be Found”, etc. Warren Felt Evans (1817–1889) was an American author famous for his writings related to the New Thought movement, a movement originating from 19th century United States based upon the ideas that God exists everywhere, sickness originates in the mind, and that thinking “correctly” has the ability to heal. He became a proponent of the movement during 1863 as a result of seeking healing from Phineas P. Quimby, the movement's founder. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with an essay by William Al-Sharif.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 28 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528769297
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE PRIMITIVE MINU-CuRE

The Natûre and Power of Faith; Or, Elementary Lessons in Christian Philosophy and Transcendental Medicine

With an Essay on The New Age By William Al-Sharif

By

REV. W. F. EVANS

AuTHOR OF Mental Cure

First pûblished in 1885

This edition published by Read Books Ltd. Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

“To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens.”

—MAT. xiii: 11.

THENEW AGE

An extract from the essay, The New Ageby William Al-Sharif

The ‘industrial revolution’, the ‘Enlightenment Age ’ and colonialism had strengthened the power of the British Empire. Brita in, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was probably the most powerful and influential empire in the world. The power of the empire, accompanied with the proce sses of modernisation and secularisation, created a new religious and cultura l mental space. A ‘New age’ became part of cultural, religious and romantic imaginaire and represented a new era in which religion and culture would evolve in the favour of the empire and its British subjects. In 1843, The New Age was established in London. It pro posed a society ‘for the promotion of humanity and abstinence from animal food’. This society would also disseminate ‘correct principles on universal peace, [and] health of soul and body’. Christianity, in the age of the empire and missiona ry expansion, was influenced by the cultural aspirations for a ‘new age’. Christian thinkers began to talk about a new age for ‘the Lord’ and Christianity. This ‘new age’ wou ld fulfil biblical prophecies and embody new opportunities and truths for the Christi an faith. Rationalist intellectuals imagined a new age for progress and science. The philosophical and scientific criticism of Chris tianity, the elaboration of ‘holistic’ practices and theosophical ideas, the British colon ialism of India and romantic Orientalism had all provided an inventive climate f or the promotion of spiritualistic ideas. The process of modernisation and secularisat ion diminished the traditional authority of social and religious structures and sh aped the transformation from the idea of destiny to choice and from providence to progres s. Yet, there were individuals who opposed the religious hegemony of missionary societ ies and the hierarchal ‘church religion’ and sought spirituality in holism, occult ism and esotericism. The individualised conquest of spirituality, which later influenced th e New Age discourse, was formulated by modernism which invented ‘the conception of a un ique self and private identity, a unique personality and individuality, which can be expected to generate its own unique vision of the world’. In the US, the ‘New Age’ imaginaire represented a n ew spiritual consciousness of the human self and was transformed by the ideas of Spiritualism, Transcendentalism, New Thought, Theosophy and Millenarianism. People s uch as Woodbury Melcher Fernald (1813-1873) and Warren Felt Evans (1817-188 9) spoke of the coming of ‘new age’ spirituality. A weekly journal, New Age, was i ssued in San Francisco in 1865. The foundation of the Theosophical Society in 1875 in N ew York was significant for articulating theosophical concepts. This Society, w hich established its international headquarters in India, romanticised the religions o f India and declared to challenge dogmatic religious authority and scientific materia lism. Despite the emergence of Christian evangelism and f undamentalism, the first three decades of the twentieth century witnessed numerous attempts by ‘spiritual seekers’ to create new spiritualities and seek new ‘truths’ for the ‘new age’. Henry Jenkins says

that the period between 1910 and 1935 was ‘the firs t new age’ and ‘the period of emergence’.

PREFACE.

THIS volume is designed to contribute something toward supplying the demand in the public for further light on the subject upon wh ich it treats, —the cure of disease in ourselves and others by mental and spiritual agenci es. The first work of the author having a relation to the subject, was published ove r twenty-two years ago. It was followed, at intervals of different length, by four other volumes, which have had an extensive circulation in every part of the country, and to some extent in Europe. It is not an incredible supposition that they have had an inf luence, more or less, towards generating in the public mind the widely-spread and growing belief of the mental origin of disease, and of the relation of the mind to its cure. The work is intended to take the reader up where the last volume of the author, “The Divine Law of Cure,” leaves him, and conduct him still further along the same path o f inPuiry. It does not claim to have exhausted the subject, or to have said all that mig ht be said; for the subject is one too vast to be crowded into so limited a compass, which would be like condensing the ocean into the dimensions of a lake. But it is to b e hoped that enough has been said to vindicate the propriety of the title,—that of “AlementaryLessons in Christian hilosophy and Transcendental Medicine.” It was our aim to fur nish the teachers and pupils of the spiritual philosophy of healing, with a text-book w hich should elevate the subject into the dignity of a science. The themes discussed are occasionally of an abstruse nature, but have been expressed in the clearest language at our command. It is not intended to wholly supplant the living teacher, but rather to a id his work by suggesting many things it does not say. The work is written also in the in terest of self-healing, and contains the essential features of the instruction which the aut hor has given to numerous persons during the last twenty years. There is a large numb er of people in the world whose life has been a perpetual struggle with disease, and who have been able to discover no pathway of light that unerringly conducts them out of their troubles. The various systems of materialistic medication have been succe ssively tried, and all have failed. To them the volume is sincerely commended and respe ctfully dedicated, with the hope that they may find in it somewhere the saving power of the right word at the right time. There is in the minds of men, at the present day, a n inward thirst, an unsatisfied craving for spiritual light. We wish it was in our power to fully meet this heart-felt want. But we can only promise, in the following pages, to bring to you, “in the name of a disciple,” a single cup of water, while we point yo u to the inexhaustible fountain whence all living, saving truth flows, —the universal Chri st, the boundless, everywhere-present realm of pure spirit. Standing by this fountain and well of living water, on which God has never placed a seal, nor stationed around it an arm ed guard, we would say, in the language of the sublimest of the old prophets, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” (Isa. lv: 1.) For, surely, spiritual truth ought not to be classe d among the luxuries which a poor man cannot afford to buy, but rather among the comm onest necessaries of life, as air and water, which the Supreme Goodness has scattered , with amazing and beneficent profusion, all over the world, and placed within th e reach of all. Of the true water of life, the old symbol of spiritual truth, God has opened a fountain in the inmost region of our own being, and which springs up into everlasting li fe, if we only knew it. To convince the reader of this will be one of the aims of the p resent volume. If we succeed in doing

