WHAT IS MIND CURE?

This subject has given rise to an endless variety of contradictory discussions, and while it has won for itself fanatical devotees on one side, it has been ridiculed on the other. This is not at all surprising, when an inquiry is made into the competency of the parties to the controversy. To be informed in metaphysical philosophy, or fully equipped in scriptural lore, but without a practical study in the art and theory of medical science, precludes the possibility of presenting the theme in a logical manner, or establishing a relevancy between medical science and mind cure. A medical education that is based on strictly physical characteristics of disease, as they are studied at the bedside, or in a microscopical laboratory, is equally inadequate; for the question of mind cure goes beyond the physical into the metaphysical, and not until the operations of the mind have been closely followed to the bodily or organic functions, can the intimacy of their relations be thoroughly appreciated. Medical men betray their incapacity for observation if they contemptuously dismiss the subject of mind cure by some superficial, disparaging illustration, for there is much more in the subject than is dreamt of, even in the mind of the average college professor.

“The mind,” says Dr. W. F. Evans, “can be made the plastic or formative principle of the body, and that thought can retard, pervert, or stimulate and correct the different functions of the human organism.” The relation of spirit and matter is very intimate, and some very clever thinkers resolve all matter into spirit, in its ultimate analysis.

Bishop Berkeley affirms this in his “Principles of Human Knowledge.” In section seven he says “there is not any other substance than spirit.”

If we view nature from a materialistic standpoint, we see only one-half of what we think we do, and even that must be very imperfectly judged by our senses. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling states the relation of matter and spirit, in very simple and plain words, so that a child can understand what he says: “Nature is spirit visible, and spirit, is invisible nature.” This may be illustrated in physical science from what chemistry teaches of the physical properties of the diamond, whose atoms or molecules are so perfectly continuous and closely aggregated that it forms one of the hardest substances known to physicists. These atoms of pure carbon may be made to repel each other, so that the diamond assumes a gaseous state, which is imperceptible to our senses.

I am aware that the definition of a gas is not that which metaphysicians would accept as applicable to spirit, and yet it illustrates the idea from a physical standpoint. It is much better to illustrate a question with something with which people are generally familiar. The body and every organ and tissue forming a constituent part of it, is simply the plain ordinary matter in motion, vitalized by what we call life, and this life principle is a mystery, and what is true of the diamond is true of the human body in its entirety. If placed in a crematory, it is reduced to a few ounces of bone ash, and, with the addition of a little acid, this too would soon disappear into invisible gases, so that the doctrine of philosophers, that matter is spirit, is, after all, not so far removed from physical evidence.

Physiological science gives abundant proof that the mind has a powerful influence over the body. By mind is meant all that class of mental phenomena called reason, and the emotions and passions. Doctor Evans says “the body is included in the being of the mind,” or, in other words, that matter is included in the being of spirit.

The thinking quality of the mind is undoubtedly the mainspring of its action, of which the formation of ideas is the highest kind of mental activity. These originate either within the mind or are brought within its sphere by transformed impressions from without, but through the power of the Will these are more or less modified, and may, indeed, be entirely suspended, so that the mind may become entirely passive and not think of anything. It is the exercise of this Will power which may make the operations of thought conducive to health or disease.

