Hypnotism and suggestion are as ancient as mankind. They are at the root of all "Mental Healing." Under this generic title may be grouped the invocations of the gods by the Egyptian priests; the magic formula; of the disciples of AEsculapius; the sympathetic powder of Paracelsus; the King's touch for the cure of special diseases; the wonderful cures at Lourdes; the miraculous power supposed to reside in the relics of the saints; the equally miraculous cures of such men as Great-rakes, of Gassner, and of the Abbot Prince of Hohenlohe; and the no less wonderful healing power displayed by the modern systems known as mind cure, faith cure, and Christian Science.

One fact pregnant with importance pertains to all these systems, and that is that marvellous cures are constantly effected through their agencies. To the casual observer it would seem to be almost self-evident that, underlying all, there must be some one principle which, once understood, would show them to be identical as to cause and mode of operation.

Going back to the earliest practice of medicine, which was solely by priests, we find the performance of faith cures by prayers and exorcisms. In course of time medicines were employed by them, but since, according to our present day knowledge, they cannot have had any curative properties, we must assume that they were efficacious only through the medium of suggestion.

Ancient medicine, which was in the hands of the priests, and in which many more or less impressive ceremonies and paraphernalia were used, is full of this mental influence. On the red granite obelisk of the Thames Embankment, known as Cleopatra's Needle, will be found indications of psycho-pathic healing being practised 2,500 years ago. In Egypt, at that time, the sick were laid in the temples of Isis to await the voice of the oracle which should reveal to them the means of cure.

In the Greek temple of AEsculapius marvellous cures were effected by psycho-therapeutics measures. The imagination was strongly stimulated by processions to the accompaniment of music, by prayers, and by the sanctity of the surroundings. All these, and above all the personal influence of the priests, contributed to produce happy results.

The temple sleep of the sick, which practice is still in vogue amongst Hindus in India, is a means to facilitate the effect of suggestion. The sick lay down to sleep in the temple, and are told by the god in dreams of something that would cure them.

Ancient history speaks of the mysterious doings, oracular sayings, prophetic forebodings, and apparently miraculous performance of the Egyptian Priests; of the Delphian Oracle among the Greeks, and of the Sybils among the Romans. Prom what is known of the practices, the long vigils and fastings, and the peculiar attitudes and manners of the Sybils, there can be little doubt, that by various means, kept secret from the multitude, a condition similar, if not identical with the hypnotic state was induced; and that the Sybils and utterers of oracles, were, at times, really clairvoyant, and in a state of trance. Saint Justin says, " that the Sybils spoke many great things with justice and with truth, and that when the instinct which animated them ceased to exist, they lost the recollection of all they had declared."

People were brought to the temples to be healed, and after the customary incantations and ceremonies, designed to affect the imagination and respect of the primitive people, they were found to be benefited and actually cured in time. But under and at the back of all these ceremonies and rites, the principle effecting the cure was the same principle that is being used to-day by all forms of mental healing, under whatever names it may be disguised and masked.

The secret lies in the fact that the relief comes from within the mind of the person affected, and not from the supposed source. Back of all the ceremonies and incantations, amulets and charms, relics and images, is the mighty force of the human mind employed under the mask of fancy trappings and sacred mysteries. The different forms and practices have no other effect than increasing the faith of the patient, and insinuating a suggestion in his mind.

A new order of things was established with the advent of the Greek school of medicine. The priest was left in large part his authority in matters pertaining to the soul, but the domain of physical disease was snatched from his hands, never to be returned. It follows, as a matter of course, that the therapeutic methods used by the earliest physicians would be in some measure similar to those of their priestly predecessors.

Thus we find in those times, both in Greece and Rome, a profession of medical men independent of the priests, who employed, in addition to unconscious suggestion, actual therapeutics directed to the mind or soul of man to get him into that mental condition which favours recovery. "We find Asklepiades ordering merry Phrygian melodies for melancholic conditions of mind, seridus Doric and Lydian tunes for maniacal patients, and Aretaeus advising patients suffering from religious depression to listen to the playing of the flute, and to have other diversions and encouragements.

