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PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE FUTURE
LIFE: Psychical research may be defined as the
organized and scientific investigation
The Field of certain outlying and hitherto unrec-
of Labor. ognized phenomena—mental and phys-
ical—which are on the borderland
between spirit and matter. Psychology deals with
the operations of the mind under normal conditions;
and many modern psychologists treat the subject
from a materialistic point of view, i.e., the mind is
not studied apart from organization and bodily
structure. The interaction and interpenetration of
mind and spirit and resultant phenomena, therefore,
form the basic material for psychical investigation,
which thus attempts to fill a gap in scientific re-
search. These phenomena may roughly be divided
into two groups, physical and mental. Under phy-
sical phenomena are classed such manifestations as
the movement of physical objects without contact,
raps with no apparent cause, Poltergeist phenomena
(such as oceurred in John Wesley’s house, in which
bells were rung, crockery broken, and the like,
without apparent cause), and soon. Under mental
phenomena are classed telepathy, premonition and
prevision, clairvoyance, apparitions at the moment
of death and after death, trance utterance and
automatie writing, and kindred phenomena. In
the former class the physical world is affected; in
the latter class it is not.
Whether such phenomena really exist, or whether
they are one and all figments of the imagination,
was the question to be settled. A
The Prob- group of earnest thinkers gathered to-
lem; the gether at Cambridge, England, in 1881
Societies. .to discuss this question, and in 1882
the English Society for Psychical Re-
search was founded. An American branch was in-
augurated in 1888 under the general supervision of
Richard Hodgson, LL.D., and continued until his
sudden death in 1905, when the present independent
American Society, under James Hervey Hyslop,
Ph.D., was incorporated. The founders of the Eng-
lish Society were Prof. Henry Sidgwick, Frederic
William Henry Myers, Edmund Gurney—all of
Cambridge—and Prof. W. F. Barrett, of the Uni-
versity of Dublin. Prof. Sidgwick was its first
president. Since that date, such illustrious names
have appeared on the society’s membership roll as
Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, Prof. Joseph
John Thomson, the Rt. Hon. Arthur James Balfour,
Prof. William James, Lord Rayleigh, the Rt. Rev.
William Boyd Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon, Andrew
Lang, Prof. Balfour Stewart, and Mrs. Henry Sidg-
wick. Some consider it, as Mr. Gladstone said,
“the most important work in the world—by far
the most important.”” The reason is obvious. Here
and only here are found phenomena that seem to
prove scientifically that man possesses a soul capable
of existing apart from the body and of exercising its
functions in that condition. The resurrection was,
after all, a historical fact, to which Christianity
points as proof of a future life. In an age of skep-
ticism faith by itself fails to convince; an appeal
must be made to actual facts. Such facts are the
phenomena studied by psychical students.
One of the first conclusions drawn by the mem-
bers of the society was that telepathy—the power
of one mind to affect another otherwise than through
the recognized channels of sense—was
Results of afactin nature. By an elaborate series
Study. of experiments, it was ascertained that
such a power exists in man, and that
it can and in fact does become operative under cer-
tain conditions. Unsuccessful attempts were made
to explain the facts. The only conclusion that can
be drawn is that ‘‘ spirit has the power of mani-
festing to spirit,” as F. W. H. Myers expressed it
in his monumental work Hwman Personality and its
Survival of Bodily Death (2 vols., London, 1904).
Vibrations do not seem to pass; space and time do
not affect it; it would appear to be a true and di-
rect manifestation of spirit. The application of
this to spiritual guidance and to prayer may easily
be conceived. The next great advance was made
when, on the publication of Phantasms of the Living,
by E. Gurney, F. W. H. Myers, and F. Podmore
(London, 1886), it was first proved that appari-
tions of the dying occur far oftener than chance
would permit. Seven hundred and two eases of a
Psychical Research
Psychotherapy
coincidental nature were published, and it was
mathematically proved that the coincidence be-
tween the death and the apparition seen was far
more than any chance would account for. Further,
conducting this inquiry through several years in
mauy countries, it was more conclusively proved
in 1894, when the ‘‘ Census of Hallucinations ”’ was
published, in which conclusions drawn from more
than 30,000 replies showed that this coincidence
was again far more frequent than was mathemati-
cally probable. The connection—whatever its na-
ture—was thus conclusively proved. Many cases
were produced by both the English and American
societies, of clairvoyance, premonitions, and other
supernormal phenomena. Generally speaking, it
may be said that physical manifestations have
yielded but slight and inconclusive results—being
proved to be fraudulently produced, almost inva-
riably, while the mental manifestations have proved
to be far more productive of results. The most
famous case is that of Mrs. Piper, a trance medium
of Boston, who has succeeded in affording the strong-
est evidence ever yet obtained of a future life. Mrs.