Cogito ergo sum, “I think, therefore I am,” is a maxim of Descartes. What we think and give shape to in thought has for us a real existence, and we have it in our power to create thoughts that will have either a painful or pleasurable sensation. Painful sensations have occurred to persons by the conviction of the existence of a cause which would, when present, have produced certain results. Of this several examples are given in W. B. Carpenter’s physiology: “A clergyman told me that some time ago suspicions were entertained in his parish of a woman who was supposed to have poisoned her newly-born infant. The coffin was exhumed, and the coroner, who attended with the medical men to examine the body, declared that he already perceived the oder of decomposition, which made him feel faint, and in consequence he withdrew. But on opening the coffin it was found to be empty, and it was afterwards ascertained that no child had been born, and consequently no murder committed.” The second case is yet more remarkable: “A butcher was brought into the drug store of Mr. Macfarlan, from the market-place opposite, laboring under a terrible accident. The man, on trying to hook up a heavy piece of meat above his head, slipped, and the sharp hook penetrated his arm, so that he himself was suspended. On being examined he was pale, almost pulseless, and expressed himself as suffering acute agony. The arm could not be moved without causing excessive pain, and in cutting off the sleeve he frequently cried out. Yet when the arm was exposed, it was found to be quite uninjured, the hook having only traversed the sleeve of his coat.” In this, and similar cases, the sensation was perfectly real to the individual who experienced it, but it originated in the mind by an impression through the nerves of internal sensation which created the idea or image in the brain, and the external senses to which it was referred had nothing to do in causing the feeling. Diseases are thus created every day, either by ourselves or by those to whom we go for advice. I call to mind a lady who had gone to a distinguished practitioner for a supposed womb disease for some six months. She experienced no change for the better, but kept on growing continually worse, so that she no longer had a refreshing sleep, and her appetite for food was entirely gone. On examination I found her womb entirely healthy, in fact, exceptionally so, thanks to her attending physician, because, after a certain amount of useless doctoring, the rule is quite the other way. I told this lady of her error or delusion respecting her womb, and prescribed a quieting mixture for the night and a tonic for the day. She began at once to improve, and when I saw her again, six weeks afterwards, she had so fleshed up that I failed to recognize in her traces of her former delusion. The disease of which this woman was suffering was imaginary, and had no real existence for anyone outside of herself. She was the victim of the harrowing symptoms which her mind conjured into shape, and an attempt to brush aside the disease, with the flippant remark that “there was nothing the matter with her,” would have been cruel, unscientific, and absurd. The ailment which she thought she had, had as much an existence as though the most malignant disease was destroying her life; for her imaginary disease was doing the same thing, only in a different way.

Imagination is the most powerful function of the human brain. Associated with thought, it constitutes the empire of the soul, which recognizes neither time nor space. With it we are brought into communion with everything that is grand and beautiful in nature. Imagination is the architect of our souls; it continually creates and projects into the beyond; it enlarges the sphere of our thought in building up artificial structures for our pleasure and entertainment. When it becomes perverted and abnormal from false impressions, either through the nerves of internal sensation or through the nerves of external sense, or, what quite often occurs, from morbid thoughts or ideas received from others, it becomes equally potent in causing misery and disease.

Expectation or attention influences, in a remarkable degree, the bodily functions. There are a great many persons who keep themselves in misery and disease by always thinking of their imaginary or real sickness. I had a profitable experience some years ago in my own case, which conclusively proved to my mind the aggravating tendency which constant attention has on disease. I had contracted an ordinary catarrh of the pharynx, or what is generally called a sore throat. At first I did not mind it, but in the course of time, from continued exposure in all kinds of inclement weather, at all hours of the day or night, it fastened itself upon me so that it was at times very annoying by its dryness and pain. I do not know of anything that I did not use, but, after a trial of several years, I was convinced that the more I looked at it and the more I treated it with sprays, gargles, etc., the worse it became, so that one day I resolved to let it alone, and not think about it. I took a teasponful of glycerine once in a while when it became too dry. For years I have not looked at it, and for all I know, it is perfectly well. I stopped bundling up my neck, used light bedcovering, so as not to sweat, and by this simple method accomplished what the very best selected drugs utterly failed to do.

The great English authority, Daniel Hack Tuke, in his work, “The Influence of the Mind on the Body in Health and Disease,” quotes from Unzer’s work, published in Germany in the year 1771: “Expectation of the action of a remedy often causes us to experience its operation beforehand.” And John Hunter said as early as 1786: “I am confident that I can fix my attention to any part until I have a sensation in that part.” A great number of cases are recorded where complete insensibility to bodily pain has been induced without the use of drugs. The intention of administering a certain drug was made known in this manner. Bread pills have acted as decided cathartics, and an empty chloroform or ether bottle put the sensitive into a profound stupor or insensibility.