The soothing application of what are now called passes, was evidently known at a very remote period; for there is a curious passage in the works of Celsus, the Roman physician, in which he states that the old Greek father of physic, Asklepiades, practised light friction, as a means of inducing sleep in phrensy and insanity; and, what is more remarkable, he says, that by too much friction there was danger of inducing lethargy.

With the decay of the Roman Empire and the growth of Christianity religious psycho-therapeutics obtained favour again. Prayers, exorcisms, anointments, consecrated herbs and holy water, the laying on of hands, pilgrimage to the graves of saints, etc., were all measures of faith-healing. They were greatly favoured by the belief in witches and obsession by the evil spirit which prevailed in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.

If the world is a stage upon which the powers of light and darkness contend for the mastery of mankind, and punish and injure him by sickness and death, the most potent remedies must be those means by which such supernatural powers are invoked or controlled. Prayers and holy water, amulets and charms, magic and spells, therefore, superseded drugs in the treatment of disease.

Independently of this production of particular psychic states, there existed at all times in many quarters the belief that particular individuals could influence their fellows by the exercise of certain powers. This influence could be used as well for good as for evil. Of the first use we are reminded by the laying on of hands in benediction; also by the healing by touch which was obtained by the old Egyptian and other Oriental nations. Numerous relics testify to this. The Ebers Papyrus, which represents the state of Egyptian medicine before the year 1552 b. c, contains a statement according to which the laying on of hands on the head of a patient plays a part in treatment. We see the same thing later in the cures which King Pyrrhus and the Emperor Vespasian are said to have effected. It is known that Francis I of France, and other French Kings up to Charles X, healed by the imposition of hands. The Kings of England performed similar acts, and thereby aroused a feeling of jealousy between the two nations. The Anglo-Saxon King Edward the Confessor was known to practise it as a royal function, inherent with the rank of kings and priests. Reflections have been made upon the Church of England for giving countenance to popular faith in the royal touch. Yet that sturdy man of ponderous common-sense, Dr. Samuel Johnson of dictionary fame, was touched by the royal hand for scrofula. Belief in the efficacy of this also prevailed among Dissenters and Puritans during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James I and Charles I, as well as among Nonconformists of a later period, and even Oliver Cromwell is said to have seen if he had the gift; while Presbyterians in Scotland (see Buckle's "History") were specially given to regard psychic power in ecclesiastic use most potent for moral and physical good. In the reign of Charles II, a gentleman of the name of Valentine Greatarick, or Greatrakes, acquired considerable notoriety from curing diseases by stroking with his hands. These cures were authenticated by the Bishop of Derry, and many other responsible individuals. The Royal Society is said to have accounted for them by the supposition that there existed "a sanative influence in Mr. Greatrakes' body, which had an antipathy to some particular diseases, and not to others."

In the reign of Henry VII there was a form of service to be used at the ceremony of healing. There were also various forms used in the Church of Rome; all sickness being thought due to sin and obsession.

About 1530 Theophrastus Paracelsus came forward with the theory of the effect of the heavenly bodies on mankind, more especially on their diseases. Out of this the theory gradually developed that not only did the stars influence men, but that men mutually influenced each other. Van Helmont (1577-1644) taught with more precision than man possessed a power by means of which he could magnetically affect others, especially the sick.

Later on, about 1665, a Scotsman of the name of Maxwell advanced a theory of magneto-therapeutics of his own. According to this theory, everybody is supposed to emit rays evincing the presence of the soul, and these rays are endowed with a vital spirit by means of which the soul performs its actions.

