follow our belief. So as we measure out to another, it will be measured to us again.
You ask me if I ascribe my cures to spiritual influence. Not after the [manner of] Rochester rappings, nor after Dr. Newton's way of curing. I think I know how he cures, though he does not. I gather by those I have seen who have been treated by him that he thinks it is through the imagination of the patient's belief. So he and I have no sympathy. If he cures disease, that is good for the one cured. But the world is not any wiser.
You ask if my practice belongs to any known science. My answer is, “No,” it belongs to Wisdom that is above man as man. The Science that I try to practice is the Science that was taught eighteen hundred years ago, and has never had a place in the heart of man since; but is in the world, and the world knows it not. To narrow it down to man's wisdom, I sit down by the patient and take his feelings, and as the rest will be a long story I will send you one of my circulars, so that you may read for yourself.
Hoping this may limber the cords of your neck, I remain,
- Yours, etc.,
- P. P. QUIMBY
[The circular reprinted below is the one referred to in this letter. It was in circulation for some years before Dr. Quimby began to practise in Portland, and had blank spaces to be filled in by the name of the town and the location of Quimby's office.]
TO THE SICK[1]
Dr. P. P. QUIMBY would respectfully announce to the citizens of .................... and vicinity, that he will be at the .................... where he will attend to those wishing to consult him in regard to their health, and, as his practice is unlike all other medical practice, it is necessary to say that he gives no medicines and makes no outward applications, but simply sits down by the patients, tells them their feelings and what they think is their disease. If the patients admit that he tells them their feelings, &c., then his explanation is the cure; and, if he succeeds in correcting their error, he changes the fluids of the system and estab-
- ↑ Published in part in “The True History of Mental Science.”
