The transition from fetichistic to polytheistic conceptions of cure is, of course, a gradual one. It may be said to begin when curative properties are ascribed to objects not arbitrarily, nor on account of the _look_ of the objects themselves, but on account of their having been blessed or handled by some divine or semi-divine personage, or having formed part of his body or surroundings during some incarnation. Thus Lourdes water, bottled and exported, is still held to possess curative virtue on account of the Virgin's original blessing bestowed upon the Lourdes spring. But generally the influence of the divine or divinised being is more directly exercised, as in oracles, dreams, invisible touches, or actual _theophanies_, or appearances of the gods to the adoring patient. It will be seen as we proceed how amply the tradition of Lourdes has incorporated these ancient aids to faith. But at this point our modern experience suggests to us a remarkable interpolation in the antique chain of ideas. It is now alleged that departed persons need not exert influence through their dead bones alone, nor yet only by their supposed intermediacy with higher powers. There intervenes, in fact, the whole topic of _spirit-healing_,--which cannot, however, be treated fully here. Next in the ascending scale from polytheism to monotheism we come to the "Miracles of Lourdes," to which I have just alluded, where the supposed healer is the Virgin Mary, reverenced as semi-divine. This form of belief, however, retains (as has been said) some affinity with fetichism, since the actual _water_ from the Lourdes spring, supposed to have been blessed by the Virgin, is an important factor in the cures.[100] Much further removed from primitive belief is the appeal made by Christian scientists to the aid of Jesus Christ;--either as directly answering prayer, or as enabling the worshippers to comprehend the infinite love on which the universe is based, and in face of which pain and sickness become a vain imagination or even a sheer nonentity. To the readers of this chapter, however, there will be nothing surprising in my own inclination to include all these efforts at health under the general category of schemes of self-suggestion. In my view they are but crude attempts at a practical realisation of the essential truth that it is possible by a right disposition of our own minds to draw energy from an environing world of spiritual life.