title: The mental cure, illustrating the influence of the mind on the body,
text: ■bv* .- ; •• .**"V vnev ^^ •: v • i • •» <?. : j.°^. *. "W •< V • 1 V* c» e , <* A> . .. 'Ok -^ *U A> *fc** .*£f)&: "W •' «/>' »• ^°<* •bt? 1 • •» c\ .* ^ V r > \^ v *W -SIP.* * * ™' ^ ^. -.^p,* ** ♦<'. k'. %. ^ &sk. v .4 c ° .--Ma^ °°., J m k ■*»? J \. -m- * <■" \ •««< r «> •...• j> >*• ^ ^ *isifc»j-. % > •later- ^ ^ •* S**<k '. ^° -Sssifc °* <* »£&L< \ <<° -ask- * o_ «• .* ^ (5V v ^ -JVvV ,-y ^ '.racy/ v ^ •: •^^ ^K*. ^ < •', " There is, they say ( and I believe there is), A spark within us of th' immortal fire, That animates and molds the grosser frame ; And when the body sinks, escapes to heaven, Its native seat, and mixes with the gods. Meanwhile this heavenly particle pervades The mortal elements ; in every nerve It thrills with pleasure, or grows mad with pain. And, in its secret conclave, as it feels The body's woes and joys, this ruling power Wields at its will the dull material world, And is the body's health or malady," >*<c THE MENTAL-CURE, ILLUSTRATING THE INFLUENCE OF THE MIND ON THE BODY, BOTH IN HEALTH AND DISEASE, THE PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD OF TREATMENT. — BY REV. wf F. EVANS, n Author of "The Celestial Davm" "The Happy Islands" " The New Age audits Messenger'' &c. " 'Tis the great art of life to managp well The restless mind." — Armstrong. BOSTON: H. H. & T. W. CARTER, 25 BROMFIELD ST. 1869. "Hi* 01 c*fi X Entered according to Act Of Congress, in the year 1S00, by WARREN B\ EVANS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of New Hampshire. GIFT ESTATE OF WILLIAM C. RIVES APRIL* 1940 Stereotyped and Printed at the Book Manufactory of the Claremont Manufacturing Company, Cliircinont, N. II. PREFACE The design of the following treatise is to explain the nature and laws of the inner life of man, and to contribute some light on the subject of Mental Hygiene, which is beginning to assume importance in the treatment of disease, and to attract the attention of physiologists. We have aimed to illustrate the correspondence of the soul and body, their mutual action and reaction, and to demonstrate the causal relation of disordered mental states to diseased phys- iological action, and the importance and mode of regulating the intellectual and affectional nature of the invalid under any system of medical treatment. We have also endeavored to demonstrate the value, as remedial agencies, of those subtle forces, both material and spiritual, which the improved science of the age is beginning to recognize, and to explain the laws of our interior being which render the so-called magnetic treatment so efficient in the cure of diseased conditions of the organism, and which bids fair to supplant the current and longer established therapeutic systems. We have pointed out the laws that govern the action of mind upon mind, and the transmission of vital force from one person to another, and the potent influence of our inward states in the generation of pathological conditions of the body, and in its restoration to health. While it does not profess to be a work on mental philosophy, some discussion of the nature and laws of the mind seemed to be necessary to a proper understanding of the general IV PREFACE. subject of the volume. We have endeavored to prove the essential spirituality of human nature, to elucidate its hid- den, undeveloped powers, and its vital and sympathetic relations to an ever-present world of spirits interfused within this outside circumference of being. This latter idea is beginning to be looked upon as something more than a traditionary theory, an item in a creed, by a large and rapidly increasing number of intelligent persons in all coun- tries of the world, and is a demonstrated fact that is taking its proper place in the positive science of the day. It is to be hoped the volume may prove acceptable and useful to all who feel an interest in the imperfectly explored region of human knowledge into which it attempts to penetrate with the light of philosophy. It was far from our design to present to the public an exhaustive treatise on the subjects discussed, but to give, with as much brevity as was consist- ent with perspicuity, fruitful hints and suggestions, to stimulate thought and lead to further inquiries. The author had but little in works on mental and physiological science to guide him in his investigations, but was under the necessity of following the light of his own researches, experiments, and intuitions. He claims no infallibility for his opinions and conclusions, but submits them to the candid judgment of all men who love truth for its own sake. Claeemont, N. H., Feb. 22, 1869. