the truth of this Mind. Hence Quimby dedicated his great powers of concentration to this vivid realization.
The apparent receptivity of the patient when sitting silently by Quimby, or waiting at a distance to feel an effect, was dependent of course on the patient's belief, which might mean that Quimby was regarded as a kind of wonder-worker, or that he was not supposed to know how he healed. But Quimby was not dependent on the patient's conscious attitude or faith.[1] He discerned the inner condition, and conversed with “the scientific man,” looking for subconscious after-effects. What he then wrote or said to the patients depended on what he saw that they as conscious beings, with little understanding, were prepared to see. Hence he had often to content himself with brief statements concerning the bodily condition and the physical changes to be expected. But we learn from his more enlightened patients that the silent healing was a religious experience or spiritual quickening, and that to them the great healer began forthwith to talk about the things of the Spirit.
It is this varied series of impressions produced by patients which account for the varied character of his writings, and on this point it would be well to hear from Quimby in his own words:
“The reader will find my ideas strewn all through my writings, and sometimes it will seem that what I said had nothing to do with the subject upon which I was writing. This defect is caused by the great variety of subjects that called the pieces out; for they were all written after sitting with patients who had been studying upon some subject, or who had been under some religious excitement, suffering from disappointment or worldly reverses, or had given much time to health from* the point of view of the medical faculty and had reasoned themselves into a belief, so that their diseases were the effects of their reasoning. I have all classes of minds, with all types of disease. No two are alike. The articles are often written from the impressions made on me at the time I wrote.
“For instance, one person had a strong desire for this world's goods, and at the same time had been made to believe
- ↑ One of his patients assures as that when she visited Dr. Quimby, in 1862, she deemed him “an old humbug,” and that she received his treatment at first merely because her mother insisted.
