Mental therapeutics

Preface

In giving this work to the public, I have no desire to antagonize any other method of curing the body of its troubles. I feel now, as I have felt ever since I heard of the first mind cures, that there must be some law underlying all such remedies. I believe there is only one mystery in the whole universe that will never be solved by man. All others will be known in time. It is man's mission on earth to discover the solutions. If it were not so, life w r ould be intolerable.

If we look back over the many wonderful mysteries that have been made plain, we will see that it is not unreasonable to make such a statement. When we stop and think that the force of gravity is drawing all material of weight to the very lowest point toward the center of the earth, we can but draw the conclusion that the time will come when the earth will be absolutely smooth on its surface. Now, when that time does arrive, the prophecy of the Bible will have been fulfilled, that every mountain and hill shall be laid low.

So, when one considers the time it will' take to fill in all the valleys and ocean beds by this slow process, he should not have to strain his imagination very much to see that man will have done the same thing with his difficulties in the meantime.

I have no doubt that intemperance and all diseases of the mind which are filling our insane asylums will be overcome by the use of the same law. I have already had almost conclusive evidence of it, but in this work I have written only what I know from experience to be absolutely true. If I am right about this law, the fact does not disprove religious works but rather strengthens them. To an inventor or to one who loves to surmount obstacles, life seems all sunshine when the results are obtained. Then he hastens to new fields, never satisfied. So in this work I feel that we are just on the first beautiful plain, after a hard climb, and that the rugged mountains await to be conquered.

I desire and hope for plenty of assistance in the great work.

OR

How to Cure all Diseases With the Mind

I

A human life should be in perfect harmony, and would be but for sickness and sin. From the time of Adam and Eve a discord has existed in human life, caused by sickness and sin. Christ came and supplied, for those who desired to possess it, the lost chord that has ever produced perfect harmony where the discord was caused by sin. He did not force it on any one, but they who have been wise enough to seek his blessed gift to humanity have always found harmony, regardless even of the discord produced by sickness.

In this book I am going to show my readers how to supply the lost chord caused by sickness, so that harmony will reign in their lives as far as it ever can, until the lost chord that Christ supplied for sin is used in connection with it, when perfect harmony will fill the heart. It is not reasonable to suppose that God, who left humanity from the beginning of time to the coming of Christ without the means of reaching Heaven, and then, through that great event gave the remedy, did not also provide a way for humanity to free itself from the curse of sickness.

For ages man suffered untold agony from operations before anaesthetics were discovered. One would think, from a human standpoint, that He would have made the world acquainted with so great a blessing ages ago. But such was not God's way. All our knowledge must be acquired by the slow laborious process.

It can almost be said that no one man has ever discovered any great new principle unaided by the discoveries of others. Wireless telegraphy was made possible only by the use of Hertzian waves. The coherer was primitively used as a lightning arrester. The laws which govern the solar and sidereal systems of worlds were discovered gradually.

It is the mind, the good part of which is God himself, that has accomplished these wonderful results. If the mind is the source of all these miraculous feats, then who will have the temerity to say that it can not cure of illness the habitation wherein it dwells and dominates. Why God, in his wisdom, has left us to find out all these things is a mystery.

God holds the universe in His hand and treats it as we do a little child. As the child grows we give it the things necessary for each period of its life, while it is constantly asking for things which we can give it only at a later time. The whole body of a child, as well as its mind, must develop simultaneously. The world, in its improvements, must develop in a like manner.

