Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing

by George Barton Cutten

After being three times admonished in a dream, a man washed in St. Madern's Well in Cornwall and was miraculously cured, so say Bishop Hall and Father Francis. Ranulf Higden, in his Polychronicon, relates the wonderful cures performed at the holy well at Basingwerk. The red streaks in the stones surrounding it were symbols of the blood of St. Wenefride, martyred by Carodoc.

The Scotch considered certain wells to have healing properties in the month of May. In the Sessions Records (June 12, 1628) it is reported that a number of persons were brought before the Kirk Sessions of Falkirk, accused of going to Christ's Well on the Sundays of May to seek their health, and the whole being found guilty were sentenced to repent "in linens" three several sabbaths. "In 1657 a number of persons were publicly rebuked for visiting the well at Airth. The custom was to leave a piece of money and a napkin at the well, from which they took a can of water, and were not to speak a word either in going or returning, nor on any account to spill a drop of the water. Notwithstanding these proceedings, many are known to have lately travelled many miles into the Highlands, there to obtain water for the cure of their sick cattle."[45]

To-day, probably the most efficacious waters are to be found at the sacred fountain at La Salette and at the holy spring at Lourdes.

We have another specific form of healing which should be noticed. It was especially common in Eastern churches, and was found to some extent in the West. I refer to Incubation, or "Temple-sleep." This practice came down through early civilizations and was an adopted practice among Christians. The patient went to some church well known for its cures, which was provided with mattresses or low couches, and attended by priests and assistants. Devotions being finished he lay down to sleep. Sometimes he slept immediately, at other times sleep must be wooed by fast and vigil. At any rate, during the sleep he dreamed that the saint touched him, or prescribed some remedy, and in the first case he awoke cured, and in the second the prescribed medicine brought about the relief.

Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, wrote about 640 as follows: "Cyrus appeared to the sick man in the form of a monk, not in a dream, as he appears to many; but in a waking vision, just as he was and is represented. He told the patient to rise and to plunge into the warm water. Zosimos said it was impossible for him to move, but when the order was repeated, he slid like a snake into the bath. When he got into the water, he saw the saint at his side, but when he came out, the vision had vanished." Beside the cure of this paralytic at the church of Cyrus and John, he mentions the cure of many other diseases by this method of incubation. Among them are dumbness, blindness, barrenness, possession, scrofula, dyspepsia, a broken leg, deformities of limbs, lameness, gout, diseases of the eyes, cataract, ulcer, and dropsy.

Among the churches of Greece and southern Italy incubation is still common. The climate may have some effect in limiting the area of this practice. Miss M. Hamilton furnishes us with some modern examples. In speaking of a new picture of St. George in the church at Arachova, she says: "It is a votive offering of a Russian, who came a paralytic to Arachova in July, 1905. He spent several weeks praying and sleeping in the church, and departed completely cured. The festival of St. George is held on April 23rd. They have three days of dancing and feasting, and at night all suppliants bring their rugs and sleep round the shrines in the church. Every year many of the sick are found to be cured when morning comes."

The Church of the Evangelestria, our Lady of the Annunciation, is visited by about forty-five thousand pilgrims every year. It is situated at Tenos, and Miss Hamilton tells us what she saw during her visit there in 1906:

"On the morning before Annunciation Day this year, the pilgrims could be seen making their way to the church. Among them were cripples, armless, and legless, half-rolling up the street; blind people groping their way along; men and women with deformities of every kind; one or two showing the pallor of death on their faces were being carried up on litters. These evidently were coming to Tenos as a last resource, when doctors were of no avail. Other pilgrims were ascending after their own fashion, according to vows they had made. One woman toiled laboriously along on her knees, kissing the stones of the way, and clasping a silver Madonna and Child. Last year her daughter had been seized with epilepsy, and she vowed to carry in this way this offering to the Madonna of Tenos if she would cure her daughter. The girl recovered and the other now with thankful heart was fulfilling her part of the bargain.

"The eve of Annunciation Day is the time when the Panagia is believed to descend among the sick and work miraculous cures among them. Then all the patients are gathered together in the crypt or in the upper church. The Chapel of the Well is the popular place for incubation. There is more chance for miraculous cure there than in the church. The little crypt can accommodate only a comparatively small number, but they are packed together as tightly as possible. From the entrance up to the altar, they lie in two lines of three or four deep, with a passage down the middle large enough for only one person. Down the narrow way two streams of people press the whole evening. They worship at the shrines along the wall, purchase holy earth from the spot where the picture was discovered, drink at the sacred well, and are blessed by the priest at the altar. The cripples and the sick desiring healing have been engaged all day in such acts of worship; they have received bread and water from the priests in the upper church, paid homage to the all-powerful picture, offered their candles to the Madonna, and all the time sought to endue themselves with her presence. Now at night, still fixing their thoughts upon her, and permeated by this spirit of worship, they settle down to sleep in order that she may appear to them in a dream.

"Disappointment, of course, awaits the vast majority, but on the evening of the vigil all are filled with hope. They know the precedents of former years, how such things have happened to some unfortunate people among the pilgrims every year. Usually eight or nine miracles take place, and lists of them are published for distribution....