Piper passes into trance, while sitting at a table,
conversing with her sitter (the trance is genuine,
and has been tested by various eminent medical
men). She then falls forward on the table, and her
body is supported by cushions. Her right hand and
arm is then apparently “ controlled ” by an alien
intelligence, i.e., a ‘ spirit,”’ and automatic writing
is the result. It will be observed that the manner
of the production of this writing is not unusual; to
all external appearances the medium might be do-
ing it herself. The point to be considered is this:
does the writing contain any facts unknown to any-
one but the intelligence supposedly giving them?
If certain specific incidents are referred to, known
only to an individual who has died and who is sup-
posedly communicating; and if, furthermore, it can
be shown that the medium had had no means of ac-
quiring this information by any known means; if,
finally, it can be shown that telepathy, clairvoy-
ance, and other modes of supernormal operation are
excluded, then very fair evidence is adduced that
the intelligence who once knew those facts was
really ‘‘ there,” referring to them, and reminding
his sitters of them, through the entranced organism
of the medium. It was as though her soul had been
temporarily removed from the body, and her nery-
ous mechanism operated—more or less imperfectly
—hby a foreign or invading intelligence.
This is the character of the evidence that has
been obtained mostly by scientists studying the
phenomena; and it will be seen that this is the best
and most direct means that could be devised for
communing with a soul, granting such to exist.
Psychical research is the science of the investiga-
tion of the borderland of spirit and matter, and of
their inter-communication. Its position is that
there are certain definite facts which recur, and
which must be included in materialistic philosophy,
if the latter is to be a scheme of the universe. If
philosophy is incapable of including and explaining
them, it is obviously erroneous and non-inclusive.
These facts of psychic research indicate that there
is a realm of spirit, active and capable of influencing
this world more or less directly. Materialism would
thus be overthrown, and its theories proved to be
erroneous. And it is because of this possibility—
because a spiritual order of things might thus be
proved, that its present workers regard it as the
most important work in the world to-day.
HEREWARD CARRINGTON.
Bibliography: The chief sources of information are the
Proceedings of the English society, London, 1883 sqq.,
and of the American society, New York, 1907 sqq., together
with the works named in the text. Consult further: I. K.
Funk, The Widow’s Mite, New York, 1904; idem, The
Psychic Riddle, ib. 1907; J. H. Hyslop, Science and a
Future Life, Boston, 1905; idem, Enigmas of. Psychical
Research, ib. 1906; idem, Psychical Research and the Res-
urrection, ib. 1908; L. Elbé, Future Life in the Light
of Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science, Chicago, 1906;
E. E. Fournier d’Albe, New Light on Immortality, New
York, 1908; Sir Oliver Lodge, Science and Immortality, ib.
1908; F. Podmore, Naturalization of the Supernatural,
ib. 1908; E. T. Bennett, Psychic Phenomena, ib., 1909;
E.. Katherine Bates, Psychical Science and Christianity,
ib., 1909; C. Lombroso, After Death What? Spiritistic
Phenomena and their Interpretation, Boston, 1909; H.
Carrington, Husapia Palladino and her Phenomena, Lon-
don, 1910; and the periodicals, The Annals of Psychical
Science, and The Occult Review. A large bibliography of
pertinent literature will be found under SprriruALism,
SPIRITUALISTS.
PSYCHOTHERAPY.
Early Magic and Incubation (§ 1).
The Middle Ages and Later (§ 2).
Mesmer (§ 3).
Bertrand and Elliotson (§ 4).
Braid, Liébault, Bernheim, and Tuke (§ 5).
Recent Movements in the United States (§ 6).
The Emmanuel Movement (§ 7).
The term psychotherapy (Gk. Psyché, “ soul,”
and therapeuein, ‘“ to heal ’’), taken largely, denotes
the treatment of disease through the influence of
mental, moral, and spiritual states upon the body.
