Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery

by Robert Means Lawrence

Bishop Hall, Characters of Vertues and Vices.

Certain Chaldean and Persian words were formerly believed to have a particular efficacy against the demons of sickness. The languages of men, it was averred, were not of human origin, but were gifts from the gods; and inasmuch as magic had its source in Chaldea and other Eastern countries, it was reasoned that certain words of the languages spoken in those places were possessed of an inherent magical value.[111:1] Hence these words were used in invocations addressed to spirits. In the popular belief of the ancient Babylonians, illnesses were caused by the entrance into the body of divers aerial spirits, and incantations were the chief means employed for their expulsion.

In Accadian medical magic, on the same principle, bedridden patients were treated by fastening about their heads "sentences from a good book."[112:1] Naturally, among nations where such views prevailed, physicians were but little esteemed, and the cure of disease devolved upon exorcists and sorcerers. Medicine was merely a branch of Magic, and not a rational science, as in more enlightened countries. Incantations against the spirits of disease were usually recited by the priests, who were supposed, by reason of their education and training, to be specially expert in the choice of the most efficient formulas.

The Chaldean medical amulets were of various kinds. Frequently they consisted of precious stones, engraved with mystic sentences; or strips of cloth, upon which were written talismanic verses, after the manner of Jewish phylacteries. But of whatever form, the chief source of their supposed efficacy appears to have been the words and characters inscribed upon them.[112:2] Gradually, however, a system of therapeutics was evolved, and the use of charms and incantations yielded in a measure to practical methods. The later Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions (about b. c. 1640) contain references to classified diseases;[112:3] and although healing-spells were still largely in vogue, the employment of various herbs and potions became an important feature in Assyrian Medicine.[113:1]

The therapeutic methods employed by the priests of Finland in early times were chiefly magical. They exorcised the spirits of disease by means of sacred words and healing-spells, which they believed to be of divine origin.[113:2]

Adoration of the hidden forces of nature, and worship of superior beings, gave rise to incantations. It was believed moreover that by the use of appropriate formulas these mysterious powers could be rendered subservient to the will of man. In the popular imagination, even the moon could be made to descend to the earth at the command of an enchantress, by means of an appropriate spell. For, as Virgil sang: Carmina vel possunt cœlo deducere lunam.

Among the ancient Aryan peoples, incantations were an important factor in therapeutics, and naturally the use of the same methods persisted among their descendants, after their dispersion and settlement in different parts of the world.

Christianus Pazig, in his "Treatise on Magic Incantations," remarked that the ancient origin of written spells is attested alike by sacred and profane literature. According to tradition, Ham, the son of Noah, inscribed mystic sentences on flinty rocks and metals at the time of the Deluge, in order to preserve them, "being influenced perhaps by the fear that he would not be allowed to take into the Ark a book filled with these vanities." The secret art of preparing incantations is said to have been imparted to others by Mizraim, the son of Ham, and as a result Egypt and Persia were invaded by hordes of magicians, who aspired to dominate universal nature, and to subject to their own wills not only human beings and the lower animals, but even inanimate objects as well. The Roman poet Lucan (born about a. d. 39) wrote in his "Pharsalia,"[114:1] that by the spells of Thessalian witches, there flowed into the obdurate heart a love that entered not there in the course of nature. And to the same authority is accredited the saying that even the world might be made to stand still by means of a suitable incantation; a saying which voiced the popular belief in the miraculous power of words.

There is abundant evidence to show that the phenomena of psycho-therapeutics were known to the ancients, and that Assyrian practitioners effected cures by the agency of suggestion, although they were ignorant of the mode of its operation. The method of treating and curing in a mysterious way has been a widely spread one. It was known in Egypt; in Greece there was the temple of Asklepios or Esculapius; it was prevalent in Rome; it was in vogue during the Middle Ages. There were oracles and shrines and sacred grottos and springs; and their existence and the matters and facts relating to the practices and cures performed at them are quite as well established as are those of Lourdes in France, or of Sainte Anne de Beaupré, in the Province of Quebec. Dr. Pierre Janet is of the opinion that always and everywhere these cures have been effected under the same laws. The maladies that can be cured have always been the same. There are illnesses that could not be vanquished at Asklepios; they are obdurate still at Lourdes. The same things are done to-day that were done in the temples, and under the same conditions and in the same way, and even in the same space of time. This historic similitude shows us that the miraculous cures are all of them subject to the same regular laws. In far-away Japan there exist precisely the same miracle cures as elsewhere. In fact, it seems to have been a matter of independent discovery by investigators all over the world. Dr. Janet is of the opinion that it is not Asklepios that has copied Assyria, or Lourdes that has patterned after the Greeks, but that all have worked independently and have attained to a similar use of the same natural laws.[115:1]