Dr. Woodhouse Braine, of the Charing Cross Hospital, writes: “During the year 1862 I was called upon to give chloroform to a very nervous and highly hysterical girl, who was about to have two fatty tumors of the scalp removed. On going into the operating room, it was found that the bottle containing the chloroform had been removed to the dispensary, and on testing the Snow’s inhaler, which at that time I was in the habit of using, I found it to be quite devoid of even any smell of chloroform. Then, having sent for the bottle, in order to accustom the girl to the face-piece, I applied it to her face, and she at once began to breathe rapidly through it. When she had done this for about half a minute, she said, ‘Oh, I feel it, I feel I am going off,’ and as the chloroform bottle had not arrived, she was told to go on breathing quietly. At this time her hand, which had been resting across her chest, slipped down by her side, and as she did not replace it, I thought I would pinch her arm gently to see the amount of discomfort her hysterical state would induce her to bear. She did not notice a gentle pinch, and so I pinched her harder, and then as hard as I could, and to my surprise I found that she did not feel at all. Finding this was the case, I asked the operator to begin, and he incised one of the tumors, and then, as the cyst was only slightly adherent, peeled it away. At this time I had removed the face-piece, and, wishing to see the effect of her imagination, I said to the operator, who was going to remove the second tumor, ‘Wait a minute; she seems to be coming round.’ Instantly her respiration, which had been quite quiet, altered in character, becoming rapid as when I first applied the inhaler, and she commenced moving her arms about. I then replaced the face-piece, and her breathing again became quiet, and she submitted to the second operation without moving a muscle. When the water dressing and bandages were applied, in answer to the question as to whether she had felt anything, she said, ‘No; I was quite unconscious of all that was done.’” The mental phenomenon that we observe in this case clearly shows how completely the sensation of the patient was suspended by the imaginary chloroform, which existed only in her mind, yet the real drug could not have been more potent in its effects.

Phenomena of the same mental process, like the different colors of the solar spectrum coming from one source, constitute the different stages or degrees of what is generally called mesmerism or somnambulism, until the sensitive arrives at that condition of complete double consciousness now commonly called hypnotism, in which state the will power of the person becomes entirely suspended, so that he acts only from suggestions of another person, regardless of propriety or consequences. When a subject who has been completely hypnotized is restored to his normal condition, he remembers nothing of what has transpired during the somnambulistic state. We all have acquaintances of whom we speak as being easily led; by that we mean that they have no will or mind of their own. These persons are truly unfortunate, because they are at the complete mercy of every designing person or cunning rogue. They constitute the large army of dupes who support the great number of idle women and lazy men, who claim to be clairvoyants, life readers and fortune tellers. In sickness they are equally as credulous, and when they are a little out of sorts, they would a great deal rather be told that some dangerous or severe illness has hold of them than to hear the truth that, outside of not eating properly, or clothing themselves improperly, or being out late at nights when they should be in their beds, there is nothing the matter with them.

These are the dupes who fill up the chairs in the doctor’s waiting rooms, on regular days, for local or special treatment for diseases which could be much better treated by themselves at home, if they only were fortunate enough to fall into a physician’s hands who had the honesty to tell them so. This can be further illustrated by an experience of which every one of us has been a victim at least once in our lives. When we were trying on a pair of new shoes, we felt that they pinched, or were too short and generally uncomfortable; but the salesman insisted that they were a “perfect fit” and that after a little wearing they would surely suit. The shoes were bought, and we were convinced, after a few days, that our impression of the smallness of the shoes was correct, because they continued to pinch us; but we were for the time mesmerized or psychologized by the clerk into buying what we were satisfied in our own minds to be not what we wanted. This should be constantly guarded against, and our conscious will power should always be exercised on all occasions.