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE RELATION OF THE HUMAN MIND TO GOD. Importance of a Knowledge of God. — The Central Life. — Ubiquity of it. — The whole Idea of God included in Love and Wisdom. — He is the Primal Cause. — The Divine Unity. — Tri-personality impossible. — Man a Divine In- carnation. — God in Christ. — Humanization of Deity. — All men Sons of God. — Teaching of the Oriental Philoso- phy. — Evolution of the Divine Element. — Jesus intro- duced a Higher Type of Humanity. — The Allness of God. — His Personality and what is meant by it. — His Omni- presence. — Where to find Him. — Madam Guy on. — The two Aspects of Human Nature. — Medical Science Super- ficial. — The Root of our Maladies 19 CHAPTER II. THE MIND IMMATERIAL, BUT SUBSTANTIAL. What is meant by Immaterial Substance. — What by Matter. — The Properties of Matter are reducible to the Idea of Force. — Mind the Exhibition of a higher Force. — All Force is Spiritual. — It Originates in God. — Love and Wisdom the First Substance and Force. — Immortality. — The Ground of it. — Life a Persistent Force. — Its recep- tive Forms Evanescent. — The Brotherhood of Man. — Universal Fatherhood of God. — Moral Influence of such an Idea 27 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. ON THE FORM OF THE MIND. Mind not a mathematical Point nor a Monad. — The Relation of Substance and Form. — Perfection of Form belongs only to the Realm of Spirit. — The Soul the inner Manhood. — Humanity of Angels. — Disembodied Souls in the Human Form. — Proved by its being a Necessity of Thought. — Formlessness and Nonentity equivalent. — The Spirit an Organization. — Omnipresence of it in the Body. — Pla- tonic Idea of it. — Pythagorean Conception of it. . 34 CHAPTER IV. THE DIVISION OF THE MIND INTO TWO DEPART- MENTS. The two primary Faculties. — The Love. — The Intellect. — All Love and Truth Divine. — Why they appear our own. — The Divine Nucleus of our Being. — Twofold Division of the Mind. — The Will and Love identical. — Motive Power and the Love. — The self-determining Power. — The only Life. — What is it to will a thing? — Practical Value of the Doctrine 39 CHAPTER V. THE RELATION OF THE INTELLECT TO THE LOVE. Derivation of the Intellect from the Love. — Importance of this Truth in Philosophy. — Swedenborg. — G. H. Lewes. — Love the Center of our Being. — The Will and Under- standing are like Substance and Form. — Relation of Thought to Affection. — Reaction of the Intellect upon the Love. — Correlative Spiritual Forces. — Freedom is Har- mony. — Spiritual Health and Disease. — Relation of our Mental and Physical States. — Importance of regulating CONTENTS. Vll the Loves. — Solifidianism based on a wrong Conception of our Mental Nature 45 CHAPTEK VI. THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES. Three distinct Planes of Mental Being. — Difference between this and the Common Trichotomous Division of the Mind. — Each Degree a distinct Mental Nature. — The Outermost Range. — The Senses. — Animality. — The Psychical man. — The Spiritual. — Consciousness. — Second Degree. — The Rational Mind. — Emancipation of the Intellect from the Dominion of the Senses. — Somnambulism. — Clairvoyance. — Cognition of Spiritual Things. — Progress an Evolution. — Education an Educing of what is within. — The Phe- nomena of the inmost Degree. — Perception or Intuition. — All truth self-evident to it. — The Divine Internal. — The Conjunction of the Divine and Human. ... 50 CHAPTER VII. THE SPIRITUAL BODY— ITS NATURE AND USE. The mind the real Selfhood. — Intermediate Essences. — The Spiritual Body a Mediating Principle. — The Proof of its Existence. — Testimony of Paul. — Of Swedenborg. — Nei- ther insisted upon. — Objection answered. — Shown to be the Seat of Sensation. — It is the prior seat of all Patholog- ical States of the external Organism. — Testimony of Clair- voyance. — Of Conscionsness. — The Mental Phenomena following Amputations. — Explanation of them. — Proof of Immortality from this Source. — A Succession of Organ- ized Forms in Man. — The Osseous System. — The Muscu- lar. — The Venous and Arterial. — The Cerebro-Nervous. — Being is real and vital as it becomes Interior. . 58 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. ON THE EMANATIONS OF MIND, OR SPIRITUAL SPHERES. Material Effluvia. — Odorous Particles. — Evaporation. — The mental Sphere a Vibrating Force. — Importance of the Doctrine in Mental Science. — The Sphere the outgo- ing of the Love. — Mental States Contagious. — What is Influence? — What is Divinity? — Sympathy and Antipa- thy explained. — Spiritual Remoteness and Propinquity. — Pathological States of Mind and Body traced to the Sus- ceptibility of the Patient. — Subtle Forces of Nature as Therapeutic Agencies. — Connection of the Mental Sphere with the bodily Emanations. — The Imposition of Hands not a mere Symbol. — The Breath. — The Source of our Mental Disturbances. — How to be Useful. ... 68 CHAPTER IX. VF THE DOCTRINE OF INFLUX, AND THE RELA- TION OF MAN TO THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. The Nature of Influx. — The Unity of Life. — The Mind not self-moved. — Thought not self-originated. — Teaching of Paul. — Of John the Baptist. — Doctrine of Innate Ideas overturned by Locke. — Truth transmissible. — Man's Vital Relation to the other World. — Quotation from Swedenborg. — All Knowledge an Inspiration. — Modern Spiritualism. — How the Old Testament Scriptures were given. — The Demon of Socrates. — Jesus on the Mount. — John in Patmos. — Swedenborg's Intercourse with the Spiritual World. — Sensational Philosophy Unsound. — Locke's Essay. — Condillac. — Original Suggestion. — How Knowledge is Communicated. — Propagation oi Mental States. — Mesmeric State how produced. . . 