Ireland had in the seventeenth century her Greatrakes, who, according to unimpeachable testimony, cured nearly every disease known to man, by his simple touch—and fervent prayer.
Valentine Greatrakes, of Waterford, in Ireland, had dreamt, in 1662, that he possessed the gift to cure goîtres by simple imposition of hands, after the manner of the kings of England and of France. It was, however, only when the dream was several times repeated that he heeded it and tried his power on his wife. The success he met with in his first effort encouraged him to attempt other cases also, and soon his fame spread so far that he was sent for to come to London and perform some cures at Whitehall. He was invariably successful, but had much to endure from the sneers of the courtiers, as he insisted upon curing animals as well as men. His cures were attested by men of high authority, such as John Glanville, chaplain to Charles II., Bishop Rust, of Dromor, in Ireland, several physicians of great eminence, and the famous Robert Boyle, the president of the Royal Society. According to their uniform testimony Greatrakes was a simple-hearted, pious man, as far from imposture as from pretension, who firmly believed that God had entrusted to him a special power, and succeeded in impressing others with the same conviction. His method was extremely simple: he placed his hands upon the affected part, or rubbed it gently for some time, whereupon the pains, swellings, or ulcers which he wished to cure, first subsided and then disappeared entirely. It is very remarkable that here also all seemed to depend on the nature of the faith of the patient, for according to the measure of faith held by the latter the cure would be either almost instantaneous or less prompt, and in some cases requiring several days and many interviews. He was frequently accused of practising sorcery and witchcraft, but the doctors Faiselow and Artetius, as well as Boyle, defended him with great energy, while testifying to the reality of his cures.
One of the best authenticated, though isolated, cases of this class is the recovery of a niece of Blaise Pascal, a girl eleven years old. She was at boarding-school at the famous Port Royal and suffered of a terrible fistula in the eye, which had caused her great pain for three years and threatened to destroy the bones of her face. When her physicians proposed to her to undergo a very painful operation by means of a red-hot iron, some Jansenists suggested that she should first be specially prayed for, while at the same time the affected place was touched with a thorn reported to have formed part of the crown of thorns of our Saviour. This was done, and on the following day the swelling and inflammation had disappeared, and the eye recovered. The young girl was officially examined by a commission consisting of the king's own physician, Dr. Felix, and three distinguished surgeons; but they reported that neither art nor nature had accomplished the cure and that it was exclusively to be ascribed to the direct interposition of the Almighty. The young lady lived for twenty-five years longer and never had a return of her affection. Racine described the case at full length, and so did Arnauld and Pascal, all affirming the genuineness of the miraculous cure.
During the latter part of the last century a Father Gassner created a very great sensation in Germany by means of his marvelous cures and occasional exorcisms of evil spirits. He did not employ for the latter purpose the usual ritual of the Catholic Church, but simple imposition of hands and invocation of the Saviour. Nearly all the patients who were brought to him he declared to be under the influence of evil spirits, and divided them into three classes: circumsessi, who were only at times attacked, obsessi, or bewitched, and possessi, who were really possessed. When a sick person was brought to him, he first ordered the evil spirit to show himself and to display all his powers; then he prayed fervently and commanded the demon, in the name of the Saviour, to leave his victim. A plain, unpretending man of nearly fifty years, he appeared dressed in a red stole after the fashion prevailing at that time in his native land, and wore a cross containing a particle of the holy cross suspended from a silver chain around his neck. The patient was placed before him so that the light from the nearest window fell fully upon his features, and the bystanders, who always crowded the room, could easily watch all the proceedings. Frequently, he would put his stole upon the sufferers' head, seize their brow and neck with outstretched hands, and holding them firmly, utter in a low voice a fervent prayer. Then, after having given them his cross to kiss, if they were Catholics, he dismissed them with some plain directions as to treatment and an earnest admonition to remain steadfast in faith. Probably the most trustworthy account of this remarkable man and his truly miraculous cures was published by a learned and eminent physician, a Dr. Schisel, who called upon the priest with the open avowal that he came as a skeptic, to watch his proceedings and examine his method. He became so well convinced of Father Gassner's powers that he placed himself in his hands as a patient, was cured of gout in an aggravated form, and excited the utmost indignation of his professional brethren by candidly avowing his conviction of the sincerity of the priest and the genuineness of his cures.