At different periods, since the beginning, there have been men who have performed wonderful cures without the use of medicine, but always in a mysterious manner. Either they did not know how they accomplished the results, or, for their own reasons, did not desire to make it known. The former explanation seems the more probable. In this connection I may mention Mr. Quimby, of Maine, Mrs. M. B. Eddy, of New Hampshire, Mr. Alexander Dowie and Bishop Fallows, of Chicago. There have been many others, but none who have made any great headway. Mr. Quimby did not claim that he was the discoverer of the long lost power, given to the Apostles by Christ, of healing the body instantly without the use of medicine. The rest have so claimed either directly or indirectly, by calling it Christian Science or Christian Psychology. There is no doubt that

Alexander Dowie made many cures in the belief that he was a prophet of God. Since the acts of his life have been laid bare, we all know that God never made him his prophet. The followers of Christian Science have made many wonderful cures and claim that they have found the Apostles' lost power. Bishop Fallows calls his discovery, if the papers have reported him correctly, Christian Psychology, yet he limits his power of the mind to non-functional diseases ; and even in these cases a doctor must be consulted. I shall not say that they do not have the power Christ gave the Apostles, but I do know that it takes time to make all these modern cures, while Christ's cures were instantaneous and even decayed parts were made new instantly. In our modern cures pain can be relieved instantly but there is no record of lost flesh being restored instantly.

II

God intended man to be free from bodily sickness some time but man himself must break the shackles by hard labor. I am going to tell my readers exactly how to cure bodily sickness without the use of medicine and why it will work, so that there shall be no mystery about it.

First I will say that but for the physicians and chemists none of these discoveries could have been made. But for them, the corpuscles of the blood and the cellular life of the tissues would not have been discovered, nor the mircrobes or bacteria, which are causing so much devastation to the human race. But for them millions who are now enjoying good health would have been in their graves. The death rate has been lowered all over the world by their great work.

From what I have discovered I can see no reason why man should not live as long as the bible says he used to. Take a child and teach it so that it will never have a cold run on it, or any disease, and it will live to old age in perfect health. Then why should the man die, except that he wears out from work, like the Deacon's Wonderful One Horse Chaise? But why should he wear out if germ life is kept from his body? For it is wellknown that old age is caused by microbes that destroy the tissues of the flesh.

I am going to narrate my experience with this great discovery just as it happened, so that the reader will see that he must creep before he walks. It is my desire, in writing this experience, to get it used by the great majority, who are debt-ridden through sickness; and, indirectly, to get a recompense for myself.

Before proceeding I desire to say that religion has nothing whatever to do with curing bodily ills. The cure is accomplished by the knowledge and use of a positive law, just as unvarying as the law that brings about the eclipse of sun or moon or the law that makes the magnetic north pole revolve regularly about the true pole. A mathematician can tell just how long it will be before another eclipse or how long it will take for a revolution of the magnetic pole about the true one. If you can not do so, it is because you do not know the law. So, if you can not effect cures, it is not because there is not a universal law but because you do not know the law.

I will describe my condition in the year 1904, my present state of health, and how I effected the great change. I have no doubt that others have used this law before but in an unconscious manner. No one, to my knowledge, has ever explained how the cures were made and why one is positive of making them.

Since I was a boy of twelve years of age, I have been afflicted with catarrh, which, as I grew older, gradually affected my throat and right lung. I have also had a bad pain in my side just under the ribs. At times this pain has been so severe that I could not sleep after 5 o'clock in the morning without putting my doubled-up fist under the ribs on the right side and lying on it. Doctors said the pain was caused by my liver and gall.

About twenty years ago itching piles developed and a little later bladder troubles set in. My father died very suddenly from heart failure and about twenty years ago I commenced to feel pains in my heart, particularly if I tried to suppress excitement the least degree. I have always caught cold every time the temperature changed to a colder one. It was noticing this simple fact that led me to discover the law that I now use to prevent and cure all pain and sickness. Formerly, whenever I caught a cold, I would be in bed for several days and unable to work for a week or more.

I used to say to myself that if I could only get some remedy for colds I would not ask for any greater favor in this life. When one stops to think that colds are the fore-runners of almost all other diseases he will realize that I was asking for more than I had a right to expect.

At the present time I am feeling better than ever before in my life. I can do more work of any kind than when I was twenty-five, and feel that life is just beginning. No pains come to my body that I can not cure instantly. So far as I can tell, my catarrh is the only trouble that I yet have. It is so much improved that I know I shall finally cure it. Catarrh being a disease that causes no pain, it is hard to keep one's mind on it long enough to get results. When one has pain it is easy to center the mind.

