the case of present treatment] you attach your [thought] to the Christ or Truth and if you believe this you are saved from the uncertainty of seeing me in the body.
[Writing to another patient not quite clear on this point, Dr. Quimby states that when he receives a letter he always feels as though he were spiritually with the patient giving advice. Sometimes he seems to be present with several patients at once, because so many have come to him and are thinking of him. So, he says:]
I make a sort of general visit, as I used to when you were all in my office. But if I feel certain of one I make that one a text to preach from. So I believe if you can make yourself known to me by your faith I can feel you. Since I commenced writing you have come up before me so that I now recall you perfectly well, and I will give my attention to you.
[Speaking of his effort to convince a patient of “this great Truth,” Dr. Quimby writes:]
When I say this great Truth I mean this light that lighteth every one that understands it. When I first sit by you, my desire to see you lights up my mind like a lamp. As the light expands, my [spiritual] senses being attached to the light, each particle of light contains all the elements of the whole. So when the light is strong enough to see your light in your darkness or doubts, then I come in harmony with your light, and dissipate your errors and bring your light out of your darkness. Then I try to associate you with . . . a substance that is separate and part from your . . . senses.
[In still another letter on the same subject Quimiby says that sometimes he cannot see a patient when he reads the letter asking for help, because the “errors” obscure his sight. The spiritual self in a person possesses spiritual light, independent of matter. But this is so associated with matter in the average person that it becomes attached to it. In its pure operation his light sees through matter in its various combinations. Common education has placed a barrier between people. Superior intelligence is required to see through this obstacle. To communicate with the spirit in person is to endeavor to reach that part which interiorly sees and hears and is independent of time and space. This part of ourself is not known by the natural man, in his dependence