There was, however, one circumstance connected with the exceptional power of this priest, which was even more striking than his cures. His will was so marvelously energetic and his control over weaker minds so perfect that he could at pleasure cause the pulse of his patients to slacken or to hasten, to make them laugh or cry, sleep or wake, to see visions, and even to have epileptic attacks. As may be expected, the majority of his visitors were women and children, but these were literally helpless instruments in his hands. They not only moved and acted, but even felt and thought as he bade them do, and in many cases they were enabled to speak languages while under his influence of which they were ignorant before and after. At Ratisbon a committee consisting of two physicians and two priests was directed to examine the priest and his cures; a professor of anatomy carefully watched the pulse and the nerves of the patients which were selected at haphazard, and all confirmed the statements made before; while three other professors, who had volunteered to aid in the investigation, concurred with him in the conviction that there was neither collusion nor imposition to be suspected. The priest, who employed no other means but prayer and the invocation of God by the patients, was declared to be acting in good faith, from pure motives, and for the best purposes; his cures were considered genuine. There was, however, in Father Gassner's case also an admixture of objectionable elements which must not be overlooked. The desire for notoriety, which enters largely into all such displays of extraordinary powers, led many persons who were perfectly sound to pretend illness, merely for the purpose of becoming, when cured, objects of public wonder. On the other hand, the good father himself was, no doubt, by his own unexpected success, led to go farther than he would otherwise have done in his simplicity and candor. He formed a complete theory of his own to explain the miracles. According to his view the first cause of all such diseases as had their origin in "possession," were the "principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places," which the apostle mentions as enemies more formidable than "flesh and blood." (Ephes. vi. 12.) These, he believed, dwelt in the air, and by disturbing the atmosphere with evil intent, produced illness in the system and delusions in the mind. If a number combined, and with the permission of the Almighty poisoned the air to a large extent, contagious diseases followed as a natural consequence. Against these demons or "wiles of the devil" (Ephes. vi. 11), he employed the only means sanctioned by Holy Writ—fervent prayer, and this, of course, could have no effect unless the patient fully shared his faith. This faith, again, he was enabled to awaken and to strengthen by the supreme energy of his will, but of course not in all cases; where his prayer failed to have the desired effect he ascribed the disease to a direct dispensation from on high, and not to the agency of evil spirits, or he declared the patient to be wanting in faith. In like manner he explained relapses as the effects of waning faith. The startling phenomena, however, which he thought it necessary to call forth in his patients, before he attempted their restoration, belong to what must be called the magic of our day. For these symptoms bore no relation to the affection under which they suffered. Persons afflicted with sore wounds, stiffened limbs, or sightless eyes, would, at his bidding, fall into frightful paroxysms, during which the breathing intermitted, the nose became pointed, the eyes insensible to the touch, and the whole body rigid and livid. And yet, when the paroxysm ceased at his word, the patient felt no evil effects, not even fatigue, and all that had happened was generally instantly forgotten. The case created an immense sensation throughout Europe, and the great men of his age took part for or against the poor priest, who was sadly persecuted, and only now and then found a really able advocate, such as Lavater. The heaviest penalty he had to bear was the condemnation of his own Church, which accompanied an order issued by the Emperor Joseph II., peremptorily forbidding all further attempts. The pope, Pius VII., who had directed the whole subject to be examined by the well-known Congregatio SS. Rituum, declared in 1777, upon their report, that the priest's proceedings were heretical and not any longer to be permitted, and ordered the bishop, under whose jurisdiction he lived, to prevent any further exercise of his pretended power. All these decrees of papal councils and these orders of imperial officials could, however, not undo what the poor priest had already accomplished, and history has taught us the relative value of investigations held by biased priests, and those carried out by men of science. We may well doubt the judgment of an authority which once condemned a Galileo, and even now denounces the press as a curse; but we have no right to suspect the opinion of men who, as physicians and scientists, are naturally disposed to reject all claims of supernatural or even exceptional powers.
In more recent times a Prince Hohenlohe in Germany claimed to have performed a number of miraculous cures, beginning with a Princess Schwarzenberg, whom he commanded "in the name of Christ to be well again." Many of his patients, however, were only cured for the moment; when their faith, excited to the utmost, cooled down again, their infirmities returned; still there remain facts enough in his life to establish the marvelous power of his strong will, when brought to bear upon peculiarly receptive imaginations, and aided by earnest prayer. (Kies., Archiv. IX. ii: 311.)
Sporadic cases of similar powers have of late shown themselves in Paris, in the interior of Russia, and in Ravenna, but the evidence upon which the statements in public journals are made is so clearly unreliable that no important result can be hoped for from their investigation. The present is hardly an age of faith, and enough has surely been said to prove that without very great and sincere faith miraculous cures cannot be performed.