Parents should take particular pains to cultivate the will power of their children, in the right direction, of course. To stifle the will of children, when the exercise of it entails no bad consequences, is wrong, because it weakens their character, and makes them the prey of the wicked and selfish when they are grown to adult age. This influence which one person may exercise over another is not due to any particular force or magnetism, as was supposed by Mesmer, and which is yet claimed by ignorant frauds and pretenders, but it is simply a suspension of your own will, or a sacrifice of force of character. Dr. J. M. Charcot, of France, has lately taken up this subject, and has given it a great deal of attention. His researches have confirmed the experiments and conclusions of Braid, an English surgeon of Manchester, who, in 1841, showed that, in order to produce artificial somnambulism, there was no need of any extraneous influence, and that any person of moderate sensibility can easily produce in himself the “magnetic sleep” without any aid or act of another.

Braid discovered that to simply fix the eyes for a few minutes on some shining object, placed a little higher than the ordinary plane of vision, and five or six inches from the eyes, caused that total abstraction which Doctor Braid called “hypnotism,” and which now, in honor of the experimenter, is often called “Braidism.” This Doctor Charcot calls “impersonal” sleep, artificially produced by mechanical means. He remarks: “The psychic characteristic of the state of somnambulism is an absolute trust, a boundless credulity on the part of the subject toward the one who has hypnotized him. Take one example from among a thousand: I present to a woman patient in the hypnotic state a blank leaf of paper, and say to her: ‘Here is my portrait; what do you think of it? Is it a good likeness?’ After a moment’s hesitation she answers, ‘Yes, indeed; your photograph! Will you give it to me?’ The image being now fixed in her mind, I take the leaf of paper, with a private mark, and mix it with a score of other leaves precisely like it. I then hand the whole pack to the patient, bidding her to go over them and let me know whether she finds among them anything she has seen before. She begins to look at the leaves one after another, and as soon as her eyes fall upon the one first shown, she exclaims, ‘Look! your portrait!’” This is the latest phenomenon, and proves how the mind may print an image on a substance, as the sun prints on a negative.

For persons of casual thought or reading, hypnotism may at first appear complicated and mysterious, but if you will only bear in mind that the different mental processes operating between two persons always resolve themselves into a weaker will power yielding and a stronger will power controlling, you have a key which unlocks the different manifestations of minds in their relations one with the other. This does not relate to action alone, but to the creation and meaning of our thoughts.

The cures effected by the royal touch, which prevailed in England from the time of Edward, the confessor, to Queen Anne, were but a disguised hypnotism, or a sort of mind cure. Soothsayers, or magnetic healers, who claim a healing magnetism, are either knaves or fools, and often both. They undoubtedly can report cures, but these are due to the natural tendency of some diseases to get well, and to the hopeful thoughts which these persons inspire by their promises of a cure; sometimes these hopes are heightened by the different movements or passes which the healer makes. The greatest healer of whom we have any reliable record never claimed any abnormal power or force. Christ healed by the Word, that means by the thought or mind. Faith in anything creates a curative or healing thought in the mind of the patient, which stimulates the reparative or healing force of nature, and in this manner wonderful cures are effected.

The faith, or confidence, which you have in a physician stimulates you at once into a better or stronger feeling. This has been the experience of every sick person, but this is not due to any power or force that this person possesses, which departs from him and goes over to you, but is entirely due to the confidence, which stimulates your own nerve centers, and especially the brain. The soothing and quieting influence which the “Weapon Ointment” had on the injured person was not due to any virtue of this ointment, because it was never applied to the wound, but to the weapon or implement which caused the wound. Its operations were entirely mental or psychical. It pacified the excited and anxious mind into the faith or belief that the best possible thing to do was being done, and nature went on triumphantly and effected the cure, for which, of course, she never got any credit. When a doctor or healer enters the chamber of the sick, putting on a wise air, or indulges in affectation, and when he succeeds in making a good impression, that alone assuages the pain. But if, on the other hand, he impresses his patients unfavorably, the sooner he gets out of their sight, the better they feel, because his presence has inspired neither confidence nor hope.

