Holy Spirit -14-IV Mental Healing, or So-Called Divine Healing

IV. MENTAL HEALING OR SO CALLED DIVINE HEALING

Every psychologist with anything like a general knowledge of his field of study is familiar with "mental healing," though all psychologists do not practice it. Some do, however, with remarkable results. Doubtless others would practice it but for the fact that there are so many charlatans who prey on the untutored and credulous public that they hesitate to be accused of being part and parcel with the "frauds" who claim divine powers, miraculous gifts, and give off the impressions that they are "some great ones " This paper is simply a sketch of some things which may be done in the field of mental therapy. It will also call attention to some things which cannot be done. Human ailments are of four kinds viz., Traumatic, Toxic, Neural, and Functional. These are to be defined as follows: Traumas are abrasions of the anatomy, such as bruises, bone-breaks, cuts, etc.; toxic disorders are poisonings, such as animal, mineral, or vegetable poisons, pus, etc.; neural diseases are impingements of neurones, their failure of proper development, or their atrophying, or the improper functioning of the ductless glands, or more technically, the endocrines; while functional diseases are not diseases properly at all. They are not physical ailments; they are mental. See Griffith’s "General Introduction to Psychology," p. 425, published by the Macmillan Company, New York. Some of these may have had their occasion in some organic malady, but they persist even after the patient becomes physically well. Many are caused by worry, family troubles, financial reverses, or unrequited love. Some are cases of pure insanity, where the exact cause cannot be located. Being mental they can often be treated successfully by mental means. They make up a large part of our human ills.

Dr. Richard Cabot, dean of the Medical Faculty of Harvard University, whose expert opinion is worthy of serious consideration, says that fully fifty percent of the patients treated by practicing physicians are neurotics-people suffering from functional diseases. Of course nearly all the patients being treated by neurologists are only functionally sick, and all the patients being treated by psychiatrists are functional cases. Surely a large field for quacks, "human money leeches" and other frauds! See A. I. Gates’ "Elementary Psychology" pages 273-275.

What diseases can be cured by various mental means? Not traumatic diseases, not toxic disorders, not genuine neural disturbances, but functional "ailments" only. What mental means can alleviate function al suffering? Just any kind the patient believes in, or can be got to believe in; as for example, Christian Science, which is neither Christian nor science. Christian Science teaches that there is no pain, no disease, in fact, no matter; all is mental. so just think you are well and you are well. Of course a neurotic, having no organic ailment but only suffering because he thinks himself sick, when convinced that there is nothing the matter with him is immediately cured. He was only functionally sick and now he is functionally well! Small wonder it is that Christian Science has a million members, when you re member that the majority of folks who are being treated today have actually nothing the matter with them. But Christian Science can’t "mental off" a bone-break, or cure a rattlesnake’s bite by Mrs. Eddy’s Science and Health, which logically would deny that there is any rattlesnake in the first place-except in the mind!

Really Christian Science is only able to cure functional diseases, and it is itself only a sort of religious delirium tremens. As another example, take a Mormon miracle-worker (?). He gets hold of a neurotic, prays over him and convinces the poor, self-deluded soul that the Mormon practitioner is divinely endowed with the powers of Jesus Christ and his holy apostles, changes the man’s delusions from himself to the Mormon preacher who tells the poor fellow he is cured by the Lord-and he is cured, but not by the Lord. Such neurotics are willing to be cured provided it is "wonderful." But the said practitioner can’t furnish a cure for the poor fellow who has swallowed carbolic acid without a medicinal antidote. Again, a neurotic calls a physician, who knows the patient is a neurotic. He gets the patient’s confidence, knows the patient wants "medicine" to fit her "case." Such neurotics demand that their "cure" shall taste nasty. The doctor gives some harmless potion mixed with enough bad-tasting dope to taste like medicine, talks kindly and sympathetically with patient to keep her confidence, and, presto! the patient gets well, assuring all her neighbors that she was the sickest woman ever, but none of the great number of doctors ever understood her "case" until, just by accident, she called in Dr. John Doe, who just looked at her, and saw immediately her condition, and had her "up" in no time. She still shudders to think what would have happened if she just hadn’t called Dr. Doe. She is certain that she would have been in her grave today! To the credit of the doctors generally, however, let it be said that such "cases" are the bane of their lives. Rest assured that they really do something when there is really something wrong with the patient. All honor to the medical profession, a profession honored by Luke "the beloved physician" and companion of the Apostle Paul. It can be laid down as a true proposition that functional diseases being only mental they can only be treated by mental means. But instead of such "cures" being miraculous they are the most natural treatments in the world since they follow methods that employ "mental laws." Mental treatments are adequate for mental diseases, and so far as treatments go they are legitimate, but when one undertakes to use them as proof that he is "anointed of the Lord for healing," and that such cures are "miracles wrought by the power of God," he perpetrates a fraud that cannot be too severely exposed. While mental treatments are adequate for mental disorders they are pure humbuggery for physical diseases-they will not even cure the toe itch. Thousands of people suffering functionally are being psycho-analyzed, going to "magnetic healers," or repeating with Coue "Every day in every way I’m getting better and better," taking valueless nostrums that have a great number of "testimonials," and are getting cured, provided they have "faith" in the remedy. But faith in the remedy does not cure traumas, toxins, or dead nervous mechanisms.

