“He then gave the patient his blessing by spreading his cloak over the head, grasping his neck or head in both hands, repeating a silent, earnest prayer, making the sign of the cross, ordering some simple from the apothecary’s, which he consecrates, compels the patient to wash his hands clean, when he is permitted to ‘depart in peace.’
“Most diseases he cured instantly. Some required months, and others he could not affect in the least.”
There is but one philosophical way to account for these cures. To say there is nothing in it, or, “It is all humbug,” will not satisfy the people. To affirm it is the arts of the devil is merely nonsensical. It is influence. Of what? Of one powerful mind over another. And when Gassner found a mind equally as powerful as his own, the disease refused to depart. There you have the whole of it, “in a nutshell,”—the exercising of one mind over another; and mind (not unusually) controls matter in the living body.
For about seven years Gassner was a public healer, and then he suddenly and forever disappeared.
Royalty in the Shade.
Sir John Fortesque, the learned legal writer of the time of Edward IV., spoke of the gift of healing by touch as a “time immemorial privilege of the kings of England.” He very seriously attributed the virtue to the unction imparted to the hands in the coronation. Elizabeth was not superior to this superstition, and she frequently appeared before the people in the character of a miraculous healer. There was formerly a regular office in the English Book of Common Prayer for the performance of this ceremony. The curious reader is referred to Macbeth, Scene III. of Act IV. for further particulars.
With the rise of Valentine Greatrakes, the “royal prerogative” received a staggering blow. The marvellous cures of this man, living in Ireland, reached England, and the king invited him to come to London; and along his journey, whither he was preceded by the returning messenger, we are told that the magistrates of the towns and cities waited upon Valentine, and begged him to remain and heal their sick.
On his arrival, the king, “though not fully persuaded of his wonderful gift, recommended him to the care of his physician, and permitted him to practise his power as much as he pleased in London.”
Greatrakes had no medical education, nor claimed aught beyond a gift of healing most diseases by “stroking the parts with his hand.” He is described as being a man of “commanding address, frank and pleasing, having a brilliant eye, gallant bearing, fine figure, and a remarkably handsome face. With a hearty and musical voice, and a natural stock of high animal spirits, he was the delight of all festive assemblies. Yet he was a devout man.”