James Walsh - Psychotherapy

In a great many cases it is easy to see that the agents involved in the faith cures, and the circumstances surrounding them, are quite unworthy of any supposition that the Deity should have interfered. Where there is anything irrational, or sordid, or eminently selfish about the faith-healing, then any appeal to a supposed interference from on high is absurd. Horace said in another matter, but it will bear application here: "Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus." Do not let a god intervene unless there is a set of circumstances worthy of him. In many of the faith-healing phenomena claimed to be connected with religion there are a number of absurdities. It may be suggested that any one person must not set himself up as the judge of such absurdity. When it is evident, however, that the ailing are being exploited for the benefit of one or of a few persons, or when there are certain manifestly irrational conditions in the circumstances of healing, then it is fair to conclude that what we have to do with are only examples of healing by means of strong mental influence. But it would be quite wrong on account of these abuses to dismiss the whole subject of miracle healing as all imposture or merely mental influence.

The Royal Touch.—Probably the most interesting chapter in the history of faith cures is that of the touch of the King of England for scrofula, or, as it was known, the King's Evil. His touch was also supposed to be efficacious in epilepsy. English historians usually trace the origin of the custom to Edward the Confessor. Aubrey remarks that "the curing of the King's Evil by the touch of the King does much puzzle our philosophers, for whether our Kings were of the house of York or Lancaster, it did the cure for the most part."

Even the change of religion in the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth made no difference. Some people who hesitated about submitting to Elizabeth as queen lost their hesitancy when they heard that the queen's touch was successful in curing. James I wanted to drop it, but was warned not to, as it was a prerogative of the crown with which he had no right to interfere. Charles I was particularly successful. Charles II, whose licentious life apparently would quite unfit him for the exercise of any such power, was perhaps the English king who devoted most time to healing. While he was in exile in the Netherlands, many people crossed over to the Low Countries in order to be touched by him, and they returned cured of many different diseases. This effectively prepared the minds of many for his return. Under scrofula were included most of the wasting diseases, and under epilepsy many neurotic conditions as well as many organic disturbances. It is easy to understand how great was the room for the successful employment here of mental influence.

Queen Anne continued the practice, and many cures were reported in her time as late as the eighteenth century. William of Orange, when he ascended the throne with Mary, refused to believe that there was any special power for good in his touch. On one occasion he touched a person who came to him, saying as he did so: "God give you better health and more sense." In spite of this skeptical attitude his touch is said to have healed that particular person. In the next reign, however. Queen Anne resumed the practice, and Dr. Samuel Johnson, as a boy of five, was touched by her with some hundreds of others in 1712. No cure was effected in his case, but as the gruff old doctor lived to a round age in rather sturdy health, doubtless some would raise the question as to whether, if he had early scrofula, it was not greatly modified for the better.

The circumstances connected with the royal touch were all calculated to be curative of the affections for which this practice had a therapeutic reputation. There were certain times in the year, particularly in the spring after Easter, when the king touched people for their ills. Ordinarily preparations would be made for some time before, and the patients would have all the benefit of expectancy. Then there came the journey to London to the king's presence, and as it was usually known that these ailing folks were on their way to the king, they received particular care from the people of the towns through which they passed. Then came the day of the touch itself, and the presentation of a coin, the so-called coin of the king's touch, which the patient was supposed to preserve. On the way home they were once more subjects of solicitude, and they had the royal coin to assure them every now and then that they had been touched by the king's hand, and that they ought to get well—for had not many others been thus cured? All this favorable suggestion, with the outing and the better food, was eminently calculated to cure the so-called scrofular conditions, under which term was grouped many vague forms of malnutrition and the milder epilepsies and pseudo epilepsies, for the cure of which the touch was famous.

Cramp Rings.—Scarcely less famous than the king's touch for nutritional and neurotic conditions were the "cramp rings," which were blessed by the Queens of England and were supposed to cure all sorts of cramps. The power attached to them for this form of ailment was similar to that which the king's touch had for scrofula or the king's evil. Cramps seemed to be the "queen's evil." Whenever a queen died there was a great demand for these rings, because no more could be obtained until a new queen was crowned. The efficiency of these and the cures which they performed can be readily understood. Many of the hysterical conditions within the abdomen are cramplike in character. Hysteria will imitate nearly every form of cramp, including even those due to gallstone and kidney calculus. Any strong mental influence will do more for hysterical pain than our strongest medicines. On the other hand, many of the cramplike conditions within the abdomen may be relieved by concentration of mind on some distracting thought, and feelings of discomfort in the intestines may thus be relieved.

Mental Healers.—When the king was absent from England during Cromwell's time, the touching for the king's evil was sadly missed. If Cromwell himself had announced that he would touch for the diseases that used to come to the king, a number of cures would undoubtedly have been reported. As it was, Greatrakes, the Irish soldier adventurer, dreamt that he was commissioned from on high to touch for the same diseases as formerly had gone to the king, and, having begun it, cures followed until probably many more came to him every year than usually went to the sovereign in the olden times. He worked at least as great a proportion of cures. Greatrakes had many imitators, some of them doubtless quite sincere, but they were people of more or less deranged intellect, the kind who easily get the idea that they are commissioned for some purpose that sets them above the common people. Indeed, the story of the mental healers is probably, more than anything else, a chapter in the history of insanity, and the power of those with delusions to lead others to share their delusions. This is not a slur upon human nature, and especially upon some of the inspirations and aspirations that lift it up to do great things, but a literal statement of the view of these phenomena that seems forced upon us by modern advances in the knowledge of the psychology of mental influence and of psychic contagion.

Most of the influence that was acquired by men who in the course of history claimed to have a heavenly mission has been due, as with healers heretofore referred to, to reputed cures made by them. Trace the story of this among the Eastern nations in the old time. The pseudo-Messiahs of the Jews always advanced as one evidence their healing power, but so did the founders of religions among all the other nations of antiquity. It must be borne in mind, however, that many of the queer religions of after times were founded by men who claimed to have a Messiahship, and put forth, as the evidence of a divine commission, their power to cure the afflicted. Sometimes the men who made these claims were good men. In many cases they were apparently self-deceived. Very often, however, they had no claim to goodness in the commonly accepted meaning of that term, for they counseled the violation of moral precepts, made exceptions, for their own benefit, to general laws, and exploited their followers for selfish reasons. Provided their followers had confidence in them, however, they continued to work cures, so that even reasonable people were likely to be led to the thought that there must be something supernatural about their activities. In every century there have been two or three men who have thus secured a following, and apparently healed many diseases.