How different these "faith cures" are to the kind of, and the circumstances around, the cures wrought by the Lord. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but it was not necessary for Jesus to exhort dead Lazarus’ corpse: "Now just believe that I can and will raise you and you will get right up! Only have faith. It may not be today or next week, but just as soon as you believe I can raise you, and you just throw yourself on the Lord, I’ll raise you!" Four men brought a paralytic to the Lord and Jesus seeing their faith said to the sick of the palsy, "Take up thy bed and walk," and he did. Modern healers would say to the sick of the palsy, "If you will believe, the Lord will heal you," but Jesus saw the faith of the four who brought him. No one knows if the sick man had any faith, at all. Jesus opened a blind man’s eyes--a man born blind ! None such are having their eyes opened today. No, for no miracles are being wrought today.

Peter and John cured a poor impotent man at the gate of the temple, but it was on the basis of their faith and not the poor man’s faith. He did not even know of the Christ. But the apostles had miraculous faith and could work miracles. No such faith exists today. That kind of faith was in the performer of the deed and not in the beneficiary of the miracle.

Paul had a poisonous viper to bite him on the hand but he shook it off and "felt no harm," though those who stood by, knowing it to be a deadly serpent, expected him to drop dead. Now-a-days a man who has a deadly viper fasten his fangs in his hand either does drop dead pretty soon or suffers a mighty long time before he can get "out and about" again. No, the age of miracles is past. None are needed now and none are performed now. When functional cures are wrought by Holiness exhorters, Mormon elders, Christian Science readers, Catholic priests, exhibiting "St. Anne’s shin bone" or a "weeping statue of the Virgin," it is no miracle, nor do they cure any organic diseases that way. Such stunts are neither the Holy Spirit nor his work. "Animal Magnetism" Throughout the ages men have sought a remedy for their real and fancied ills, especially by means, marvelous, dramatic or bad tasting. As science developed, remedies for real illness have been produced, and even scientific treatment has made progress in functional cases. But remedies for functional "diseases" did not have to wait for the long, experimental findings of science. Such remedies have been like the poor, always with us. Thaumaturgus in the third century A. D. did wonders-so much and so many-that a species of mental healing has been called "thaumaturgy" after him. Paracelsus in the 15th century not only practiced alchemy, allegedly turning lead and other common metals into gold, but treated diseases on the assumption that stars and magnets had a peculiar, invisible fluid in them to heal and influence the human body. He cured those who only thought that they were sick and he became rich at the practice.

During the 17th century an Irishman, with that proverbial sense of humor, and an eye for business, gave out that he was some great one and cured multitudes. Read it in Jastrow’s "Fact and Fable in Psychology," page 177. Popular report had it "that God had bestowed on Mr. Gratarick a peculiar Temperament, or composed his body of some particular Ferments, the Effluvia whereof, being introduced sometimes by a light, sometimes by violent friction, should restore the Temperament of the Debilitated parts, reinvigorate the Blood, and dissipate all heterogeneous Ferments out of the Bodies of the Diseased, by the Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Hand and Feet." Likewise Mesmer claimed great things for himself, but afterward his pupil, Puysegur, hypnotized a man and got the same results. Puysegur called it "magnetizing" the patient, but Braid in 1841 did the same things in a similar way, and called it "hypnotism," introducing that word for the first time. Hypnotism is an "induced sleep," or more properly, a redirecting the focus of consciousness so that the hypnotized is under the direction of the operator instead of his own will. Many "wonderful" things can be done through hypnotism-even minor operations have been performed in France, while the patients were under hypnosis. It can certainly make a "monkey" out of any man who thinks that the hypnotizer is an agent of the Lord Al mighty and that such situations are miracles. Before Thaumaturgus, Paracelsus, Gratarick, Mesmer, or other "magnetizers," how ever, were the Indian "medicine men," Australian "Shamans" and African Voodoo, or "black magic."

Time and space forbid mentioning Phineas Quimby and Pfarrer Gassner and other "worthy" predecessors of modern miracle workers. Suffice it to say that the works of these men did not suffer in comparison with the works of Jesus and his apostles more than do the alleged miracles of Aimee Semple-McPherson-Hutton, Mormon "Apostles" Richieism, "Brother Isaiah-ism," Holy Rollers, Spiritualists, Theosophists, and "Images of the Virgin," St. Anne’s "Shin bones,", the blessing of a King like Henry the VIII, or of the Pope of Rome.