76 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER X. THE EELATION OF SOUL AND BODY, AND OF THE MATERIAL TO THE SPIRITUAL REALM. Three Theories respecting the Connection of the Body and the Spirit. — Aristotle. — Cartesian Doctrine. — Leibnitz. — Man a Microcosm. — The Body an Effect. — The Face and our inward Feelings. — The States of the Mind affect the Body. — Fear and Asthma. — Disease originates in abnormal Mental States. — Chemical Preparations inade- quate to a Cure. — Quotation from Dr. Taylor. — Mind the organizing Force. — Relation of the Visible to the Invisible World. — Where is the Spiritual Realm? — Mate- rial things inclose a Spiritual Essence. — Pneumatopathy or Mental Hygiene 87 CHAPTER XI. CORRESPONDENCE OF THE BRAIN AND THE MIND. The Brain the Organ of the external Manifestation of the Mind. — Its Extension into the Body. — Its two Substances and their Correspondence. — The Positive and Negative Forces. — The Brain first formed in the Fetus. — Pleurality of its Organs. — Sympathetic Connection of the Bodily Organs with it. — The three Brains. — Their Relation to the Degrees of the Mind. — Their independent Action. — The Cerebrum and its Correspondence. — The Cerebellum. — Sleep-Waking. — Mental Exaltation. — Freedom from the bodily Senses. — The Medulla Oblongata. — State of the Mind and Body in the Trance. — Scientific View of Death. X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. THE HEART AND LUNGS, AND THEIR RELATION TO THE LOVE AND INTELLECT. Two Universals of the Mind. — Answering Organs of tho Body. — The Extension of the Heart into the System. — The Veins and Arteries. — The Heart corresponds to the Affectional Nature. — Proof. — Influence of our Emotional States upon its Action. — And upon Secretion and Nutri- tion. — Subtle Element of the Blood. — The Diffusion of the Pulmonary Substance. — The Lungs derived from the Heart. — They Answer to the Intellect. — Effect of the States of Thought upon Respiration. — Relation of Respi- ration to Voluntary Motion. — To the Sensibility of the Nerves. — Influence of Anaesthetic Agents. — How the Mind can increase or diminish vital Action. — Sympathetic Movement of the Heart and Lungs. — How to regulate the Action of the Heart. — How to change our Emotions. — Influence of our Mental States upon the vital Functions. — True Method of Study in Natural Science. — The New Age. — Immanence of the Spiritual World. . . . 109 CHAPTER XIII. CORRESPONDENCE OF THE STOMACH AND THE MIND. The Office of the Stomach. — The Digestive Process. — What answers to it in the Mental Economy ? — Therapeutic In- fluence of new Ideas. — Mental Medicine. — Two Stomachs. — Dual Nature of Memory. — Common Forms of Speech Recognizing the Relation of the Stomach to the Memory. — Mental and Bodily Growth. — Mental Vigor necessary to Digestion. — Perpetual Spiritual Adolescence. — What is Old Age? — How to be always Young. — Diseases which are attended with a Loss of the Power of Attention and Memory , 120 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XIV. THE REFLEX INFLUENCE OF THE STOMACH UPON THE MIND. Sensitiveness of the Epigastric Nerves. — Seeress of Prevorst. — Reading with the Pit of the Stomach. — • The interior Es- sence of things. — Their Influence. — Psychometry. — Ef- fect of Medicines held in the Hand. — Philosophy of Amu- lets. — Action of the hidden Properties of things upon the Reticular Membranes of the Stomach. — Effect of Food upon the Mind. — The Philosophy of Dieting. — Mental Stimulus necessary to Digestion. — The Condition of the Stomach and our Feelings. — Action and Reaction. — The Law of Sympathy between us and those in the Interior Realms. — Effect of happy Frames of Mind upon the Epi- gastric Nerves. — Mental States attending Various Condi- tions of the Stomach. — Plunger and its Mental Effects. — The States of the Stomach and Crime. — Hygienic Value of Cheerfulness and other Affectional States. . . . 132 CHAPTER XV. EXCRETIONS OF THE BODY AND THE MIND, AND THEIR RELATION. The Excreting Organs and their Use. — Their irregular Action a fruitful Source of Disease. — Influence of the Mind upon them. — The Lower Intestine and the Brain. — Influence of certain Mental States upon it. — Diseases of the Rectum and their Mental Cause. — How Cured. — Office of the Liver. — Chemical Nature of the Bile. — Sym- pathy between the Liver and Kidneys. — Connection of the Liver with the Brain. — Correspondence with the Mind. — Influence of Conscience upon the Hepatic Func- tions. — State of the Mind in Duodenitis. — The Cure. — Xll CONTENTS. Melancholy and the Liver. — Elimination of the effete Products of the Mind. — Mental Influence upon the Renal Functions. — Diabetes. — The Connection of the Kidneys with the Brain. — Causality. — Excretory Action of the Intellect. — Renewal of the Spirit. — Perpetual Progress. 144 CHAPTER XVI. THE SKIN. ITS CONNECTION WITH THE INTER- NAL ORGANS, AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE MIND. Structure and Functions of the Skin. — Amount Secreted by k daily. — The Period in which the Body is renewed. — The Chemical Laboratory of the System. — Unrecognized Sources of Nutrition. — How prolonged Abstinence has been sustained. — Effect of Medicines applied to the Skin. — Psychological Remedies. — Cellular Tissue. — Mucous and Serous Membranes. — The Physiological Condition in a Common Cold. — The Action of the Mind upon the Skin. — A Psychological Sweat. — Effect of Sleep. — State of the Mind underlying Consumption. — Control over the Action of the Skin by the Magnetizer. — Mind the only Causal Agent. — The Ablutions of the Jewish and Mohammedan Laws. — Spiritual Effects of Bathing 161 CHAPTER XVII. THE SENSES. THEIR CORRESPONDENCE, AND