Dr. Schofield reports the following interesting cases of cures by auto-suggestion and faith: “A surgeon took into a hospital ward some time ago, a little boy who had kept his bed for five years, having hurt his spine in a fall. He had been all the time totally paralyzed in the legs, and could not feel when they were touched or pinched; nor could he move them in the least degree. After careful examination, the doctor explained minutely to the boy the awful nature of the electric battery, and told him to prepare for its application the next day. At the same time he showed him a sixpence, and sympathizing with his state, told him that the sixpence should be his if, notwithstanding, he should have improved enough the next day to walk leaning on and pushing a chair, which would also save the need of the battery. In two weeks the boy was running races in the park, and his cure was reported in the ‘Lancet.’ ... A young lady who had taken ether three and a half years before, on the inhaler being held three inches away from the face, and retaining a faint odor of ether, went right off, and becoming unconscious without any ether being used or the inhaler touching her face. A woman was brought on a couch into a London hospital by two ladies, who said she had been suffering from incurable paralysis of the spine for two years, and having exhausted all their means in nursing her, they now sought to get her admitted, pending her removal to a home for incurables. In two hours I had cured her by agencies which owed all their virtue to their influence on the mind, and I walked with the woman half a mile up and down the waiting-room, and she then returned home in an omnibus, being completely cured. An amusing case is that of a paralyzed girl, who on learning that she had secured the affections of the curate, who used to visit her, got out of bed and walked—cured; and soon afterwards made an excellent pastor’s wife. A remarkable instance of this sort of cure is that of a child afflicted with paralysis, who was brought up from the country to Paris to the Hotel Dieu. The child, who had heard a great deal of the wonderful metropolis, its magnificent hospitals, its omnipotent doctors, and their wonderful cures, was awe-struck, and so vividly impressed with the idea that such surroundings must have a curative influence, that the day after her arrival she sat up in bed much better. The good doctor just passed around, but had not time to treat her till the third day; by which time when he came round she was out of bed, walking about the room, quite restored by the glimpses she had got of his majestic presence.”
Having now shown by numerous disinterested authorities, the majority of whom belong to the medical profession, that the mental states of belief, faith and expectancy, and their negative aspects of fear, apprehension, and false-belief, may, and do, influence physical conditions, functioning and activities, irrespective of the particular theory, creed, or explanation accepted by the patient himself, or herself, we see the necessity of seeking for the common principle of cure manifesting in the various forms of phenomena. And before this common principle may be grasped, we must needs acquaint ourselves with the physical organism involved in the process of cure. Accordingly the several succeeding chapters will be devoted to that phase of the general subject.
CHAPTER IX
PSYCHO-THERAPEUTIC METHODS
The reader will have seen from the preceding chapters that we have proceeded upon the theory that Suggestion is the universal operative principle manifesting in all forms of mental healing, under whatever guise the latter may be presented and by whatever method it may be applied. But it must be remembered that by “Suggestion” we do not mean the theories of any particular group of psycho-therapists, but rather the broad general principle indicated by that term which operates in the direction of influencing the Subconscious Mind and its activities. Let us consider the principle of Suggestion that we may understand what it is, and what it is not.
The term “Suggestion” has as its root the Latin word suggero, which is translated as follows: sug (or sub), “under;” and gero, “to carry;” that is, “to carry or place under.” In its general usage it signifies “The introduction indirectly into the mind or thoughts; or that which is so introduced.” Ordinarily a “suggestion” is an idea indirectly insinuated into the mind, and generally without the process of argument or reasoning. In the New Psychology, the term “suggestion” is used in the sense of an idea which is “carried under” the objective or conscious mind, and introduced to the subjective or Subconscious Mind. In Suggestive Therapeutics, a “suggestion” is an idea introduced into that part of the Subconscious Mind which governs and controls the physical functions and activities, and which is embodied in the cells and cell-groups of the body as we have stated in the preceding chapters.
By many mental healers the term “Suggestion” is applied only to the particular method of applying Suggestion employed by physicians and others who practice under the general theories of Suggestive Therapeutics, and the first mentioned class deny that they use Suggestion because, as they say, they do not use the methods of the practitioners of Suggestive Therapeutics, and make their cures by “metaphysical” or “spiritual” means, or according to some creed or metaphysical theory which, accepted, works the cure. We think that the unprejudiced reader who has followed us this far will have seen that these metaphysical theories, creeds, and special dogmas are simply the outward mask of Suggestion. These healers simply supply a form of Suggestion which is acceptable to the patient because of his temperament, training, etc., and the healing process operates along the lines of the “faith cure.”
The fact that healers of entirely opposite theories and doctrines manage to make cures in about the same proportion and in about the same time, would seem to prove that the theories or dogmas have but little to do with the real work of healing. Whatever form of Suggestion is most acceptable to the patient, will best perform the healing work in that particular case. This will also serve to explain why some patients failing to obtain relief from one school of mental healing often are cured by healers of another school, and vice versa. Some need Suggestion couched in the mystical terms of some of the cults; others need it garbed in religious drapings, while others prefer some vague metaphysical theory which seems to explain the phenomena. Others still are repelled by any of the above forms, but respond readily to the Suggestion of a physician administering “straight” suggestive treatment, without any religious, metaphysical, or mystical disguise. In all of these cases the real healing work is done by the Subconscious Mind of the patient himself, the various forms of Suggestion serving merely to awaken and rouse into activity the latent forces of nature.