In the eighteenth century, psycho-therapeutics was the recognised method of medical men, who directed their measures towards the whole body, being still ignorant of pathological anatomy and the changes disease produces in individual organs. Reil put psycho-therapeutical cures as equal to the medical and surgical ones, and advocated the granting of a third degree by the Faculties of Medicine and Surgery, namely, the degree of Doctor of Psycho-Therapeutics, But his words fell on deaf ears. Although some physicians applied suggestive treatment by means of Mesmerism, which then came into vogue, the practice of bloodletting, purging, and other coarse measures at the beginning of the last century did not favour that condition and refinement of mind which is necessary for psycho-therapeutics. Towards the latter half of the nineteenth century, scientific medicine progressed so much that greater value was laid on an exact diagnosis than on the treatment of disease. More recently still, pharmaceutical knowledge has so much advanced that the market was flooded with new drugs of all kinds, and the possibilities of pharmacy have been overestimated.

From the earliest times it has been clearly recognised that perturbations of the soul (mental diseases) are, in reality, diseases of the nervous system, and more particularly of the brain, and that, therefore, their treatment was the proper work of the physician and not of the priest.

Of late, these facts have, been more and more emphatically brought home to our minds; and as our knowledge of both structure and function of the nervous system has increased, so has it become more firmly established and more widely recognised that the mind, or soul, and the brain are simply co-partners in the life history of the individual; there being, so far as we have evidence, no manifestation of mind or soul, no sign of mental or spiritual life, without the physical substratum, the brain.

The physician has become acquainted more and more with the interrelations and interactions of mind and body in health and disease. He has found that he cannot successfully treat the one while neglecting the other, and he has grown aware of the need of an acquaintance not only with anatomy and physiology, but also with normal and morbid psychology. In this way, as facts and rational tendencies have gradually replaced fancy, prejudice and fear, so has the sphere of usefulness and duty of the physician broadened, and there seems to be a tendency in our own day, which fully realized, is nothing else than an absolute reversal of the original order of affairs three thousand years ago. Then, the priest was supreme arbiter of both soul and body; later, this authority was equally divided between priests and physician; more lately still, the entire field would seem to be falling more and more into the hands of the physician, to whose care there may one day be entrusted all the ailments of the flesh and spirit of man.

But there is a curious sect, founded by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, calling themselves" Christian Scientists," which originated and chiefly flourishes in the United States, which regards itself as a rival body to the medical profession by reason of its claim to heal all known diseases through the medium of its healers.

In the year 1866 Mrs. Eddy discovered the science of metaphysical healing, and named it Christian Science, she tells us the Bible was her only text-book, and she seems never to have questioned her own infallible interpretation of the Scriptures. Mrs. Eddy discovered that matter had no reality of existence, and that immortal mind is the only real thing. Man, according to her theory, is quite perfect, and only in need of such demonstration as will convince him of that fact, and when there are fewer doctors and less thought is givento sanitary science, there will be better constitutions and less disease.

Mrs. Eddy, by her exposition and elucidation of the theory of the non-reality of evil, and the absolute mastery of the mind over the body, gives expression to a truth that has been familiar to students of the deeper phases of metaphysical thought for ages past.

The mental healer makes an act of faith that God will maintain the patient in the higher condition of being, and free the patient's material body from the errors of sin and sickness. The process on the part of the Christian Scientist would seem to consist in first putting himself into this mental attitude, and then in the application of a very simple form of ordinary suggestion, namely, the flat contradiction of the reality of every symptom, mental or physical, of which the patient complains. He may also pray silently and may endeavour to obtain faith in the healing power of God. He refuses to discuss any symptoms or treatment, or to name the disease, or to talk it over in any way. The Christian Scientist tells the dying man, whose very heart beats can be numbered, that he is not dying, and need not and ought not to die. He converses and argues by the week or month with the cancer patient, while the disease takes its course. He claims a " certain cure for all diseases," while he repudiates both any knowledge of disease or any necessity for that knowledge.

Chistian Science has seized upon auto-suggestion as a means to achieve its seemingly wonderful cures. Their so-called " absent treatment" is nothing but suggestion. A healer advertises, a would-be patient responds and pays the required fee. He is notified that at certain hours the healer will treat him. He is ready enough to believe it, and his faith, in case he is suffering from a functional trouble, brings him relief on purely philosophical principles. If he really does have treatment, and is better by it, he has done the work himself, and except the appeal to the patient's credulity, the healer had nothing whatever to do with the cure.