INDEPENDENT OR SPIRITUAL ACTION. Sensation a Spiritual Phenomenon. — Vision without the ex- ternal Eye. — Somnambulism. — Independent Clairvoy- ance. — The Relation of the Eye to the Intellect. — Sym- pathy of the Eye with other Organs. — The Spiritual Eye can discern Material Things. — The Sense of Hearing. — CONTENTS. Xlll The Mental Act underlying the Sensation of Sound. — Dif- ferent Forms of Deafness. — How to Treat them. — The Connection of Voluntary Hearing with the Organ of Cau- tiousness. — The seat of Otalgia. — Clairaudience or Spir- itual Hearing. — The Sense of Touch. — Its general Diffu- sion. — Its Eelation to the Love. — Communication of life by the Hand. — The sense of Smell. — Its Spiritual Action. — Taste. — Its Use. — The Spiritual Senses. — How they are opened. — Diseased Conditions in which the Inner Senses are emancipated . ' *. . . 176 CHAPTEE XVIII. THE MYSTERY OF LIFE EXPLAINED. Theories Concerning the Nature of Life. — Not the Eesult of Organization. — The Mosaic Theory. — Electro-Biology. — The Nervous Fluid. — Definition of Life by Bichat. — Cole- ridge. — Schelling. — De Blainville. — Comte. — Herbert Spencer. — Swedenborg. — Its inmost Degree is Love. — Organic and Inorganic Forces. — Life a Force. — Correla- tion and Equivalence of Mental Forces. — Influence of the Emotive Life upon the Intellect. — Relation of Vital Force and Animal Heat. — Health is Equilibrium. — Disease an Inharmony. — Source of Animal Heat. — Heat a Form of Motion. — The Vital Movements. — The Heat of the Sun the Living Force of Nature. — God's Love an all-pervad- ing Life. — The External lives from the Internal. — Effect of Sensation upon the Body. — Influence of the Emotions and Affections upon the organic Functions. — Secretion. — ■ Muscular Contractility. — The Sexual Instinct. — Its Influ- ence upon the Involuntary Physiological Processes. Importance of Regulating the Affections. — Impartation of Life. — Disease and Selfishness. — The Divine Order of Human Existence 198 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. MENTAL METAMORPHOSIS ; OR HOW TO INDUCE UPON OURSELVES ANY DESIRABLE MENTAL STATE. Relation of Mental Disturbance to Disease. — Therapeutic Spiritual Forces. — Our Emotions involuntary. — Self-Con- version. — A General Law stated. — Relation of Form to Internal Character. — The Lesson taught us by the Stage. — Expression of our Inward States by the Face. — How to effect a Change in our Feelings. — Hygienic Value of the Law. — Inspiration and Respiration. — Soul and Breath. — Peculiar Sensation attending Psychological Influence. — Nearness of the Inner Realm. — How to be Inspired. — Breathing of the Soul. — The Respiration peculiar to all depressing Mental States. — How to relieve ourselves of them. — Usefulness of the Swedish Movements. . . 222 CHAPTER XX. THE COMMUNICATION OF LIFE AND OF SANA- TIVE MENTAL INFLUENCE. The Primal Source of Life. — Man imparts life to all below him. — Vital Force Communicable. — How Jesus gave his Life a Ransom for Many. — His cures not Miraculous in the Theological Sense. — The royal Touch for Scrofula. — Sanative Influence of the Hand. — Knowledge is Power. — Mental Conditions necessary to a Cure. — Faith a Spiritual Force. — Its Therapeutic Influence. — The Cure of a Par- alytic by Davy with a Thermometer. — Effect of Fear. — Case of Hydropobia caused by it. — Experiment with four Russian Criminals. — The Rose-water Cure. — Vital Force and animal Heat correlative. — How Heat is generated and transmitted. — Therapeutic Influence of Friction. — Compression. — Percussion. — Motion. — Adaptation of the CONTENTS. XV Hand as an Instrument for Communicating Life. — Effi- ciency of the Duplicated Movements accounted for. — How to Induce upon a Patient the proper State of Mind. — Po- larity of our Feelings. — Inverted Action of the Cerebral Organs. — Restoration of the Equilibrium. — Mental Vi- bration. — How Jesus healed the Sick. — Health is Conta- gious. — Spiritual Inoculation. — Mental Leaven. . 237 CHAPTER XXI. THE MIND NOT LIMITED BY SPACE IN THE TRANSMISSION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SANATIVE INFLUENCES. Freedom of the Mind from Spatial Restraint. — Spiritual Presence. — Mental Locomotion. — Physiological influence of Psychological Impressions. — Transmission of Mental Force. — The Model Man and Great Physician. — His Free- dom from Material Limitations. — The Interior State in- tensely Positive. — The Prayer-Cure. — The Laws govern- ing it. — Love the Healing Power. — The Mind to be first Healed. — The Mystery of the Cures wrought by Jesus explained. — How to Convert Souls without a Miracle. — Nature of the Mental Sphere. — Healing at a Distance. — The Laws by which it is Effected. — Directions given in regard to it. — Communication of abnormal States by Sympathy. — Practical Value of the Law. . . . 