hand as at all necessary, but let it be governed by circumstances, as was done 1800 years ago.”[1]
Bearing this explanation in mind, when we come to read Quimby's letters to patients, we will understand why he speaks as if he were putting his hand on a person's head at a long distance, that is, during an absent treatment. This was to engage the patient's attention and arouse faith. The explanation becomes perfectly intelligible, when we see the reason for it. There could be no reason for the bare statement, made many years after, that Quimby “manipulated his patients,” without giving the above explanation, unless the one who said it wished to misrepresent the great spiritual healer.
The other typical misrepresentation, namely, that he was a spiritualist, was made in his own day, and is undermined by Quimby's adverse critique of spiritism as a whole. There was no reason for unfriendly feeling in this case. But the new therapeutist was popular in his later days, spiritism was struggling for recognition; hence it was natural for spiritistic mediums who claimed to do healing to include Quimby as one of their number. It was clearly impossible for Quimby to give assent, and to change to spiritism; for his researches led him to believe that all ordinary spiritistic phenomena could be reproduced without the aid of mediums and without recourse to spirits.
The sleep into which he put Lucius was akin to the “trance,” as mediums knew it. The suggestions in this case came from people in the audience who visualized places they wanted the subject to visit, or held ideas in mind for Lucius to read. The phenomena could be explained by the action of mind on mind, in the flesh. Consequently, Quimby held close to the facts. Moreover, his own powers of receptivity and intuition were growing. By sitting near patients, he learned to diagnose their condition, and also learned to read their mental states. Therefore it was possible for him to make the complete transition from mesmerism and all psychical phenomena akin to it to the adoption of his spiritual method of treating disease, that is, by the aid of intuition or direct perception, through “silence” without mediumship.
On this point George Quimby writes, “He was always in his normal condition when engaged with his patients. He never
- ↑ “True History,” p. 25.