Hysteria constitutes a peculiar group of diseases which belong to that class of nervous ailments that are included among functional affections; they are oftener amenable to faith or mind cures than to drugs. A great number of diseases of women belong to this class and these poor deluded creatures never had anything real or serious the matter with them, until they went to some doctor who began to apply irritating drugs to their delicate organs, which made them ever afterwards habitues of doctors’ offices.

Functional diseases have a wide range. As their name implies, they are characterized by a disturbance of the function of an organ or system, without any visible alteration of its tissue or texture; there are no pathological or histological changes, which the most careful microscopic examination can detect. They constitute a scapegoat for our ignorance; it appears to be in the majority of instances a disturbance between the psychic or spiritual forces as they operate on the tissues. The normal and harmonious relations between the mind and the body or any particular organ are disarranged. Such are the hysterical convulsions or spasms which we see in women who have suffered great mental strain, especially grief, and often it is due to pure “cussedness,” or unbridled passion. In men there is also a hysteria; it was formerly believed that this peculiar nervous derangement was confined to women only, hence the name, but this was an error. I was once called to attend a physician of more than average ability, who located in this city for the purpose of enlarging his field of labor and usefulness; from where he came he had been very successful. His reputation as a surgeon was enviable and deservedly so, but here, in this city, among strangers and strange customs, he was a failure. This preyed on his mind so that he became despondent and gloomy. He failed in flesh and strength. I found him in his room convulsively sobbing, which shortly turned into a paroxysm of laughter. I prevailed upon him to return to his former residence among his friends and admirers, which he did, and he told me afterwards that from the moment he struck his “old stamping-ground” he felt stronger and better, and shortly recovered his former mirth and healthfulness.

Girls show this abnormal nervous function in different ways. I have known a case where a sensitive girl accidentally saw another girl in an epileptic fit; the contortions became so real and fixed in her mind, or imagination, that they were transmuted into motions or epileptic fits. I tried remedies but without any beneficial results. The parents afterwards went the rounds of the “fits doctors,” but with the same negative results. A Christian scientist or faith healer cured her, by cultivating or strengthening her will power.

There is a class of these faith healers, composed of silly, loquacious women and men, who know nothing at all of the principle governing their cures, and they glibly tell their patients, “You must say or think there is no disease, or I have no pain, or there is no body; all is well; all is good,” and a great deal of similar nonsense. All is not good, and all is not well by any means. I would say, Indeed there is pain, disease, and a body, but by striving to live a healthful moral life, and thinking healthful thoughts, of the good, the pure, and the beautiful, the curative energy of nature will become stimulated to repair the defects, to harmonize the functions and dissipate disease.

A person who is troubled with dyspepsia cannot get well if he thinks of nothing but an acid or sour stomach, or feels the food disagreeing with him before he has it in his mouth. He must have thoughts quite remote from these, and the chances are nine out of ten he will not feel what he eats. There is the same state of mind about “catching cold.” Some persons are forever on the alert to catch a cold, and why should they not, when they are always watching out for it? If you dress so that you do not sweat, and do not use too thick bedcovering, and are not constantly on the catch or lookout, I assure you you will not catch cold, nor will it catch you.

Terror or fright causes or cures diseases. Dr. Toad reports the case of a boy, in Tuke’s work, nine years of age, who was frightened into chorea, or St. Vitus’ dance, by his sister, who had covered herself with a white sheet and appeared before him unexpectedly, while he was in bed. I know, also, a case of functional bladder weakness of a child who wet his bed at night during sleep. There appeared no signs of any local disease, nor was any remedy which I employed of the slightest advantage. The father of the child, becoming exasperated, gave the child a severe thrashing one morning. The mother remonstrated at what she considered cruel and useless chastisement. But, strange yet true, that child never wet the bed after that; it was entirely cured by fright.