259 CHAPTER XXII. APPETITES, INTUITIONS AND IMPRESSIONS, AND THEIR USE. Essential Spirituality of Man. — The Vis Medicatrix Natures is a Mental Force. — The Fetal Growth. — Incubation. — The Nature and Office of the Appetites. — Their Pre- scriptions. — Illustrations. — Nutriment for the Mind. — XVI CONTENTS. Spiritual Starvation. — Gibeonitish Crusts. — Voices with- out a Sound. — Spiritual Impressions. — A deep and calm Revealing. — A Law of the Spiritual Life. — The Com- munion of Saints. — Education of our Intuitions. — The Inner Language. — The Cogitatio Loquens. — Intuitional Prescriptions. — Mental Telegraphing. — Madam Guyon and her Confessor. — Development of our hidden Powers. . . . , 278 CHAPTER XXIII. THE SANATIVE POWER OF WORDS. The Words we utter embody our Mental Force. — They are the Index of Character. — How our Mental States affect our Words. — Their Permanence in the Memory. — Their lasting Influence. — Fact given by Coleridge. — Dr. Rush. — The Power of Written Words. — Books have Life. — Effect of it upon the Pyschometer. — Prescriptions of Frederica Hauffe. — Psychical Remedies. — The Creative Utterances of Jesus. — Frederic Von Schlegel's Philosophy of the Communicated Word. — Therapeutic Force of Kind Words. — Testimony of Baglivi 296 CHAPTER XXIV. THE RELATION OF MENTAL FORCE TO PHYSIC- AL STRENGTH AND HOW TO CURE GENERAL DEBILITY. The' Amount of Force generated in the System. — Whence Produced. — The Abnormal State called General Debility. — What is Strength? — Case cited to show its Mental Origin. — The Mental Faculties that influence the Will- Force. — Their Importance. — The Cerebral Organ of Muscular Motion. — The Relation of respiration to Mus- cular Force. — What is Swooning ? — The Force of the Bod- ily Movement proportioned to the Mental Energy — The CONTENTS. XV11 Effect of Respiration upon the Vital Processes. — Nervous- ness a Mental State. — Its cure. — Relaxation of the Ab- dominal Muscles. — Misplacement of the Internal Organs. — Depressing Mental States the Cause. — How to get rid of the Supporter and Body Brace. — Relation of the Mind to Diseases of Diminished Vitality. — Dr. Combe. . 309 CHAPTEE XXV. SLEEP AS A MENTAL STATE, ITS HYGIENIC VALUE, AND HOW TO INDUCE IT. Sleep Denned. — Its Influence upon the involuntary Physio- logical Processes. — Nutrition. — Circulation. — The Ex- creting Organs. — Its Remedial Value. — The Obstacles to it. — Cold Feet. — Tea and Coffee. — The Law that Governs in inducing it upon Ourselves. — Position of the Eye. — Its Effect upon the Cerebrum. — The Respiration in Sleep. — In the Magnetic Trance. — The moral Influ- ence of Sleep. — The Order in which the Senses lose their Susceptibility to Impression. — Practical Directions based upon this Law 325 CHAPTER XXVI. THE WILL-CURE, ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. Connection of the Organs with the Mind. — How to affect their Functional Action. — The Will-Force and the Stom- ach and Intestinal Canal. — Cause of Coldness and Weak- ness. — The Cure. — The Passive Will-Cure. — A General Law of Health Stated. — Voluntary Movements Fatiguing. — The Involuntary Actions not so. — How to take up thy bed and walk. — How to walk a hundred miles a day. — The Interior State. — Its healthful Influences. — Passive Knowledge. — Influx of better Emotional States. — The Spirit with which to approach the Inner World. — Im- portance of our Relations to it 335 XV111 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXVII. THE INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD UPON MENTAL HEALTH AND DISEASE. A Self-Evident Truth.— The Law of Sympathy. — How Jesus bore Men's Sicknesses. — Obsession. — Its Influence in causing Disease. — How cured. — Experiences of Swedenborg. — What is a Demon ? — Psychological Laws stated. — Scriptural Statements respecting destroying Angels. — They could save Life as well. — The Medium through which Mind acts upon Matter. — Ponderable Bodies moved by Spiritual Forces. — The Release of Peter. — Paul and Silas. — The Rolling away of the Stone at the Entrance of the Sepulcher. — The Availability of such unseen Forces. — Their Useful Employment. — The Plates of Copper and Zinc. — Positive and Negative Mental Forces. — Angelic Influence in the Cure of disordered Spiritual States. — The Nature of Goodness. — The Angelic Ministry. — Vital Connection with the* other World. — Nearness of the unseen Realm. — Longfellow. . . 347 THE MENTAL-CURE. CHAPTER I. THE RELATION OF THE HUMAN MIND TO GOD. Importance of a Knowledge of God. — The Central Life. — Ubiquity of it. — The whole Idea of God included in Love and Wisdom. — He is the Primal Cause. — The Divine Unity. — Tri-personality impossible. — Man a Divine In- carnation. — God in Christ. — Humanization of Deity. — All men Sons of God. — Teaching of the Oriental Philoso- phy. — Evolution of the Divine Element. — Jesus introduced a Higher Type of Humanity. — The Alhiess of God. — His Personality and what is meant by it. — His Omnipresence. — Where to find Him. — Madam Guy on. — The two As- pects of Human Nature. — Medical Science Superficial. — The Boot of our Maladies. ALL TRUE philosophy must begin and end in God, the fountain of all life, aud love and truth. A correct knowledge of the soul involves of necessity a true conception of the Divine Being. To sunder the human mind from him, and then study its phenom- ena, is to discern only effects, without rising to the 20 THE MENTAL-CURE. higher and more satisfying knowledge of things in their prime causes. The latter alone constitutes truo science and real philosophy. God is the Fijst and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending of all finite things. In him is life. He alone has life in himself unoriginated and self-derived. All else lives from him and in him. Every thing, from the insect to the angel exists by virtue of a life pro- ceeding from him. We live because he lives, our life being the