The object of Christian Science is "to destroy the patient's belief in his physical condition," and that is where the harm comes in. For the physical state must be treated as well as the mental attitude of the patient, otherwise no cure, or at least no permanent cure, is possible.

That the physical state of the patient must be treated as well as the mental state is recognised by the followers of the orthodox church, hence another cult or movement has arisen, which is declared to be a combination of theology and medicine, priest and physician working together in the cure for certain nervous diseases. In reality, the physician plays quite a subordinate part, the chief work being essentially ethical and spiritual.

This movement was started in November, 1906, by the rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston, Dr. Elmwood Worcester, with his assistant, Dr. Samuel McComb.

The cure of the Emmanuel movement was taken obviously from Christian Science. The church-men had noted with sorrow, if not envy, the phenomenal vogue of this cult, which, they were forced to admit, had far outstripped them in numbers and influence. It was patent that Christian Science was offering something to humanity which the Church was not, and this something was the promised relief from sickness and disease. Why should not the Church likewise offer to cure disease ? Better late than never.

The weak point in Christian Science, namely, its antagonism to legitimate science, has been pointed out. The Emmanuel Church, on the contrary, accepts the reality of matter and of physical disease. It seeks the alliance of medical men, but "the main idea of the Emmanuel movement is moral and spiritual and religious, and its main principle is faith." The natural result is that prayer should be one of the strong points of the new therapy.

The New York Medical Journal of December, 1908, brought the following four points of criticism against the movement: That Emmanuelism is nothing but New-Eddyism; that it makes the clergy irregular physicians, and, therefore, illegal practitioners; that it leads the ignorant to trust the amateur rather than the professional; finally, that if patients confide in the clergyman for healing, why should they not confide in the lawyer, whose services are equally confidential ? Against these four points the leaders of the movement make reply to the following effect: First, that Emmanuelism is not an after-clap of Eddyism, that it is more witty than wise to call it "Christian Science with Worcester sauce"; second, that such leading churches as those of Boston, Northampton, and New York require a certificate of medical examination; third, that it is not the ignorant but the intelligent that require the higher psychic treatment; and, finally, as the Medical Journal itself acknowledges, without the clergy mental healing would lose the powerful therapeutic forces that reside in religion.

There is nothing at all novel in the new evangel of spiritual healing, whether preached by the Church or Mrs. Eddy. All medical men know the marvellous effects which the mind sometimes has on the body. "Miraculous" cures have been effected from time immemorial.

The medical profession has from the beginning recognised that many of the " curing" cults contained germs of truth and of practical usefulness; but these were so inextricably mixed up with illogical reasonings, unscientific hypotheses, and absurd metaphysics, capable of being disproved by any tyro inscience and philosophy, that no self-respecting and honourable scientific body would lend the dignity of its support to such flimsy and transitory theories. Moreover, the tenets of some of these sects, especially that known as " Christian Science," contain matter that is a positive danger to those uneducated in medical science; and the medical profession, true to its duty as guardian of the public health, has never ceased to warn people of that danger to health and to life.

It is not only religious faith that heals, but the secret of the "gift of healing" lies in the power of inspiring confidence, that is, in belief in the healer and his method of healing. It need not be gainsaid that religious psycho-therapy has effected cures, but the cures it may have produced are such as could have and should have been brought about by means of rational psycho-therapy in the hands of a conscientious physician. Whatever ills of humanity it is possible by any means to relieve, legitimate medicine is able to cope with. Medical men may have neglected the mental side of disease too long, but since they have come to recognise the practice of hypnotism and suggestion, psycho-therapeutics is rapidly spreading, and there is no need for any patient nowadays, whether suffering from physical, mental or moral defects, to seek the aid of persons unqualified in the science of medicine.