In the year 1904 I was riding back and forth between Oakland and San Francisco, and, as I had many hard colds that year, I commenced to think about it and w r onder why I had them.

Though I wondered what caused them I could not find any reasonable explanation, even by the best authorities, which a layman could understand and make use of.

III

One day I went to a doctor in San Francisco to have something done for my bladder troubles. He told me incidentally that he never had a cold. He had at one time made a bet that he could go to the top of one of California's high mountains with only his outer garments on — in the rain, snow and sleet, without catching a cold. He won the bet. I asked him how he prevented colds and he replied that he just made up his mind that he would not have them. Asked if he used Christian Science, he said "no." He either could not explain or did not care to.

As he related his experience in going to the top of the mountain I remembered that in the summer of 1894 I, with two others, had attempted to cruise out a trail from the western portion of Jefferson County, which lies on the Pacific Ocean in Washington, to Port Townsend, which is in the extreme eastern part of the state, on Puget Sound.

Any one who has ever viewed these Alps of the Pacific Coast knows how hazardous was the undertaking. We were twenty-one days in getting through and many times all but lost our lives. We waded rivers of ice-cold water many times a day. At night we lay on the ground with our wet clothes on. Yet in the morning we would get up and start out again with no discomfort. We slept on snow and glaciers, on high mountain peaks where the cold wind whistled through our wet clothes. And in all that long trip none of us caught a cold or had any sickness. In fact one of the party, who had bad bleeding piles when we started, found them wonderfully improved by the trip.

From the doctor's experience and my own in the mountains, I began to study, on my trips across the Bay, why we did not get colds in the mountains. I knew that here in the city, at every change of temperature to a lower degree people would catch cold or contract some other form of sickness.

Another thing which I had noticed and which excited my curiosity, was that whenever I had been long without a cold and began to think about it, hoping that I would not have them any more, I would invariably get one. I did not then know that the least degree of fear causes a slight change of temperature of the blood; nor did I know how to provide against having that lowering of the heat of the body.

Right here is a great secret! Every evil that man is heir to can be provided against if he only studies out the way. If one who is liable to be tempted to sin will but think of it beforehand and make up his mind that he will not commit it and will avoid the occasion of it, the battle is won. The same holds good with the attacks of diseases. You must learn to be on your guard, for the enemy never sleeps. To cure any sickness is easy if one is on guard.

I first learned how to prevent colds and then how to cure them after they were seated, never dreaming then that I could cure any other diseases of my body.

Before the time of my first success I had read of the great discoveries of Pasteur, the renowned chemist of France. It is now an accepted theory that all diseases are caused by bacteria or germs that breed and live off the body. If allowed to stay there, they cause lingering sickness and finally death.

I remember one case in particular which impressed upon my mind the greatness of Pasteur. A friend once came to him, saying that his sheep were all dying off and wanted to know if he could not do something to prevent it. Pasteur made an investigation and found the germ that was causing the trouble. He next went to the pastures where the sheep roamed. From inquiries he found that years before sheep had died from some unknown cause in that same pasture. He began to dig all over and found where the sheep had been buried. In the soil at the grass roots he found the same kind of germ that was killing his friend's sheep. Nothing could be plainer than this.

The theory that all diseases of the body come from germs is so well known that it would be time wasted to recite any more cases.

I also knew the theory of the blood — that it is composed of two classes of minute animals called corpuscles. One of these little fellows is red and the other white. These latter are sometimes called phagocytes. The red ones give the blood its color and their office seems to be to accompany the white ones in their swift journeys through the heart, lungs, arteries and veins, taking up the life-giving ammunition supplied by the air in the lungs and the carbon from the food, for the use of the white ones, and the cellular life in the tissues, bones and nerves.

The white corpuscles are the fierce little bulldogs of the system, which do all the fighting for and protecting of the system, after having driven off the enemy which is ever present where human beings congregate. The repairs of the tissues, bones and nerves is accomplished by the cellular life therein.