An exhaustive discussion of the subject would in-
volve an examination of many crude and fantastic
theories, partly theological, partly metaphysical or
psychological, with which the fundamental ideas
of psychotherapy have been connected. The pur-
pose of this article is to sketch briefly the history of
psychotherapy, and to state the main principles
which underlie it in the scientific form that it has
assumed to-day.
Tn one fashion or another, psychotherapy has been
practised, consciously or unconsciously, not only
by all medical men, but also by those who in pre-
medical times played the part both of
1. Early priest and of physician. It rests upon
Magic and what has become the fundamental
Incubation. dogma of modern physiological psy-
chology—the idea that mind and body
constitute a unity, that for every thought and feel-
ing, however slight, there is a corresponding nery-
ous event, and that the smallest physical process
awakens an echo in the psychical realm. The
charms and incantations both of savage and of civ-
ilized man are simply forms of self-suggestion, which
has, in certain types of disease, curative power.
The earliest historical notices of healing through
mental influence are to be found in the magical
texts of ancient Egypt (cf. G. Ebers, Papyros Ebers,
das hermetische Buch tiber die Arzneimittel der alten
Aegyptern, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1875). As early as
about 1600 B.c. it was the custom in Egypt to heal
Psychotherapy
Oe De ar ap Os ea ve a A Oe ye, SE hfe MO il eal te se ed ss 2
diseases by touching the person diseased, while vari-
ous incantations were being uttered; it is known also
that certain formulas pronounced over the images
of divinities were believed to impart to these images
the power of dispelling the poison of serpents.
Among the most ancient of Egyptian myths are
those of the healing of Ra by the goddess Isis, and
of the healing of Horus, the son of Isis, by Thoth,
in virtue of certain words supposed to have magical
power (H. Naville, The Old Egyptian Faith, p. 5,
London, 1909). In virtue of the same principle,
kings and priests and reformers, under all religions
and with every variety of metaphysical and theo-
logical creed, have wrought what seemed to their
contemporaries to be nothing less than deeds of
miraculous healing. In Alexandria, on the testi-
mony of Suetonius, Tacitus, and Dion Cassius, the
Roman Emperor Vespasian healed a blind man by
touching his eyes with spittle. In the Old Testa-
ment the great prophetic figures Elijah, Elisha, and
Isaiah were psychotherapeutists. David was able to
charm away the melancholia of Saul by the strains
of a music the echo of which may be heard in some
modern hospitals for the insane.
The inscriptions dug up in our own time at Epi-
dauros, the site of the famous shrine of A‘sculapius,
the patron divinity of the healing art, show what a
great part the mind played in the cures effected.
For example, a sufferer from dyspepsia, one Marcus
Julius Apellas, who had been cured in the temple,
set up an inscription in gratitude to the god. After
mentioning some physical remedies which the god
prescribed, Apellas continues:
“When I called upon the god to cure me more
quickly I thought it was as if I had anointed my
whole body with mustard and salt and had come
out of the secret hall and gone in the direction of
the bath-house, while a small child was going be-
fore, holding a smoking censer. The priest said to
me, ‘ Now you are cured; but you must pay up the
fees for your treatment.’ I acted according to the
vision, and when I rubbed myself with salt and
mustard I felt the pains still, but when I had bathed
I suffered no longer. These events took place in
the first nine days after I had come to the temple.
The god also touched my right hand and my breast ”’
(Mary Hamilton, Incubation, p. 41, London, 1906;
[Epidauros and its cures are treated in pp. 8-43 of
Miss Hamilton’s work]). This inscription prob-
ably belongs to the second century of our era.
Speaking of the same period 8. Dill remarks (Ro-
man Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, p. 459,
London, 1904): ‘‘ The temples of Aisculapius arose
in every land where Greek or Roman culture pre-
vailed. Patients came from all parts of the Greco-
Roman world. The temples had dormitories; re-
treats often contained beds for 200 or 300 persons.”
During the Middle Ages the science of therapeu-
tics was in bondage to superstition. The church
was supposed to have a monopoly of the healing
power. Fragments of the cross, the tears of the
Virgin Mary and of St. Peter, the hair of martyrs,
iron filings from the chains that had bound Peter
and Paul, were regarded as miraculously efficacious
in the cure of disease. Great personalities, such as
the founders of cloisters, or persons of great sanctity,
such as Francis of Assisi, Catharine of Siena, and
Bernard of Clairvaux (qq.v.), it was claimed, healed
multitudes by the power of their touch.
