“I shall endeavor to give a fair account of my investigations and what I have had to contend with and how I succeeded. I have said many things in regard to medical science but all that I have said was called out by my patients being deceived by the profession. The same is true of the religious profession. Every article was written under an excited state brought about by some wrong inflicted on my patient by the medical faculty, the clergy or public opinion. All my arguments are used to correct some false opinion that has affected my patient in the form of disease, mentally or physically. In doing this I have to explain the Bible, for troubles arise from a wrong belief in certain passages, and when I am sitting by my patient those passages that cause trouble also trouble me, and the passage comes to me with the explanation and I, as a man, am not aware of the answer till I find it out [intuitively].
“There is a wisdom that has never been reduced to language. The science of curing disease has never been described by language, but the error that makes disease is in the mouth of every child. The remedies are also described but the remedies are worse than the disease, for instead of lessening the evil, they have increased it. In fact the theory of correcting disease is the introduction of life.”
1 ↑ J. A. Dresser in the “True History,” p. 10.
VI
INTERMEDIATE PERIOD
It will be noticed that Lucius, when referring to some of Quimby's works of healing known as miracles, speaks of the fact that Quimby “worked over” patients unable to walk or move their arms. Apparently, manipulation was employed to some extent in such cases, possibly because the belief still prevailed that a “fluid” passed from operator to patient. We find confirmation of this in the biographical account already quoted from.
“He sometimes,” writes George Quimby, “in cases of lameness and sprains, manipulated the limbs of the patient, and often rubbed the head with his hands, wetting them with water. He said it was so hard for the patient to believe that his mere talk with him produced the cure, that he did this rubbing simply that the patient would have more confidence in him; but he always insisted that he possessed no ‘power’ nor healing properties different from any one else, and that his manipulations conferred no beneficial effect upon the patient, although it was often the case that the patient himself thought they did.”[1]
Again, we have the testimony of a patient who remained with Mr. Quimby for several years, meeting the new comers and conversing with them both before and after they received treatment. Mr. Dresser says, “In treating a patient, after he had finished his explanations, and the silent work, which completed the treatment, he usually rubbed the head two or three minutes, in a brisk manner, for the purpose of letting the patient see that something was done. This was a measure of securing the confidence of the patient, at a time when he was starting a new practice, and stood alone in it. I knew him to make many quick cures at a distance, sometimes with persons he never saw at all. He never considered the touch of the hand as at all necessary, but let it be governed by circumstances, as was done 1800 years ago.”[2]
Bearing this explanation in mind, when we come to read Quimby's letters to patients, we will understand why he speaks as if he were putting his hand on a person's head at a long distance, that is, during an absent treatment. This was to engage the patient's attention and arouse faith. The explanation becomes perfectly intelligible, when we see the reason for it. There could be no reason for the bare statement, made many years after, that Quimby “manipulated his patients,” without giving the above explanation, unless the one who said it wished to misrepresent the great spiritual healer.
The other typical misrepresentation, namely, that he was a spiritualist, was made in his own day, and is undermined by Quimby's adverse critique of spiritism as a whole. There was no reason for unfriendly feeling in this case. But the new therapeutist was popular in his later days, spiritism was struggling for recognition; hence it was natural for spiritistic mediums who claimed to do healing to include Quimby as one of their number. It was clearly impossible for Quimby to give assent, and to change to spiritism; for his researches led him to believe that all ordinary spiritistic phenomena could be reproduced without the aid of mediums and without recourse to spirits.
The sleep into which he put Lucius was akin to the “trance,” as mediums knew it. The suggestions in this case came from people in the audience who visualized places they wanted the subject to visit, or held ideas in mind for Lucius to read. The phenomena could be explained by the action of mind on mind, in the flesh. Consequently, Quimby held close to the facts. Moreover, his own powers of receptivity and intuition were growing. By sitting near patients, he learned to diagnose their condition, and also learned to read their mental states. Therefore it was possible for him to make the complete transition from mesmerism and all psychical phenomena akin to it to the adoption of his spiritual method of treating disease, that is, by the aid of intuition or direct perception, through “silence” without mediumship.
On this point George Quimby writes, “He was always in his normal condition when engaged with his patients. He never went into any trance, and was a strong disbeliever in spiritualism, as understood by that name. He claimed, and firmly believed, that his only power consisted in his wisdom, and in his understanding the patient's case and being able to explain away the error and establish the truth, or health, in its place. Very frequently the patient could not tell how he was cured, but it did not follow that Mr. Quimby himself was ignorant of the manner in which he performed the cure.”[3]
There is less documentary evidence to draw upon in the years after 1847, the date of the last experiment in mesmerism of which we have record, and the time when Dr. Quimby was in full possession of his silent method of healing. Naturally newspaper writers were less interested, for this new work was not at all spectacular, like the public exhibitions with Lucius. Moreover, it was harder to understand. For there was now no “subject,” there were in fact no experiments, but simply the quiet development of a method in which Dr. Quimby depended upon his own impressions and intuitions.
So long as it was a question of alleged magnetism Quimby's work was subject to belief in the mysterious, and he himself was groping his way from belief in the medical faculty and in disease as an entity to a wholly different view. But when he comes to recognize the subtle influence of mind on mind, the power of what we now call suggestion, the expectant attention of onlookers, and his own ability to make an intuitive diagnosis in a wholly normal state, we find his thought moving in the realm of sure principles and fixed laws. His letters to patients indicate that he still gave much prominence to physical conditions, and advised his patients with reference to them. But that was because the patients must have concrete facts to interpret, substituting Quimby's new view for that of medical diagnosis. The patients ordinarily had no one to depend on save Dr. Quimby, since such healing was not then recognized. Hence they wrote frequently to him and reported their progress, that he might advise them anew.
Again, the experimental period was in a measure more intelligible to the public because the mesmeric activities turned upon the control of one mind by another. The excerpts quoted above have told us that Quimby had exceptional powers of concentration and remarkable control over his subject. The change which he passed through in the intermediate period was from the idea of merely human control to that of inner receptivity to Divine wisdom, and the dedication of all powers of concentration to the carrying out of spiritual ideals. This change was hard to follow, since few people believed in such direct access to higher wisdom, and all thoughts directed to another's mind were supposedly for the sake of controlling that mind. The prevailing interest in spiritism was no help, for that theory also encouraged belief in the mere action of one spirit on another; it did not trace guidance to the Divine mind. The teachings of the Church were not favorable, for Dr. Quimby's work centered interest upon the patient's own inner life at large, not upon the mere problems of sin and salvation. Therefore, the new trail had to be blazed alone.
Still further, Quimby's reaction against medical