Chapter VIII - Healing the Sick
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given; an accumulated debt more to be feared than his
given; an accumulated debt more to be feared than his
creditor's account. The wickedest or the best man is
not understood by the age in which he lives; both are
beyond its appreciation. The wickedest man commits
his sins knowingly and in secret, having not grown suf-
ficiently to be punished by Wisdom, he hides his evil in
the manner we shall name; and the best man is hidden
from the present age in the Wisdom of future ages.
When separating tares from the wheat the mills of God
grind slowly, and if the tares that Wisdom casts away,
predominate we see little results, but if there be much
wheat, stores are garnered because of the grinding.
"Whomsoever He loveth, him he also chasteneth."
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There is but one possible way of doing wrong with a
There is but one possible way of doing wrong with a
mental method of healing, and this is mesmerism,
whereby the minds of the sick may be controlled with
error instead of Truth. Whoever has witnessed the
effects of mesmerism, has seen it make a joint stiff or
a limb lame, proving beyond a doubt it can affect the
body injuriously. Whispering into the minds of the
sick falsehoods, will do their bodies harm if Truth
poured into their minds does the body good. We have
witnessed the proof of both these statements. For
years we had tested the benefits of Truth on the body,
and knew no opposite chance for doing evil through a
mental method of healing until we saw it traduced by
an erring student and made the medium of error.
Introducing falsehoods into the minds of the patients
prevented their recovery, and the sins of the doctor
were visited on the patients, many of whom died be-
cause of this; cases that the Truth of being would
have healed, his own error rendered hopeless. Witness-
372:1
ing these terrible results was our occasion for learning
ing these terrible results was our occasion for learning
their cause, or discovering this mal-practice, and our
students are well aware we have no difficulty in tracing
the mental cause of disease. But before we discov-
ered this mal-practice and its motives, the evil had
reached so far, and held such sway over the patient's
minds, when we informed one she was not recovering
and had better return home, she answered with indig-
nation, "My doctor says I am recovering," but died
before she reached her earthly home. Wholly uncon-
scious of his secret method of turning the minds of
those he manipulated, against his benefactor, or of its
effects on their bodies, the patients asked us if the doc-
tor had lost his power, not understanding it was his
loss of Truth, and the hidden evil of his course that
injured the patients. A student of science cannot prac-
tice mesmerism honestly, therefore successfully, as a
Newton, who knows no higher method of healing. But
the mal-practice we allude to was more terrible than
simply a change to mesmerism; it chose darkness rather
than light because its deeds were evil. Such a practi-
tioner putting aside our moral precepts retains that
portion only of our teachings which relates to the pa-
tient's belief of disease and the method of destroying
this belief by the doctor's opposite, verbal, and mental
argument. This is the very least of the science of be-
ing, and yet the only part the mal-practitioner can avail
himself of to heal the sick. The patients have no re-
cognition of how much error he may also mingle with
this argument of Truth that will affect their minds and
bodies together, and to bad results as well as good. If
the sick recover from the effects of the doctor's mental