stream, of which he is the fountain, or it is a ray of which he is the central sun. This central life is every where and in all. It is diffused through all space and all worlds. It is the inmost essence of all created things. But God's life is love. All that we can think of him is included in the terms Love and Wisdom. This bounds and terminates our conception of Deity. All other attributes, properties, qualities, and powers of the Divine Mind must be referred to one or the other of these, and are only modifications or manifestations of these universal principles. His love is the esse of his being, as the schoolmen would have called it, or that which lives in and by itself. His Wisdom is the existere thence derived, the term being used in philosophy to denote manifested or derived being. The divine intellect goes forth from the divine love, as light from fire. THE MENTAL-CURE. 21 This conception of God is a first principle in phi- losophy, of which we must never lose sight. It is a fundamental verity, without which we can neither know ourselves nor him. It is a self-evident truth, that nothing finite can exist from itself, but from something prior to itself, and this from something primal, which brings us as far as our limited powers of thought can carry us — to the causa causarum, the great first cause, whom we call God. But this divine being is One. This grand truth was long ago announced in the deserts of Arabia, by the Jewish legislator, and proclaimed anew by Jesus of Nazareth. " Hear, Israel : the Lord our God is one Lord." (Deut. vi. 4; Mark xii. 29.) Three self-existent individualities cannot be conceived. Such a proposi- tion, as Herbert Spencer would say, is unthinkable. Two of them must derive their existence from the first, and that which has not being in itself is not God. It does not answer. our conception of Deity. Man is a finite image of God, or in other words, he is a created form recipient of the one only Life. He is a manifestation and in a mitigated sense, an incar- nation of the Divinity. This constitutes the true dignity of humanity. The inmost essence of every human soul is divine, using the word to express that which goes forth from God. Deeply hidden beneath 22 THE MENTAL-CUKE. all our external and sensuous coverings, and all our moral and intellectual disorders, is the inextinguish- able divine spark, sometimes concealed, like a gem in the ocean abyss. God was in Christ. In him God was manifested in the flesh, as never before in the history of the race. The Father was in him and he was in the Father. This vivid consciousness of the indwelling divine principle, was the marked characteristic of the man Jesus. In him God became man, and the humanity divine. He seemed to himself and has so seemed to others, as the God-Man and the Man-God. In his personality there was a humanization of the Divine, and a deification of the human. But the Deity was thus manifested in Jesus, in order that through him he might be incarnated in all humanity, so that every man might walk forth consciously to himself as a son of God and say, "I and my Father are one." Then every human nature will be viewed as affiliated with Divinity. Then will be realized the full import of the words of Jesus : " He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God." (John i. 11, 12.) Then will be fulfilled the dream of the Oriental Philosophy, which has haunted the Eastern mind from the remotest ages. TILE MENTAL-CURE. 23 " The idea of God's becoming man," says Dr. Turn- bull, " and man becoming God, is the mystic circle in which all their thoughts revolve. Nothing is more familiar to their minds than the possibility of divine incarnations, and the consequent possibility of human transformations. Somehow, God and man, the infinite and finite, must become one." To evolve and to bring forth to freedom this hidden divine element in human nature is the true aim of all philosophy, and should be of theology. This will add no new property to the soul, but only bring out to our consciousness what lies concealed within. The an- tagonism between the inmost divine essence in man, and the selfhood, or the blinded and disorderly activity of the mind, either acquired or hereditary, is the secret spring of all our mental and physical unhappiness. When the inner divine life pervades, appropriates, and controls, the more external degrees of our nature, man then returns to God, as did the humanity of Jesus. This is the hour of our glorification. This is the end of our creation, the appointed destiny of every created soul. After the lapse of ages of darkness, the son of Mary appeared in Palestine as the type and model of a new and higher development of humanity. What human nature was in him. it is the design of the infinite Love it should be in all, if not fully, at least in a degree. 