this, the book itself will no longer be needed. For when we find the Christ within, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowle dge,” we have access to more of life and light than all the libraries of the world can give us. When the reader shall have made the grandest discovery ever made in our earthl y existence, —the finding of his trueself, and has identified it with the Christ, of whom it is but a personal limitation, — we will gladly step down from the platform of the t eacher, and take our place by your side as a fellow-disciple or pupil. We will no long er open our mouth to speak, but open the inner ear to receive the deep and calm revealin g. The education of the future will be a system more in harmony with the true meaning of t he word, —an educing or guiding out of what is already in us in a state of latency. Spiritual and saving truth is not a foreign exotic which has to be imported from abroad , but is a divine plant, with both flower and fruit, which exists as in its native hab itat, in the inmost soul of every man. The signs of the times point unerringly to the comi ng of a fuller recognition of this ancient truth, and it is the faint light in the eas t, indicating the approach of a better day for humanity. There are, within the enclosure of ou r inner being, certain dormant, because unused, spiritual energies and potencies th at can save the soul and heal the body of its maladies. To guide these out into consc ious and intelligent action, is the end we shall keep steadily in view in these elementary lessons in transcendental philosophy. We have endeavored to restore the ancie nt doctrine of faith to its primitive meaning, as a saving, healing power. How far we hav e succeeded, we must leave the reader to judge.

3 BRACON STREET, BOSTON, Dec. 25, 1864.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. What are Ideas, and What is Idealism?

CHAPTER II. The Application of the Idealistic Philosophy to the Cure of Mental and Bodily Maladies

CHAPTER III. The Triune Constitution of man and the Discovery of the True Self

CHAPTER IV. The Saving Power of the Spirit of Man

CHAPTER V. Happiness and Health, and Where they are to be foun d

CHAPTER VI. The Real and the Apparent in Thought, or the Imposs ible and Contradictory to Sense is True to the Spirit

CHAPTER VII. Disease Exists only in the Mind on the Plane of Sen se, which is the Region of Deceptive Appearances

CHAPTER VIII. The Deepest Reality of Disease is a Morbid Idea and Belief

CHAPTER IX. The Science of Oblivescence, or the Art of Forgetting a Malady

CHAPTER X. The Incipient Idea of Recovery and Whence Does it C ome?

CHAPTER XI. What is it to be Spiritual, and, How may we Become so?

CHAPTER XII. Spiritual Truth the Best Remedy for Disease

CHAPTER XIII.

On the Triune Nature of Man, and the Freeing the So ul from the Body

CHAPTER XIV. Executing Judgment upon Ourselves, or in Thought Se parating Disease from the Real Self

CHAPTER XV. The Creative Power of the Ideal, or the Externaliza tion of Thought

CHAPTER XVI. The Nature and Right Use of the Will

CHAPTER XVII. The Universal Life-Principle, and its Occult Properties and Uses

CHAPTER XVIII. The Universal Ether of Science, and the Æther of th e Hermetic Philosophy

CHAPTER XIX. The Mother-Principle of Things, and its Use in Self-Healing

CHAPTER XX. The Kabalistic and Messianic Method of Healing, and the One Practised by Jesus the Christ

CHAPTER XXI. The Summit of Christian Knowledge, or the Mystery o f the Christ, and its Saving Influence

CHAPTER XXII. The Relation of Jesus to the Christ and to Man

CHAPTER XXIII. The Kabalistic Justice and Paul’s Righteousness of Faith. Appendix. The Prayer of Faith that Saves the Sick, or the Healing Power of Spiritual Truth

CHAPTER XXIV. Psychological Telegraphy, or the Transference of Th ought and Idea from one Mind to Another

CHAPTER XXV. Resurrection from the Body, or the Liberty of the S ons of God