2. The In France from medieval times down
Middle Ages to the age of Charles X. the kings
and Later. claimed the gift of ‘ touching for the
evil” (scrofula).. In the Anglican
prayer-book there was printed down to the year
1719, ‘‘ The Office for Touching.” The actual cere-
mony is described by Evelyn in his Diary (ed. W.
Bray, in Memoirs, London, 1818-19; by Upcott,
1827; by‘H. B. Wheatley, 4 vols., 1879) under date
July 6, 1660. Among the famous persons touched
for the evil was Samuel Johnson, in the reign of
Queen Anne.
The short and easy way of dealing with these
stories was to reject them as superstitious legends.
Modern investigation, however, has shown that this
method is quite too drastic, and that thus to deal
with human testimony is to make the search for
historical truth almost futile. The generally re-
ceived view to-day is that the principle by which
these phenomena were brought about is what is
called “ Suggestion,” or expectant attention; and
it may be said that in all modern mental healing
systems these psychological influences play a dom-
inating réle. It was only in the eighteenth century
that the foundations for a scientific understanding
of the subject were laid. Just as chemistry arose
out of alchemy, and astronomy out of astrology,
and the science of internal medicine out of the
tentative therapeutic efforts of the medicine man,
so modern scientific psychotherapy takes its origin
in mesmerism.
Friedrich (or Franz) Anton Mesmer (b. at Iznang,
11 m. n.w. of Constance, May 23, 1733; graduated
at Vienna in medicine, taking for his.thesis, ‘‘ On
the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body,”
published in 1766; d. at Meersburg, 5
3- Mesmer. m. e. of Constance, Mar. 5, 1815) first
came into notice in 1773 by his novel
method of curing disease through the application
of magnetized plates to the human body. He was
an ardent student of the medieval mystics, Paracel-
sus and the Rosicrucians (q.v.), from whom he ob-
tained the idea that there existed in nature a mys-
terious and subtle force which he called ‘“ animal
magnetism.’’ This he conceived to be an invisible
fluid, which by a skilled hand could be so manipu-
lated as to heal all manner of diseases. Some of
the methods by which he applied his theory he
owed probably to Father Gassner, a German priest
who cured sufferers by means of exorcism, his the-
ory being that the given disease was due to demon
possession. In short, it may be said that Mesmer
found all the elements of mesmerism already in
existence. He simply deprived them of their mys-
tical setting, reduced them to terms of matter and
force, and thus commended them to the age of rea-
son. Mesmer appeared in Paris in 1778, and in a
short time created a sensation by his wonderful
cures in all classes of society. He believed that
magnetism could be imparted to wood, glass, iron,
and other physical objects, and that these in turn
could communicate the magnetism to the sick per-
son. Hence he constructed his famous baquet, an
Psychotherapy
elaborate apparatus consisting of an oak tub with
a lid made in two pieces, and itself enclosed in an-
other tub. Inside the tub were bottles filled with
magnetized water and tightly corked. The mag-
netic influence was conducted to the bodies of the
patients by means of rods and ropes. Mesmer was
overwhelmed with the crowds that came for treat-
ment, but was condemned by the medical profes-
sion asa quack. He challenged the faculty of medi-
cine at Paris to select twenty-four patients, twelve
to be treated by orthodox methods, twelve to be
treated by animal magnetism, and compare re-
sults. The doctors treated his challenge with con-
tempt, but in 1784 the government appointed two
commissions to inquire into the claims of mesmer-
ism. One was chosen from the faculty of medicine
and one from the Royal Society. A few months
after their appointment, both commissions re-
ported. Bailly drew up the report of the faculty
of medicine. The commission rejected Mesmer’s
doctrine of a healing fluid, on the ground that no
adequate proof of the existence of such a fluid was
given. The physiological effects of the treatment
were ascribed to the power of imagination. With
this finding the report of the Royal Society was in
agreement. The reports of the commissions were
marred by professional prejudice and lack of scien-
tific insight. To attribute changes for the better
in the health of sick persons to the power of im-
agination, and then to dismiss this agency, as though
it were an unreality beneath the regard of scientific
investigators, was to make a reality the effect of
an unreality. They forgot that a psychological
factor able to produce permanent functional changes
demanded searching scrutiny. Nor did the com-
missioners note the strange problem which emerged
—that Mesmer the quack had been able to work
cures which were impossible to his scientific con-
temporaries. As for Mesmer, the reports of the
commissions were his death-blow. He retired from
Paris and returned to Germany.
