“Now what is the secret of the cure? I had not the least doubt but that I was as he had described; and, if he had said, as I expected that he would, that nothing could be done, I should have died in a year or so. But, when he said he could cure me in the way he proposed, I began to think: and I discovered that I had been deceived into a belief that made me sick. The absurdity of his remedies made me doubt the fact that my kidneys were diseased, for he said in two days they were as well as ever. If he saw the first condition, he also saw the last; for in both cases he said he could see. I concluded in the first instance that he read my thoughts, and when he said he could cure me he drew on his own mind; and his ideas were so absurd that the disease vanished by the absurdity of the cure. This was the first stumbling-block I found in the medical science. I soon ventured to let him examine me furthur, and in every case he would describe my feelings, but would vary the amount of disease; and his explanation and remedies always convinced me that I had no such disease, and that my troubles were of my own make.
“At this time I frequently visited the sick with Lucius, by invitation of the attending physician; and the boy examined the patient and told facts that would astonish everybody, and yet every one of them was believed. For instance, he told a person affected as I had been, only worse, that his lungs looked like a honeycomb, and his liver was covered with ulcers. He then prescribed some simple herb tea, and the patient recovered; and the doctor believed the medicine cured him. But I believed that the doctor made the disease; and his faith in the boy made a change in the mind, and the cure followed. Instead of gaining confidence in the doctors, I was forced to the conclusion that their science is false. Man is made up of truth and belief; and, if he is deceived into a belief that he has, or is liable to have, a disease, the belief is catching, and the effect follows it. I have given the experience of my emancipation from this belief and from confidence in the doctors, so that it may open the eyes of those who stand where I was. I have risen from this belief; and I return to warn my brethren, lest, when they are disturbed, they shall get into this place of torment prepared by the medical faculty. Having suffered myself, I cannot take advantage of my fellow-men by introducing a new mode of curing disease and prescribing medicine. My theory exposes the hypocrisy of those who undertake to cure in that way. They make ten diseases to one cure, thus bringing a surplus of misery into the world, and shutting out a healthy state of society. They have a monopoly, and no theory that lessens disease can compete with them. When I cure, there is one disease the less; but not so when others cure, for the supply of sickness shows that there is more disease on hand than there ever was. Therefore, the labor for health is slow, and the manufacture of disease is greater. The newspapers teem with advertisements of remedies, showing that the supply of disease increases. My theory teaches man to manufacture health; and, when people go into this occupation, disease will diminish, and those who furnish disease and death will be few and scarce.”
1 ↑ By Julius A. Dresser, 1887.
2 ↑ This statement was written in 1863.
3 ↑ These descriptions and the remedies prescribed were in accord with the medical practice of the day, as Mr. Quimby was not yet enlightened in regard to the mental factors of disease. The discovery on Mr. Quimby's part that mind was the chief consideration marked a turning-point in his thought. Ed.
IV
THE MESMERIC PERIOD
Turning for the time being from the direct line of development of Mr. Quimby's views, we find interesting confirmations of his experiments in newspaper clippings and letters of the period, 1840–47. The first of these are from Quimby's home town, Belfast. One of these writers says, in part:
“Before we proceed to describe the experiments, we will say that Mr. Quimby is a gentleman, in size rather smaller than the medium of men, with a well-proportioned and well-balanced phrenological head, and with the power of concentration surpassing anything we have ever witnessed. His eyes are black and very piercing, with rather a pleasant expression, and he possesses the power of looking at one object even without winking, for a length of time.”
Newspaper writers were fair on the whole in what they said of him, while there were public-spirited citizens who were ready to write testimonials to physicians and other citizens of prominence in neighboring towns, that Mr. Quimby might be well received. In these testimonials and letters one finds the terms “mesmerism,” “magnetism” and “animal magnetism” used interchangeably without much idea of what they stood for. Plainly such words equalled “x,” as symbols for a power little short of a mystery, although Quimby was credited with entire honesty in performing his experiments. Apparently, it was still assumed that by making passes over a man's head he could be put to sleep by means of some “fluid.” Hence interest centered about material facts, and there was no recognition of the fact, now a commonplace, that the human mind is amenable to suggestion, and that supposed magnetic effects are mere products of one mind on another. The mesmeric sleep was not understood, and so it was an easy matter to speak of the subject as “magnetised.” The chief value, therefore, of these contemporary references is found in their testimony to the facts, the authenticity of the public exhibitions and the results coming from examinations made by Lucius. Letters of recommendation were still necessary in those days.
Writing from Belfast, Nov. 18, 1843, and addressing himself to Hon. David Sears, Mr. James W. Webster makes the following statement:
“The bearer, Mr. Phineas P. Quimby, visits your city for the purpose of exhibiting the astonishing mesmeric powers of his subject, Master Lucius Burkmar. Mr. Quimby, as also the young man, are native citizens of this place, and sustain in the community unblemished moral characters.
“Mr. Quimby is not an educated man, nor is he pretending or obtrusive; but I think if you should take occasion to converse with him you will discern many traces of deep thought and reflection, particularly upon the subject above mentioned.
“His boy will I think demonstrate in an extraordinary manner the phenomena of magnetic influence, more especially in that department usually termed clairvoyance; and should you take an opportunity to be put in communication with him, I doubt not you will be gratified with the results. Time and distance with him are annihilated, and he travels with the rapidity of thought. I think he will describe to you the appearance of any edifice, tower or temple, and even that of any person either, in Europe or America, upon which or upon whom your imagination may rest. I say this much from the fact that I have been in communication with him [mentally] myself and do know that he describes remote places and even the appearance of persons at great distances which he never before could have heard or thought of. …”
Writing to Dr. Jacob Bigelow, apparently a physician of prominence, Dr. Albert T. Wheelock writes from Belfast under date of Nov. 10, 1843, and describes an experiment in “animal magnetism” under mesmeric conditions in the case of an operation for the removal of a polypus from the nose. With a physician's care in describing symptoms, the writer gives an account of the patient's general condition and mentions her desire to be “magnetised.” Dr. Wheelock then goes on as follows:
“As she was entirely unacquainted in the town, at her request I procured the attendance of a gentleman who had the reputation of being a good magnetiser (Mr. P. P. Quimby), although entirely faithless on