24 'HIE MENTAL-CURE. God is all and in all, but all things arc not God. All things, singular and together, are finite or lim- ited, and the finite cannot be the infinite, for this, to our intuitive and rational thought, is contradictory and impossible. But is God personal, or an indefinitely diffused principle ? In a certain sense, he is both one and the other. He is love and wisdom. These are the essential properties of personality. They are essen- tially human. An impersonal affection or intelli- gence is an impossible conception. lie is an infinite Man, and we are men by virtue of our derivation and conception from him. But his divine life goes forth everywhere. Tli9 sphere of his love and wisdom ex- tends beyond the bounds of creation. The universe of mind and matter is but its ultimation or visible manifestation. The Divine Being is in all things, the least and the greatest, but in the human soul in the highest degree. Here we may seek and find him, as Madam Guyon and the mystics of all ages have averred. She declares the source of the disquietude, the unrest of religious people to be, that they seek him where he is not to be found. "Accustom your- self to seek God in your heart, and you will find him," was her advice to the Franciscan monk, who com- plained that he could not attain a satisfactory con- THE MENTAL-CUKE. 25 sciousness of God. This pregnant utterance was only a ray of the inner light and life. May it come to every man who reads it, with the force of a new revelation. We can study human nature under two aspects or points of view. 1. As it was designed to be, and such as it is when it exists and acts according to the divine order of its creation, and stands forth an im- age and likeness of the Divinity. Such a study, alas, could only create an ideal model, like Plato's perfect man. Or we should be obliged to confine our inves- tigations to the character and state of Jesus of Naz- areth, of whom men, in all ages, have said in adoring wonder, " Behold the man." 2. We may view it as we unfortunately find it generally, in a state of moral, intellectual, and physical disorder. This is one of the most prominent facts of consciousness. The geolo- gist, as he surveys the wreck of former generations of animals, studies them as they are, in order to find what they were. By the science of Comparative Anatomy, and under the light of his intuitions, he is able to restore the imperfect and decayed animal frame- work, and show us what it was when it moved, a thing of life, in an age of the globe long since passed, and which presents only broken relics of its living inhabitants. It belongs to a true mental phi- losophy to discover the source of our unhappiness, 26 THE MENTAL-CURE. and to point out the way in which we may rise from our inharmony of mind and body to that divine and celestial order, into which the Divine Love longs to introduce us. All medical science that does not pen- etrate with its light to the root of our physical mala- dies and sufferings, but applies its remedies only to visible effects, and to the removal of temporary symp- toms, is superficial and unphilosophical, and "heals the hurt of the daughter of my people but slightly. " True science is a knowledge of things in their causes, and an intelligent system of medication aims to re- move the source of our suffering. This done, the effect ceases of its own accord. This will be the hon- est aim of this necessarily imperfect treatise on Men- tal Hygiene. " Philosophy is a futile, frivolous pur- suit, unworthy of greater respect than a game of chess, unless it subserve some grand practical aim — unless its issue be in some enlarged conception of man's life and destiny." As our prescriptions will be more of a spiritual character, than is common in medical science, it will be needful to enter into some discussion of the general nature of our inner being, whose varying states are the body's health or malady. THE MENTAL-CURE. 27 CHAPTER II. THE MIND IMMATERIAL, BUT SUBSTANTIAL. What is meant by Immaterial Substance. — What by matter. — Ihe Properties of Matter are reducible to the Idea of Force. — Mind the Exhibition of a higher Force. — All Force is Spiritual. — It Originates in God. — Love and Wisdom the First Substance and Force. — Immortality. — The Ground of it. — Life a Persistent Force. — Its recep- tive Forms Evanescent. — The Brotherhood of Man. — Universal Fatherhood of God. — Moral Influence of such an Idea. THERE ARE two distinct substances in the uni- verse. One we call mind or spirit, the other matter. It is difficult for some to conceive of a sub- stance without attaching to it some material proper- ties, for, to most persons, in consequence. of the senses having a controlling influence over their conceptions, that which is not material is as nothing. Their thoughts seldom rise above the range of the external or sensuous degree of the mind's action. All spirit- ual realities are in their thoughts materialized. The 28 THE MENTAL-CURB. common idea of spirit is that of refined, etherialized matter, — a matter so subtle as to be imponderable, and almost without reality. But we must learn to think of spirit and matter as discrete or distinct sub- stances, that is, as real being, but having no proper- ties in common. When we assert that mind is im- material, we do not weaken the conception of the reality of its being, but we simply mean that its essence is invested with properties entirely unlike those by which matter is manifested to our senses. Yet it is the most vitally real thing in the universe. Matter is known to us by a certain combination of properties, cognizable to our senses ; mind by other and distinct properties or powers, known only to our consciousness or inner perceptions. Yet our knowl- edge of the latter is as certain as that of the other. Persons are apt to think of matter as something solid and tangible to the senses, but of spiritual sub- stance as an etherialized, volatile essence, destitute of these