The originals and first copies were kept in his safe by George Quimby, and the other copies referred to above were returned to Mr. Quimby after the death of their sometime owners. Visitors and correspondents would labor to persuade him that he was keeping the truth from the world. But he believed he was faithful to the greater good in withholding the writings until the last echo of the controversy had died away. After his death the writings were kept in storage in a bank, and there they remained secure until January 1921.[4]
1 ↑ Reprinted in “The True History of Mental Science,” revised edition, 1899.
2 ↑ See the facsimile of George Quimby's writing on the wrapper at the end of this volume.
3 ↑ See, for example, Chap. XIV, containing Vol. I.
4 ↑ For a complete list of the pieces and articles, see Appendix. The package of articles and pieces on separate sheets mentioned above bears this inscription on the outside. “First copies from Father's original manuscripts, afterwards copied into blank books by Emma G. Ware, Sarah Ware, George A. Quimby.” This is written in George Quimby's hand. The complete list of the articles is in the handwriting of Miss Emma Ware.
III
QUIMBY'S RESTORATION TO HEALTH
Ideally speaking it is of secondary consequence where an original mind begins to investigate human life. What signifies is the searching thought which discloses real conditions, laws, the causes of our misery and the way to freedom. Such thinking is likely to be productive in high degree if it be concrete, adapted to the actual state of the world, without too much theorizing, with a view to direct benefits.
In Mr. Quimby's preliminary researches we find a capital instance. He began with a purely conventional point of view, defending in thought and attitude the prevailing medical practice of the day, and so he took the world as he found it. Moreover, he had a personal need. This is the way he states the situation he was in in an article already published in part in “The True History of Mental Science.”[1]
“Can a theory be found, capable of practice, which can separate truth from error? I undertake to say there is a method of reasoning which, being understood, can separate one from the other. Men never dispute about a fact that can be demonstrated by scientific reasoning. Controversies arise from some idea that has been turned into a false direction, leading to a false position. The basis of my reasoning is this point: that whatever is true to a person, if he cannot prove it, is not necessarily true to another. Therefore, because a person says a thing is no reason that he says true. The greatest evil that follows taking an opinion for a truth is disease. Let medical and religious opinions, which produce so vast an amount of misery, be tested by the rule I have laid down, and it will be seen how much they are founded in truth. For twenty years I have been testing them, and I have failed to find one single principle of truth in either. This is not from any prejudice against the medical faculty, for, when I began to investigate the mind, I was entirely on that side. I was prejudiced in favor of the medical faculty; for I never employed any one outside of the regular faculty, nor took the least particle of quack medicine.
“Some thirty years ago I was very sick, and was considered fast wasting away with consumption.[2] At that time I became so low that it was with difficulty I could walk about. I was all the while under the allopathic practice, and I had taken so much calomel that my system was said to be poisoned with it; and I lost many of my teeth from that effect. My symptoms were those of any consumptive; and I had been told that my liver was affected and my kidneys were diseased, and that my lungs were nearly consumed. I believed all this, from the fact that I had all the symptoms, and could not resist the opinions of the physician while having the proof with me. In this state I was compelled to abandon my business; and, losing all hope, I gave up to die—not that I thought the medical faculty had no wisdom, but that my case was one that could not be cured.
“Having an acquaintance who cured himself by riding horseback, I thought I would try riding in a carriage, as I was too weak to ride horseback. My horse was contrary; and once, when about two miles from home, he stopped at the foot of a long hill, and would not start except as I went by his side. So I was obliged to run nearly the whole distance. Having reached the top of the hill I got into the carriage; and, as I was very much exhausted, I concluded to sit there the balance of the day, if the horse did not start. Like all sickly and nervous people, I could not remain easy in that place; and, seeing a man ploughing, I waited till he had ploughed around a three-acre lot, and got within sound of my voice, when I asked him to start my horse. He did so, and at the time I was so weak I could scarcely lift my whip. But excitement took possession of my senses, and I drove the horse as fast as he could go, up hill and down, till I reached home; and, when I got into the stable, I felt as strong as I ever did.”
Here, then, was a significant fact, this reaction produced by excitement, suggesting that medical diagnosis was wrong. No other experience seems to have followed this one, and when Quimby began to experiment with mesmerism he still accepted the prevailing medical theories. So, too, he began by taking devotees of mesmerism at their own word, since that appeared to be the best way to learn the truth concerning their phenomena.
There are two reasons for bearing these facts in mind, first that we may note how far he travelled to the point where he lost all faith in the medical faculty and proposed a theory of disease of his own; second, because we can hardly understand the interests of his intermediate period unless we realize that he was still in process and had not at first wholly rejected the physical theory of disease. Some other investigation might have been as profitable to him. The point is that he learned so much from his mesmeric experiments that he gave them up forever, and in giving them up came to himself and found a new truth of incalculable benefit to humanity.
There is no reason for apologizing as if it were discreditable that Quimby was once a mesmerist and was known through his ability to “magnetize” a patient or hypnotic subject. There was nothing to be ashamed of in this procedure. The only unpardonable thing that has been said about him is that he was “an ignorant mesmerist” and that he remained so. Ignorant he was not by any means, and he ceased to be a mesmerist because he was exceptionally skilful, so acute in exercising his powers that he learned the limitations of all such experiments.
We have his own statement to the effect that when he began to investigate mesmerism he was still an entire believer in the medical science and practice of the day. We also have his own exposition of the experiences which led to his change in point of view. We have contemporary testimony to his exceptional powers and the impression produced by his public experiments. Then too we have the testimony of his son, George, associated with his father as secretary when the mesmeric experiments were things of the past. Finally, we have the direct information coming to us from those who were most intimately acquainted with Quimby's practice in his later years, from 1859 to 1866 in Portland.
In the account of his father's life published in the New England Magazine, George Quimby says,
“He had a very inventive mind, and was always interested in mechanics, philosophy and scientific subjects. During his middle life, he invented several devices on which he obtained letters patent. He was very argumentative, and always wanted proof of anything, rather