We believe we have shown that the same was essentially true in the earlier civilizations of Egypt, Chaldea, Babylon, and Greece. The healing miracles of the Bible, excepting perhaps the raising of the dead, may easily fall under the head of mental healing brought about by an intense religious faith in the healer. In so far as cures have been made by saints, their relics, shrines, and the like ; by the kings of France and England ; by wonder working springs and wells ; by many medical cure-alls and by other non-medical means familiar to all, the credit falls chiefly if not wholly to the effect of the patient's own mind upon his body according to the law of suggestion.

Modern healing cults can do no more, except as they recognize the necessity of combining the use of this age-long method with rational hygienic and medical means. If we leave out of account all hygienic and medical means, the method of the shaman in so far as its operation upon the mind of the patient is concerned is as little different from that of the "divine" healer of today as that of the latter is from the method of the Christian Science healer.

The decided limitations to the cure of disease by suggestion alone seems to be no longer in doubt. On the other hand the medical science that is based solely upon the physiological action of medicines, if there ever was such a medical science, seems to be almost equally limited, as has been shown by writers both within and without the profession (85) and by the history of the science itself.

Miracles of Healing 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

By Charles W. Waddle (1909)

Primitive Christian Worship
Hereditary genius