qualities, and consequently of reality. But what we call solidity is only force. It is simply resistance, and is more a sensation in us than a prop- erty of matter. Taking this view of it, spirit may be as solid a reality as anything in nature. Anything that causes in us the proper sensation of resistance is as solid to us as gold, or platinum. For all that we THE MENTAL-CUKE. 29 know, or can know of hardness, firmness, compactness, impenetrability, or gravity, is a force occasioning in us a particular sensation. The world of spirit is as real in itself, and to the sensations of its inhabitants, as this outside range of created things. All that we know of matter is force, as all its prop- erties are only modifications of force. Its inmost essence may be spiritual, and what we call matter may be only the outward clothing, or ultimation, or external manifestation of some spiritual reality. The properties of matter are reduced to the single idea of force. Mind is a higher and diviner force, approach- ing many degrees nearer the Central Life. All force, in its origin, as well as all causation, is spiritual. Mind is a manifestation of force entirely distinct from that we call matter. Between color and thought, there is a broad distinction. They are not identical. One belongs to matter, the other to mind. One is a material, the other a spiritual property or force. We have seen that God is the Central Life, the first and only life. All life in the universe is a deriva- tion from him, and a manifestation or modification of this primal vital force. But his life is love. Hence his love is the first and only substance, whence all other substances emanate. Every thing, from the atom to the world, from the animalcule to the angel, 30 THE MENTAL-CURE. has tne root of its being in him. He is Love and Wisdom, two divine forces, like positive and negative. But love and wisdom, or affection and intellect, are the essential properties of personality. The divine love is not a mere idea, or an emotion, but a substance from which, by creative influx, has gone forth all other being. If we can accustom ourselves to think of Love and Wisdom in God, and will and understand- ing in man, as substance, an important point will be gained. But we must carefully subtract from our conception of that substance all the properties or forces of matter, such as divisibility, impenetrability, and weight. The essential conditions of all material existence are time and space. All matter exists in time and fills space. Mind or spirit is not in time, and is not limited by space. To raise the thoughts above time and space is to think spiritually. Until we can do this, all our ideas of God, of the human soul, and of spiritual and heavenly things, will be material, earthly, and sensual. Whether the soul of man be destined to endless existence, is a question that is not affected by its ma- teriality or immateriality. The ancient philosophers, as Plato, and after him, Cicero, endeavored to main- tain the doctrine, that mind in its own nature was indissoluble and indestructible. But this is not true THE MENTAL-CURE. 31 of any finite thing in the universe. Nothing has life in itself, hut all live from God. He alone has immor- tality or life in himself, eternally springing from the depth of his own heing. Immortality depends upon the will of God. The immutability of that will is the ground of its certainty. It is true now and always will be so, that because he lives, we live also. We live by virtue of our being finite receptacles of the one and only Life. But why is not animal life, which must be referred to the same primal source, also immortal? We do not hesitate to affirm, that no life will ever be anni- hilated. It is the conclusion of the improved science of the day, that all force is perpetual and indestruct- ible. What we call life is a force, a vital force. The quantum of life in the universe will never be dimin- ished, but the forms receptive of it may change. Man is the recipient of the divine life in the highest degree. The human soul exists in three degrees, whereas animals possess only the lower or external degree. The life of animals is indestructible, but their individuality is not equally stable. The* latter may cease, while the former goes forth to animate other forms. The vital force is persistent, but the external shell that contains it, is evanescent. There is no real death anywhere. The boundless universe 32 THE MENTAL-CURE. is life. But man retains his individual and personal existence. His inner life is not only a persistent and imperishable force, springing perpetually from out the depths of the divine existence, but his affectional and intellectual nature ultimate themselves in an out- ward form that constitutes his everlasting identity or individuality. If it be true, that all men live from the one and only Life, and that the father does not create new life in his offspring (for he has no life in himself), but that life is imparted to the receptive germ in the womb from the Lord alone, then, as Des Guys has truly shown, all men are brethren, children of a common Father. It matters not whether there was only one created pair, from whom the race has sprung, or a thousand, the brotherhood of men, and the fatherhood of God are established on an unshaken basis. And moreover, all men, of every clime and color, are sons of God and incarnations of the Divinity. 