Do not forget that these little fighters must be kept warm and must distribute the necessary heat to the cellular life which rebuilds the lost or destroyed parts. A certain degree of heat must be kept up, so that your work will be properly performed and also that you may have absolute control of the corpuscles and can send them to any part of your body, as readily as you can move a hand or foot at will.

IV

In a nut-shell, the whole situation seems to be that human beings, especially where congregated in numbers, are surrounded by enemies in the form of bacteria or germs. These are hungry and cold and desire a place to propagate their kind. The human body affords them such a place if they can only get in ; but there are those dreadful little white bulldogs on the watch at all the pores of the skin in a healthy man, to prevent their getting a foot-hold.

Why God has made it necessary that wherever true progress is made opposition must exist we do not know. But such is the case. In every walk of life, where negative force, obstacles, opposition do not appear, you will find little progress. In the mountains and deserts we do not find the earth and air full of microbes and consequently diseases are rarely found there. But on the other hand very few, if any, great men have been developed from a life spent away from this negative force which we always have present, both in our contact with other human beings and in the constant fight in our bodies between the corpuscles of the blood and the bacteria in the outside element.

This is so self-evident that it is quite unnecessary to have written it for those who read the editorials and magazines of the present day; but there is a vast majority who do not know these actual facts.

Heat is life and cold is death ! This statement may be an absolute fact or it may not, but so far as humanity is concerned at the present time it is true.

Every living thing in the universe has its enemies and man has often made use of this knowledge to exterminate pests. If one desires to get rid of mice he gets a cat; of rats, a weasel; of insects, that ruin fruit trees or fruit, another insect which preys upon the first for its food. So, to get rid of microbes, you make use of their deadly enemy, the corpuscles, to destroy them or drive them from the body.

In the great modern battleship the man in the conning tower has only to touch a button here, ring a bell there or lift a lever, turn a valve, and the ponderous machine obeys his slightest wish. When he lifts a lever or turns a valve, he does not exert an amount of energy equal to the results obtained. The energy has already been stored by the workmen, through brain and muscle, and he only liberates it. It is this stored energy which enabled him to change the movements of the ship so easily. The human body is like unto the ship. The man in the conning tower of the brain has control of all its vital parts.

No power can be gained without a corresponding expenditure of power. If I have had a pain in my side for years, which was caused by the destruction of tissue, and if I instantly cure it one might think that I was getting something for nothing. Not so. I have simply liberated stored energy and it is no miracle at all — not even a greater act than that of the man guiding the ship.

God put the mind in control of the body to direct all its movements, inside as well as outside. If it fails to do so the fault is not that it has no power but rather that it has not learned how to govern it. The corpuscles of the blood are to the mind what the workmen are to the man in the tower.

I have now put the reader in possession of the knowledge I had in 1904, if he had not previously acquired that information. I hope that he realizes that half of any battle is won when the knowledge comes that a fight is on.

As soon as I realized that I ought not have colds, I had sense enough to know that there was a way to prevent them, if I only had the ability to find it out. I believed that God had provided a way but I did not believe that He would cure me unless I found that way.

Inventors all say that they have made their greatest discoveries after having studied hard and failed ; that later, when no longer thinking of their failure, the right idea comes to them like a stroke of lightning in its swiftness. I suppose that this is caused by the mind having to take time to work out the problem before the intelligence is conveyed to the picture gallery in the brain.

To illustrate this point: — I remember that when a boy, I went nutting with two companions in a wood which nearly surrounded a small farm. We all knew the place as well as we knew our own homes. In wandering about, instead of coming out on the clearing, as we expected, we arrived at exactly the opposite side. We had the picture in our brain of the side opposite the one which we saw. None of us knew the place at all. The barn and house were entirely strange to us. We sat on a rail fence for about five minutes with our mouths wide open in wonderment, when, like a flash, the farm seemed to take a turn and all was perfectly familiar. I suppose the picture first formed had to be erased and a new one printed by the intelligence within us.

