Three Thousand Years of Mental HealingCutten, George Barton
History
Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing
Cutten, George Barton
Mental healing
As a general rule, one sharp distinction is noticed between the
religious and the non-religious healers, viz., the religious healer
sees no limit to his healing power, and affirms that cancer and
Bright's disease are as easily cured, in theory at least, as neuralgia
or insomnia; the non-religious healer, sometimes designated as the
"scientific healer," on the contrary, recognizes that there are some
diseases which are more easily cured than others, and that of those
others some are practically incurable by psycho-therapeutic methods.
The line has been drawn in the past between functional and organic
diseases, the former including diseases where there is simply a
derangement of function, like indigestion, and the latter
comprehending the diseases where the organ is affected, like ulcer of
the stomach. The more we know about diseases the less sure we seem to
be about their classification; some of which we were formerly sure
have recently caused us considerable doubt. For example, we have
formerly classed cancer as an organic disease and consequently
incurable by mental means. The question is now asked, "Is cancer an
organic disease, or is it some functional derangement of the
epithelium tissue which causes it to grow indefinitely until it
invades some vital organ?"
A further question arises due to further study. Some of the latest
investigators claim that most if not all persons have cancer at some
time in life, but that anti-toxin or some other remedy is supplied by
the body itself, and the growth is stopped and the tissue absorbed.
The question then seems to be pertinent, "If the body can produce the
cure within itself, and this would be functional, why cannot mental
means stimulate the body to produce it?" or "Does not mental influence
stimulate the body to produce it?" What the cancer experts tell us of
the wide-spread extension of the disease and its spontaneous cure, the
tuberculosis experts affirm of tuberculosis, and certainly of the
latter disease spontaneous cures are not uncommon. We also know that
mental influence may, in fact does, have an indirect but no less
beneficial influence in the cure of tuberculosis. From these examples
one seems to be forced to either one of two conclusions, either of
which is contrary to generally accepted ideas, viz., first, that these
are not organic diseases; or, second, organic diseases are aided or
cured by means of mental healing. In general, however, the distinction
holds good; the so-called functional cases are amenable to cure by
mental means, and the organic are much less so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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