Chapter VII - Physiology
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subject is what you must destroy in order to relieve
subject is what you must destroy in order to relieve
the obedient body of discord. Go to the fountain head
to heal your patient. But what a task! say you, to
teach the present age mind's control over the body.
Admitting it changes the stand-point of old theories,
turning them upside down, and the sick may not un-
derstand your sayings at first, still they will produce
an effect on their minds, and this will affect their bodies.
This is the science of being, that Truth, brought to bear
on error, begins to destroy it. You will heal the sick
with Truth despite the odds against you, and inaugurate
a perception of science that will be for "the healing of
the nation." You may be quite sure that not under-
standing your metaphysical process of healing, your
patients will have little faith in it until they feel its
beneficial effects, showing you their faith is not what
heals them. Your demonstration must be the only proof
of what you say. The sick are sooner restored by Truth
than error, and through mind than matter. The men-
tal cure is higher proof of power, because it is made
against fearful odds, even the weight of universal opinion
in favor of matter, and the preconceived views of your
patient working unconsciously against themselves and
the metaphysical cure.
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Physiology insists the body is diseased independent
Physiology insists the body is diseased independent
of mind, and despite its protest; that its functions are
interrupted without the co-operation of mind, and that
matter-laws control the body. This error is quite as
palpable to us, and will be to others at some future day,
as the rejected tenet of theology, that "all are lost who
are not elected to be saved."
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The body is our servant, obedient not only to mind in
The body is our servant, obedient not only to mind in
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one instance, but in every case. The shocking theory
one instance, but in every case. The shocking theory
that man is governed all his days, and killed at last by
his body, is too absurd to last another century. Our
press sends forth, unwittingly, many a plague spot on
the human family, in treatises on disease, hygiene,
and therapeutics; giving names for maladies and long
explanations regarding them, affects people like a Paris-
ian name for a new dress; every one that can, will
have it. A minutely-described, long-syllabled name for
disease has cost a man all his earthly days of usefulness.
What a price for knowledge! but not exceeding its
original market value, when God said, "In the day
thou eatest thereof thou shalt die." A doctor's belief
in disease harms his patients more than calomel, mor-
phine, ether, or the forceps; mind is more potent than
matter. A patient hears the doctor's verdict like a
culprit his death-sentence. He may seem calm under
it, and to exercise fortitude worthy a better cause, or
an occasion more real, but he is not calm; fear is
mastering the case and developing the disease. The
mind's power to harm the body, reversed in action,
would heal it, and the sick would triumph over the
disease they resign themselves to suffer on the ground
of inevitableness. If mind can kill, as has been proved,
it has power to cure also. Ah! patient, or impatient
sufferer, may your eyes be opened to behold your way
of escape from sickness; to this end we have pledged
our endeavors, and labored since God raised us up from
hopeless disease and unspeakable sufferings. The doctor
is the artist that delineates in mind most distinctly the
image of disease, and causes belief to fill up his outlines
on the body. Possibly disease had appeared before