So it is with you in this matter: — You have got to imagine that your views of life are wrong and that things will take a whirl before you will see the real picture of a man who need not be sick, or grow old — in looks, at least.

After studying the subject for a long time in 1904 and getting no results, one day the thought came to me instantly that the mind must have control of the corpuscles of the blood and that they would do its will if the command were given. I did not have a cold at that time and could not expect that my view of life would take a whirl till I had demonstrated the law. The first time that I felt a cold coming on, I just gave a mental order to "my workmen" to drive the microbes out, and it did not develop. I was not satisfied, however, till I had tried it again and again — with success every time.

Those first successes were when I felt a cold coming on. Later, on one occasion, I was working very busily. Having my hat off, I caught a good hard cold before I thought to try my remedy. I said to myself, "that will be easy"; but when I tried to do it — lo ! it did not work at all. I went to studying again and soon found out the trouble.

I reasoned in this way w^ith myself : — If two armies are facing each other in battle array, each trying to defeat the other by trying to get a foot-hold in its lines, a good commander knows that he must not neglect any point that will help keep his opponent from securing an advantage over him. If his scouts tell him the enemy is advancing to attack at a weak spot in his lines he at once sends troops to strengthen that point, and in sufficient numbers to ward off the foe. By making a good show of defense, he will often prevent the attack. But suppose the enemy steals up and gets entrenched before the commander is aware of it, then it will take much more energy to drive him out of his advantageous position. In case of a cold already under way, or any firmly seated disease, it is necessary to use more energy to drive it out than if it had been taken in time. It is compulsory, for success, to make the corpuscles more combative, to drive out the entrenched enemy. This is only applied common sense, such as any business man uses in every day affairs.

I remembered, through my experience with compressors, in supplying air for rock drilling purposes, that when I wanted hot water all I had to do was to cut down the supply of cooling water and in five minutes I would have boiling water without the use of fire. The lungs being miniature compressors, I saw no reason why I should not warm the corpuscles by breathing a little faster or taking longer breaths, thereby getting more air in my lungs and more heat to make the little soldiers fight harder. The long deep compressions of the lungs are the better way.

After testing this theory out on myself for three years I have never had one failure.

When a cold or any disease is just starting you always get timely warning, if you are on the watch. Then prevention is an easy matter. Just as in the case of any bad habit or sin, it is easy in the beginning to break it off but very hard later on to get rid of it.

The old way people had of warning their corpuscles was to take warm drinks. They did not know why or desire to know why so long as they got the results. I remember how my mother w r atched us children and when cold weather was coming on would mix up a small pailful of composition made from Tomsonian Powders and have us all take as much as we could. I have drunk pennyroyal tea under the "mistletoe bough" held in my mother's hand till I have thought I would burst. I remember one time a schoolmate was dying from bowel troubles and had been given up by the doctor. My mother was called in and she went to work and applied hot cloths. Inside of one day he was on the road to recovery. Heat was life in that case sure enough. The heat applied to the decaying parts brought the corpuscles there is such force that they routed the microbes.

I have explained how to cure a cold or any sickness. This method, if followed faithfully, with just the ordinary business force one uses to make a living, will always prove successful — so much so that you will be astonished at the results. Always remember that for one to be successful in any business he must understand that occupation ; and the better his knowledge of it is, the greater will be his success.

VI

I will now tell you how you get sickness or cold and explain why. The facts are so simple that I have little fear of the most learned physicians denying them. I state them here because it has been my experience all through life that it is the simple things of life that are most often overlooked.

After watching the conditions under which I caught cold, as before stated, I found that it always happened when the temperature was falling. Xow this was a greater discovery than at first appears : for I immediately asked the question "why?" I knew that if a person sat in a draft in the house he would invariably catch cold. I said. "Why does not one catch cold when out in the wind as well as when in a room?" The answer was easy to find. Corpuscles of the blood are creatures of temperature. They are more sensitive to heat and cold than one can readily realize. When you stop to think that they are the medium through which you find out that a change is taking place in the temperature you will see at once that they are as reliable as a thermometer.