For persons of casual thought or reading, hypnotism may at first appear complicated and mysterious, but if you will only bear in mind that the different mental processes operating between two persons always resolve themselves into a _weaker_ will power _yielding_ and a _stronger_ will power _controlling_, you have a key which unlocks the different manifestations of minds in their relations one with the other. This does not relate to action alone, but to the creation and meaning of our thoughts. The cures effected by the royal touch, which prevailed in England from the time of Edward, the confessor, to Queen Anne, were but a disguised hypnotism, or a sort of mind cure. Soothsayers, or magnetic healers, who claim a healing magnetism, are either knaves or fools, and often both. They undoubtedly can report cures, but these are due to the natural tendency of some diseases to get well, and to the hopeful thoughts which these persons inspire by their promises of a cure; sometimes these hopes are heightened by the different movements or passes which the healer makes. The greatest healer of whom we have any reliable record never claimed any abnormal power or force. Christ healed by the Word, that means by the thought or mind. Faith in anything creates a curative or healing thought in the mind of the patient, which stimulates the reparative or healing force of nature, and in this manner wonderful cures are effected. The faith, or confidence, which you have in a physician stimulates you at once into a better or stronger feeling. This has been the experience of every sick person, but this is not due to any power or force that this person possesses, which departs from him and goes over to you, but is entirely due to the confidence, which stimulates your own nerve centers, and especially the brain. The soothing and quieting influence which the “Weapon Ointment” had on the injured person was not due to any virtue of this ointment, because it was never applied to the wound, but to the weapon or implement which caused the wound. Its operations were entirely mental or psychical. It pacified the excited and anxious mind into the faith or belief that the best possible thing to do was being done, and nature went on triumphantly and effected the cure, for which, of course, she never got any credit. When a doctor or healer enters the chamber of the sick, putting on a wise air, or indulges in affectation, and when he succeeds in making a good impression, that alone assuages the pain. But if, on the other hand, he impresses his patients unfavorably, the sooner he gets out of their sight, the better they feel, because his presence has inspired neither confidence nor hope.