About ten years later, Alexandre Jacques Fran-
cois Bertrand gave a really scientific explanation of
the mesmeric phenomena (Du magnetisme animal
en France, Paris, 1826). He did not deny the gen-
uineness of the alleged cures, but he
4. Bertrand maintained that the patients were
and healed not by virtue of a magnetic
Elliotson. fluid, but because of their own sug-
gestibility, their capacity for being in-
fluenced by the imposing procedures of Mesmer.
This explanation, which is accepted to-day, was
regarded with incredulity by the medical profes-
sion at that time. The truth is, that Mesmer’s suc-
cess had brought into the field a regiment of mys-
terious, spectacular showmen, who traveled all over
.Europe and brought discredit upon the whole sub-
ject by their fantastic tricks and absurd preten-
sions. Up till 1837 this state of matters continued.
In that year Dr. John Elliotson (b. in London in
1791; studied at the University of Edinburgh, and
at Jesus College, Cambridge; d. in London July 29,
1868) began original researches at University Col-
lege, London. He soon achieved wonderful thera-
peutic results, though so much to the scandal of
his colleagues that the authorities of the college
XI.—23
hospital in 1838 forbade him to practise animal
magnetism. Elliotson immediately resigned, much
mortified at the insult. In 1846 he chose mesmer-
ism for his subject as the Harveian orator. In the
course of his address he showed how magnetism
could prevent pain during surgical operations, pro-
duce sleep and ease in sickness, and cure many
diseases which were not relieved by the ordinary
methods (Numerous Cases of Surgical Operations in
the Mesmeric State Without Pain, London, 1843).
Although he shared some of the erroneous ideas of
his time, there can be no doubt that he was devoted
to truth and to the interests of humanity, and that
he suffered persecution at the hands of prejudice
and bigotry.
But the most important figure in the history of
the subject is James Braid (b. at Rylaw House,
Fifeshire, Scotland, c. 1795; was educated at the
University of Edinburgh; d. at Manchester Mar.
25, 1860), who, in 1841, began his investigations
into the nature of mesmeric phenom-
ena. Until his time it is to be noted
that the theories usually accepted in
explanation of these phenomena were
either that they were owing to a mys-
terious force or fluid, or to self-decep-
tion, or to wilful trickery. Braid attended his first
mesmeric exhibitions under the influence of the last
of these theories: he was anxious to discover how
the trick was done. But he became convinced that
the phenomena were real, and he determined to
find out their physiological cause. In 1841 he gave
to the public his view that mesmeric phenomena
were purely subjective in character. He found that
he could induce the mesmeric state by causing his
patients to gaze steadily at some object and at the
same time think of the object upon which they
gazed. Thus he discovered that expectant atten-
tion was a necessary factor In mesmerism, or, as
he now ealled it, hypnotism (Neurypnology; or, the
Rationale of Nervous Sleep, London, 1843). He
was, however, before his time. He was violently
assailed by the old-school mesmerists and was re-
garded with suspicion by his medical brethren.
Hugh MacNeile, an Evangelical divine of Liverpool
and later dean of Ripon, charged him with produ-
cing his hypnotic effects through Satanic agency,
and thereby much theological prejudice was excited
against his work. After Braid’s death in 1860, the
subject, as far as Great Britain was concerned, fell
into neglect. But in France a struggling physician,
A. A. Liébault, published a book (Du sommeil et
des états analogues, Nancy, 1866) in which he showed
that hypnotism was a powerful curative agent, and
once more demonstrated that the essence of it was
suggestion. It is said that only a single copy of
his book was sold. In 1882 Hippolyte Bernheim,
a distinguished physician of Nancy, became inter-
ested in Liébault’s work, and published his famous
work on suggestive therapeutics (Hypnotisme, sug-
gestion et psychotherapie, France, 1890). Meantime,
at Paris, at the Salpétriére, Dr. Jean Martin Charcot
experimented in hypnotism, and founded a school
of which Janet, Binet, and Féré are brilliant rep-
resentatives. Down to this time in England and in
America, the movement which attracted so much
5. Braid,
Liébault,
Bernheim,
and Tuke.