Sympathy will often make persons sick; of this I had in my own experience an opportunity for a very interesting observation. It was the husband of a woman who had been retching and vomiting incident to the early months of her pregnancy. So great was the sympathy of her husband that he retched and vomited exactly like his wife, not only when in her presence, but when separated from her, the impressions or thought exciting the excito-motor nerves of the stomach. This sympathetic sickness lasted as long as that of his wife.

Dr. H. C. Sawyer, author of “Nerve Waste,” has kindly shown the writer another form of functional or hysterical disorder, which was, or is even yet, considered by many general practitioners a scrofulous enlargement of the joints; but the doctor discovered the peculiarity of metastasis, which means a sudden or complete removal of a disease from one part to another. This gave the disease what he termed a hysterical or functional character. It would be the swelling of the elbow of one arm and the knee of the opposite side at one time; and in the course of a few weeks or months these would feel and appear entirely well, while the disease had located itself in other joints. This case the doctor considered could be only reached through the mind, or some faith cure. He further believed that many of these enlarged and swollen joints among the wealthier classes were due to a nervous trouble. Indeed, it would be an easy matter to cite case after case, from my own experience, or quote cases from the highest medical authorities, illustrating in every conceivable manner how the mind, the imagination, the emotions, or the different passions, are continually causing disease and suffering.

It must naturally follow that what is potent to induce diseases will, under different conditions, be a means of curing them.

A serious question now arises with reference to the selection of cases suitable to mind-cure treatment. Bigoted fanaticism is quite incompetent, so are the great majority of spiritual healers, owing to their absolute ignorance of the scientific aspects of disease. The first prerequisite for intelligent and proper treatment is to establish the precise nature of the disease under consideration. It must be distinctly grouped or classed, whether it be a functional or hysterical disease, or a zymotic or contagious affection.

In diphtheria or typhoid fever mind cure subserves no purpose; the treatment must be avowedly antiseptic and stimulating.

If it be a physical injury, say a fractured bone, it must be treated on mechanical principles.

A woman suffering in the pangs of labor, which is being delayed from some abnormal position or some other physical obstruction, can only be delivered through mechanical methods; and here the enthusiastic mind healer may commit serious errors, sacrificing limb and life by unnecessary delay. So I would lay down this broad maxim, that the mind healer must either be a competent, educated physician, or a physician should be a competent metaphysician.

Note.—In the year 1887 Mrs. A. C. Hurrell was a healthy, middle-aged woman and the mother of two children. When the youngest was ten months old she contracted a severe cold. The coughing spells “took her breath,” and from these exaggerated expiratory paroxysms she drifted into spasmodic asthma, at least that was the diagnosis of prominent medical men of Sacramento and of this city. Change of climate was advised and tried, so were also the different drugs which experience had taught to be useful, even operations were performed on her nasal passages by enterprising specialists, but all to no purpose. Morphine was prescribed by the first medical attendant, and when her suffering became unbearable she had to fall back on this drug for relief. In May, 1890, I was consulted, but a most careful examination revealed nothing which I could assign as a cause and upon which to base a hopeful treatment.

In October, 1891, she was persuaded to take treatment from a lady who claimed to cure through Christian Science (a mind healer). The treatment commenced on a Thursday afternoon. The lady impressed on her that the morphine, of which she now consumed, hypodermically, the enormous quantity of ninety grains a week, was injurious, and that if she made up her mind that there was no disease the asthma would leave her. Friday night the patient was in great agony, both from the withdrawal of the drug and the asthmatic attack, and this double pressure weakened the faith of both patient and healer, but the husband stood firm and insisted that she have no morphine. The struggle for breath and the narcotic continued until four o’clock Sunday morning, when she began to get easier; the improvement continued, and in ten days she had “outgrown” both. I saw her two months later, entirely recovered, and the most brilliant specimen of the efficiency of mind cure that one could wish to see.