Mental Healers.—When the king was absent from England during Cromwell's time, the touching for the king's evil was sadly missed. If Cromwell himself had announced that he would touch for the diseases that used to come to the king, a number of cures would undoubtedly have been reported. As it was, Greatrakes, the Irish soldier adventurer, dreamt that he was commissioned from on high to touch for the same diseases as formerly had gone to the king, and, having begun it, cures followed until probably many more came to him every year than usually went to the sovereign in the olden times. He worked at least as great a proportion of cures. Greatrakes had many imitators, some of them doubtless quite sincere, but they were people of more or less deranged intellect, the kind who easily get the idea that they are commissioned for some purpose that sets them above the common people. Indeed, the story of the mental healers is probably, more than anything else, a chapter in the history of insanity, and the power of those with delusions to lead others to share their delusions. This is not a slur upon human nature, and especially upon some of the inspirations and aspirations that lift it up to do great things, but a literal statement of the view of these phenomena that seems forced upon us by modern advances in the knowledge of the psychology of mental influence and of psychic contagion.
Most of the influence that was acquired by men who in the course of history claimed to have a heavenly mission has been due, as with healers heretofore referred to, to reputed cures made by them. Trace the story of this among the Eastern nations in the old time. The pseudo-Messiahs of the Jews always advanced as one evidence their healing power, but so did the founders of religions among all the other nations of antiquity. It must be borne in mind, however, that many of the queer religions of after times were founded by men who claimed to have a Messiahship, and put forth, as the evidence of a divine commission, their power to cure the afflicted. Sometimes the men who made these claims were good men. In many cases they were apparently self-deceived. Very often, however, they had no claim to goodness in the commonly accepted meaning of that term, for they counseled the violation of moral precepts, made exceptions, for their own benefit, to general laws, and exploited their followers for selfish reasons. Provided their followers had confidence in them, however, they continued to work cures, so that even reasonable people were likely to be led to the thought that there must be something supernatural about their activities. In every century there have been two or three men who have thus secured a following, and apparently healed many diseases.
The phenomena of faith-healing as the result of belief in the heavenly mission of special men, are as common now as at any time. Dr. Cutten in his "Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing" (Scribners, 1911) has a chapter on "Healers of the Nineteenth Century," which shows how many phenomena of faith-healing can be studied in recent generations. Some of the men and the women who are mentioned secured wide reputations throughout our own country.
These faith-healing movements have particularly affected the New England portion of our population, and many of our most prominent healers have been born in the New England States. Wherever the new cults flourished, it is usually found that some of the most prominent members are descendants of the old New Englanders. It has been suggested that this is due to the gradual loss of belief in great religious truths by New Englanders, and a definite tendency toward reaction against this loss of the religious sense, which, as is usual with reactions, easily becomes exaggerated. From lack of belief they jump to excess of belief. Men without trust in Providence find the trials of life hard to bear, and they dread the development of physical ill so much that they exaggerate their feelings, or even create symptoms. Men are happier with the feeling that the supernatural powers surrounding them are interested in them directly and personally, and that somehow things, even in an incomprehensible world, are arranged, if not for the best, at least for such good as makes ills stepping-stones to new benefits. Whenever they are led far away from that thought, there is likely to be an exaggerated reaction back to it. The stronger minded apparently can get on without religion, but to the great mass of men a strong religious sense is needed to enable them to overcome the lack of self-confidence that is the root of dreads, doubts, difficulties of many kinds, and which is also the source of many symptoms as well as the cause of the exaggeration of many ailments.
As a rule, modern healers have been founders of new religions, or at least they have broken away from old-established sects, and have formed congregations for themselves. They have sprung up in every part of the country. East, North, South, West, and among all the differing nationalities of our population. We cannot console ourselves with the idea that they affect especially the foreigners, for the native-born people have proved to be quite as susceptible to them. These healers have, as a rule, abused the medical profession and the use of drugs, and have taught that disease, if it really existed at all, was from the devil: that what one needed, in order to secure relief from pains and ills, was faith in God—but always through them. Many of these men and women have probably been serious and earnest and have deceived themselves first. Most of them have undoubtedly been more or less disequilibrated, though they have practically all exhibited the power to accumulate large amounts of money from their followers. The people who have gone to them have not been the ignorant among our population, but particularly those who read the newspapers, and who look upon themselves as well informed. The intelligence of the disciples of these healers, as we ordinarily estimate intelligence, has been a little above the average, rather than below it.
Schlatter and Dowie. —Probably the most disillusioning phenomena with regard to the complacent idea that the diffusion of information prevents manifestations of superstition are stories of the healers Schlatter and Dowie. At the end of the nineteenth century both of them attracted widespread attention. Schlatter was probably not quite sane. He wandered through the deserted portions of the Southwest, hatless, unkempt, with clothing torn and without shoes. In July, 1895, he first attracted attention as a public healer in New Mexico. After a reputed forty-day fast he went to Denver, where people flocked from all parts of the country to him. Files of people formed—sometimes five or six thousand—to be touched, and healed, by him. His reputation was due to the cures that were reported. Dowie was another of these healers. Just at the beginning of the twentieth century he organized a great new church of his own, and announced himself as Elijah, the prophet, returned to life. Nearly 20,000 persons are claimed to have been healed during the first ten years of his healing career. Toward the end of his life he declared that he treated, and cured, over 50,000 a year. An abundance of crutches, canes and every form of surgical appliance for the ailing hung on the walls of his church at Zion City, Chicago, left by people who, having been healed, had no further use for them.
GENERAL PSYCHOTHERAPEUTICS
SECTION II
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
CHAPTER I
INFLUENCE OF MIND ON BODY
The power of mind over body for the relief of symptoms has been recognized, not only by physicians, but by the generality of men at all times. Every one has had experiences of aches, or actual pains, or discomfort quite annoying while one is alone, but that disappear while in pleasant company or occupied in some absorbing occupation. Many a headache that was painful enough to disturb us seriously while we tried to apply ourselves to something of little interest, and became almost unbearable if we tried to do something disagreeable, and actually intolerable if the occupation of the moment was a drudgery, disappeared, at least for the time, when we turned to a pleasant game of cards or indulged in some other favorite pastime. Our relief was not, however, from an imaginary ill,