Psychotherapy
Ptolemy
EEE,
attention on the continent of Europe was seriously
hurt by the rise of spiritualism. Both the scientist
and the man on the street confused hypnotism with
spiritualism; but with the fame of Nancy and Paris,
English and American physicians began to take an
interest in the subject. Worthy of mention is Dr.
Daniel Hack Tuke’s work (Illustrations of the Influ-
ence of the Mind upon the Body, London, 1872).
This was the first comprehensive and scientific
treatment of the subject in English. His aim was
to induce the medical profession to utilize in their
practise the influence of mental states, and, as he
says, to rescue psychotherapy from “‘ the eccentric
orbits of quackery and force it to tread with meas-
ured step the ordinary paths of legitimate medi-
cine.” Dr. William Benjamin Carpenter’s Princi-
ples of Mental Physiology (London, 1874) marked
an epoch in the study of psychological medicine.
It had great influence upon professional students
of mental diseases, but neither this book nor Dr.
Tuke’s made any great impression on the general
practitioner. 'The attention of American physi-
cians was drawn to the subject mainly through the
fame of Nancy and Paris. Boston, especially, be-
came the center of the new study, and indeed is
now the seat of a psychological school of physicians.
Morton Prince, Boris Sidis, and James Jackson
Putnam (who has been called “the Charcot of
America ’’) are among the leaders of this group.
Its strength lies in its grasp of the psychic faetors
in psychological states. Its weakness is its failure
to recognize the curative influence of an idealistic
conception of life or of a more satisfactory religious
experience.
In the course of time it has come to be recognized
that hypnotism is only one weapon, and by no
means the chief weapon, in the psychotherapeu-
tist’s armory. Indeed, except in a small group of
deep-rooted perversions, hypnotism is falling more
and more into the background. The great psy-
chotherapeutic classical methods to-day are ordi-
nary or waking suggestion, explanation, encourage-
ment, education and reeducation, psycho-analysis,
rest, and work. We owe this development to such
neurologists as Weir Mitchell, J. P. Mobius, Forel,
Freud, and the layman, Grohmann.
At this point logically occurs consideration of
mental healing or irregular and unscientific psycho-
therapy. The various forms of mind cure or faith
cure in the United States may be traced
6. Recent back to Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
Movements (see SctmNcE, CHRISTIAN), the son of
inthe a New England blacksmith. He was
United a self-educated man, with much nat-
States. ural shrewdness and power. When he
arrived at manhood he became inter-
ested in mesmerism and occult phenomena, which
at that time were much discussed among the semi-
educated classes of the country. Quimby was dis-
contented with the current theology and the popu-
lar notions of mind and body. He determined to
create a philosophy, a theology, and a medical sci-
ence for himself. Gradually the conviction dawned
on him that disease was not real, but only an an-
cient delusion handed down from generation to
generation. In the strength of this conviction he
set up as an unconventional practitioner in Port-
land, Me., and there treated such sufferers as came
to him. He published no books, nor did he found
a school, but he committed to paper his ideas, and
ten volumes of his manuscripts are in existence.
His memory, however, probably would have per-
ished, had it not been for the visit paid to him in
1862 by one Mrs. Patterson, suffering from some
nervous trouble. He was able to cure her. This
Mrs. Patterson achieved world-wide fame as the
founder of a new religion, the writer of a sacred
book, and the creator of a growing church. The
name by which she is known is Mrs. Mary Baker
Eddy (q.v.; see also ScreNcE, CHRISTIAN). Chris-
tian Science may not unjustly be described as
an almost equally ‘“ grotesque mixture of crude
pantheism, misunderstood psychological or philo-
sophical truths, and truly Christian beliefs and con-
ceptions” (G. T. Ladd, Philosophy of Religion, i.
167, 2 vols., New York, 1905). The fundamental
idea of Christian Science is the unreality of sickness,
of matter, of evil, and of the human mind, usually
called by Christian Science writers ‘‘ mortal mind.”
Its philosophic postulates, as stated by Mrs. Eddy,
are as follows: (1) God is All; (2) God is Good;
(3) God is Mind; (4) God is Spirit, being All.
Nothing is Matter; (5) Life, God, Omnipotent
good, deny death, evil, sin, disease. Christian Sci-
ence is at once a philosophy, a theology, a religion,
and a therapeutic system. Many of the therapeutic
results set down to the credit of Christian Science
may be accepted as undoubted facts; but unless a
break is made with the main stream of right reason
in the world and with the Christian religion, the
metaphysics, the theology, the Biblical exegesis,
and the psychology of Mrs. Eddy must be rejected.
