E-text prepared by David Clarke, Turgut Dincer, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 23101-h.htm or 23101-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/1/0/23101/23101-h/23101-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/1/0/23101/23101-h.zip) +------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | East Syriac Cross signs are shown by [+] | +------------------------------------------+ THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF MENTAL HEALING by GEORGE BARTON CUTTEN, Ph.D. (Yale) President Of Acadia University Illustrated New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1911 [Illustration: BAS-RELIEF REPRESENTING THE GALLIC AESCULAPIUS DISPATCHING A DEMON] Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner's Sons Published February, 1911 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF Artemus Wyman Sawyer, D.D., LL.D. PRESIDENT OF ACADIA UNIVERSITY 1869-1896 HE HID FROM US HIS HEART WHILE WE THOUGHT THAT HE LOVED ONLY HIS STUDIES; WE LATER LEARNED THAT HE LAID EMPHASIS ON THAT WHICH HE LOVED ONLY LESS--TRUE KNOWLEDGE, IN ORDER THAT HE MIGHT INTRODUCE IT TO THOSE THAT HE LOVED MOST--HIS PUPILS. HE TAUGHT AS NONE OTHER CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction--Mental Healing 3 II. Early Civilizations 19 III. The Influence of Christianity 35 IV. Relics and Shrines 61 V. Healers 110 VI. Talismans 138 VII. Amulets 158 VIII. Charms 189 IX. Royal Touch 224 X. Mesmer and After 249 XI. The Healers of the Nineteenth Century 273 Index 309 PREFACE The present decade has experienced an intense interest in mental healing. This has come as a culmination of the development along these lines during the past half century. It has shown itself in the beginning of new religious sects with this as a, or the, fundamental tenet, in more wide-spread general movements, and in the scientific study and application of the principles underlying this form of therapeutics.