MIND CURES

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4773, 13 October 1893, Page 2

MIND CURES

The Miracles of Lourdes, [PBOH OTTB LONDON COBEBBPONDBNT.] London, August 18. In the current iesne of the proceedings of the Psychical Research Sooiety there ia an article on " Mind Cures and Miracles," by Moßsra Myers, whioh is well worth quoting :— The Messrs Myers, of course, regard the cares of Lourdes and the Christian scientists in America as bo many instances of cures by suggestion ; but in their hands this is no weapon against the belief in the Divine healer. The following paßeage eloquently expresses what many have for some time past more or leas inarticulately felt :— We seem on the eve of one more forward step along a road which medicine has long been pursuing. Our process has, as a rule, been from local to general treatment; frbm the application or affusion of external remedies on the diseased part to the iagestion of remedies through the stomach, and then on to the injection or infusion of remedies through the blood. "We now propose to heal the patient's tissues, not through the stomach nor through the blood, but through the brain; to utilise the controlling t*nd innervating, as we have utilised the diffusive and the peptic power. Affusion, ingestion, infusion, suggestion. At each step we touch the ill more intimately; we call more directly upon the patient's own inward forces to effect the needed change. We seem to see the great Church, like Nile after the rout of Actium, "spreading broad her breast, and with her whole robe summon* ing the conquered intoJier sea-blue bosom and her shadowy stream." But dare we press the parallel further, and say that in science we have aa Actian Apollo, armed not only with darts that pierce through error, but with rays that illumine. things to come P Can any new faith, .as absolute, as reverent as the old, guide, like the old, its votaries to healing of body as well as soul? Absolute as the old the new faith might perhaps become if psychological therapeutics should win their assured place by the side of physiological ; if it should be recognised that here, too, our appeal is made to no chance caprice or uncertain favour, but to inflexible and eternal Law. Then, perhaps, the most scientific man would be the most confident, and it would be the sign of wisdom to seek self-healing with the directness of a child. Or is it possible that something beyond mere, logical conviction may be needed- for the profounder cure ; that the self-healing mußt needs be felt to depend ultimately on something behind and above the Self ? It may be that the inmost effort must still be a religious one, and that to change man deeply it means a touch upon that main* spring deep in man. What, then, for such. a purpose, must the religion of science mean? It must mean, at least, the ancient acceptance of the Universe as good, the ancient sense of the. individual effort as co-operant with a vaster Power. If science can regain this sense for man she may do with him what she will. For she will have united with the wondersolving ana'ysis the wonder-working faith, and with the wisdom of the children of this world the wisdom of the children of light. The pager is also remarkable on account of a narrative whioh is vouohed for by a physician occupying an important scientific post on the Continent of Europe^ He is a savant of European reputation, and he declareß that his wife has been controlled by the spirit of a deceased dootor, who was a personal friend of his, also a savant of European repute. This eminent physician has arrived at the following professional conclusion as to the reality of such medical controls: — , You ask me whether I consider these agents as belonging to the human type. Provisionally, yes— unless we admit that there exists, superposed upon our world, another world of beings . distinct from humanity, but knowing it and studying it as we study the other regions of nature, and assuming for the sake of amusement or for some other motive the rSleot our departed friends.