Other movements, notably the Mind Cure Move-
ment, inaugurated by W. F. Evans (Primitive Mind
Cure; Nature and Power of Faith, Boston, 1885;
Mental Medicine, 15th thousand, ib. 1885; Esoteric
Christianity and Mental Therapeutics, ib. 1886), and
the New Thought movement (see NEW THOUGHT),
represented by such writers as Horatio W. Dresser,
Ralph Waldo Trine, Charles Brodie Patterson, the
Christian and Missionary Alliance, under the leader-
ship of the Rev. Albert B. Simpson, may be traced
to the inspiration of Quimby’s teaching. The influ-
ence of Swedenborg and Emerson on New Thought
is especially marked. Up till recently the churches
have looked with disfavor upon these movements,
and have, for the most part, sought not so much
to understand them as to criticize and to ridicule.
Recently, however, an effort has been made to
utilize the genuine elements in these healing cults,
to free them from the notions with
7. The which they have been bound up, and
Emmanuel to make them available for the help
Movement. and uplift of suffering humanity. This
effort is popularly called “‘ The Em-
manuel Movement” from the name of the church
in Boston where it originated under the leadership of
Rev. Drs. Elwood Worcester and Samuel McComb.
The fundamental aim of the work is to ally, in
friendly cooperation, the physician, the clergyman,
and the trained social worker in the alleviation and
cure of a certain class of disorders which may be
Psychotherapy
Ptolemy
described as semi-moral and semi-nervous. Among
the more familiar types of these disorders may be
named neurasthenia, hysteria, hypochondria, psy-
chasthenia, insomnia, alcoholism, and bad habits
generally. The Emmanuel Movement is not to be
confounded with Christian Science or with New
Thought or with occultism in any shape or form.
It is under strict medical control, and therefore
accepts the conclusions and methods of medical
science. It lays no claim to any new revelation or
any mysterious doctrines of matter and mind. It
is the first attempt of the liberal theological school
to bring to bear in a practical way the forces of
ethics and religion upon suffering and misery. The
movement is distinguished from ordinary academic
psychotherapy by including among curative meth-
ods the power of religion and morality. It seems,
in aim, at least, to be the crown of a preeeding de-
velopment, for it tries to unite in practise whatever
is sound in the various mental healing cults that
have too often been the field of charlatanism, with
the proved conclusions and the recognized methods
of the medical profession. Samuel McComb.
Bibliography: For early practise consult the literature
on magic under COMPARATIVE RELIGION, and under
MAGIC; the work of Miss Hamilton cited in the text is
masterly. On Mesmer consult: J. Kerner, Franz Anton
Mesmer, Frankfort, 1856; W. B. Carpenter, Mesmerism
and Spiritualism Considered, London, 1877; M. Bersot,
Le Magnétisme animal, 4th ed., Paris, 1879; C. Kiese-
wetter, F. A. Mesmers Leben und Lehre, Leipsic, 1893.
On Christian Science consult the literature under Eppy,
Mary Baker GLoverR; and under ScirmNcE, CHRISTIAN.
On the general subject of psychotherapy read: A. Moll,
Hypnotism, New York, 1890; P. Dubois, Psychic Treat-
ment of Nervous Disorders, New York, 1905; idem, Influ-
ence of the Mind on the Body, ib. 1906; A. H. Forel,
Hygiene of Nerves and Mind in Health and Disease, New
York, 1907; P. Dearmer, Body and Soul. An Inquiry
into the Effects of Religion upon Health, with a Descrip-
tion of Christian Works of Healing from the New Testament
to the Present Day, London, 1909; M. Price and others,
Psychotherapeutics: a Symposium, Boston, 1910; Mrs.
E. G. H. White, The Ministry of Healing, Mountain View,
California, 1910. On the Emmanuel Movement consult:
E. Worcester, S. McComb, and I. H. Coriat, Religion and
Medicine; the mental Control of Nervous Disorders, New
York, 1908; E. Worcester and S. McComb, The Chris-
tian Religion as a Healing Power, ib. 1909; C. R. Brown,
Faith and Health, ib. 1910 (favorable to the Emmanuel
Movement, antagonistic to Christian Science).
