Sec. V. THE KING'S TOUCH. 189 Page Line Details of the healing at Lourdes will be found in Appendix XI. 543 As I write, particulars are received of a petition to the Belgian Government, signed by nearly 200,000 persons, for permission to erect churches for a creed called "Antoinisme." Antoin is a coalminer, who heals, it is claimed, by "mere spiritual means." He "has become so immensely popular that he is now considered as being gifted with divine power. Results of this sort are continually being obtained by different people. They are a nine days' wonder, and sooner or later the so-called power is lost, leaving the 5 individual intellectually and physically deteriorated, and in some cases a mere wreck of humanity.* Father Ignatius not only cured, but gave diseases to people, and claimed to have raised from the dead. I know the man who was sent by one of the leading daily papers to investigate into one instance of the latter. He gave me details of his investigation, and was satisfied that it was a correct claim. The stories related of the healing done by Francis Schlatter, Dupuis, and others in modern times have hardly been even referred to by the European daily newspapers, the results being so wonderful as to make editors fear to state them lest they should be thought to be drawing too much upon the credulity of their readers. I once offered to go abroad for one of the leading daily newspapers, for which I was doing some investigation work at the time, and to supply for publication details of the healing that 15 was then being done publicly. Several hundred people a day were being healed. In thanking me for the offer, they said that the general public were so ignorant that even if it were inserted as a definite fact many would think that it was only "another newspaper 20 lie" T. J. Hudson, Ph.D., LL.D., gives many cases of mental healing in "The Law of Mental Medicine." 14 12 22 Sce Note P on page 599. The King's Touch. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, had the apparent power of assuaging colic and affections of the spleen by laying the patients on their backs and passing his great toe over them. 25 The Emperor Vespasian cured nervous affections, lameness and blindness, solely by the laying on of hands (Suelin, Vita, Vespas.). According to Coeilus Spartianus, Hadrian cured those afflicted with dropsy by touching them with the points of his fingers, and himself recovered from a violent fever by similar treatment. King Olaf 30 healed Egill on the spot by merely laying his hands upon him and singing proverbs (Edda, p. 216). The formula used on such occasions was, "Le roi te touche, allez et guerrissez." ‡ so that the word was connected with the act of touching-physical contact. In Eng 12 21 land a disease cured by the kings was called the King's Evil; and in France the power of so-called healing was retained by the kings until within the memory of men now living. Amongst the German princes this curative power was ascribed to the Counts of Hapsburg, and they were also said to cure stammering by a kiss. Lecky, the historian, says that the efficacy of the king's touch was asserted by the Privy Council, by bishops of two religions, by the general voice of the clergy in the palmiest days of the English Church, by the University of Oxford, and by the enthusiastic assent of the people.' 40 The "Daily Mail" of October 22nd, 1909, contained an account of another form of the attempt to relieve suffering, referred to by them as "the King's touch." At 4 p.m., on the 21st, the doors of the Royal Edward Tuberculosis Institute in Montreal were electrically opened, the flag hoisted, and the building lit up throughout, by the late King Edward * Antoin died a few years after this was written. "Life of Father Ignatius." by Baroness de Bertouch. Page Line 135 16 177 7 Sec. V. touching a button in England. His Majesty then despatched the following telegram: "I have much pleasure in declaring the Royal Edward Institute at Montreal now open. The means by which I make this declaration testifies to the power of modern science, and I am confident that the future history of the institute will afford equally instructive testimony to the beneficent results of that power when 5 applied to the conquest of disease and the relief of human suffering. I shall always take a lively interest in the institute, and I pray that the blessing of the Almighty may rest upon all those who work in and for it, and also upon those for whom it works." There is reserved for England's King and Queen, types of 10 282 20,40 a united understanding, the inestimable privilege of the application of the healing touch, in yet more magnificent form. 285 11 445 6 359 6 398 44 206 239 354 11 23 Is. 9: 6 Recognising their inherited responsibility, as heads of a royal race, and rejoicing now in the possession of the most advanced scientific truth, they can exercise "the power of modern [divine] 15 science," and applying it to "the conquest of the disease" of warring nations, can steer the British nation safely through the perilous times of the coming seven years, and so, as of old, "relieve the human suffering" so clearly foretold in the Bible as shortly about to take place. This can now be done in a scientific way. 20 This spiritual touch is no less than the same exercised by Jesus, 9 but in response to the mental call of an awakened world, gathering round the spiritually uplifted individual kingdom, upon whose "shoulder" rests "the government" of the so-called world of matter. This is an event foreshadowed when, in days of old, the 25 waiting multitude gathered close around the central solitary figure of the man Jesus Christ-born, let us not forget, of our own Hebrew race. So closely pressed was he, and so little understood, that the Mark 5: 30 question "Who touched me?" was ruled unpractical by even the student disciple. 30 But again, as of old, it will be demonstrated that as the crowd thronged physically and mentally round that central figure, so the mental pressure on England's (Ephraim's) central governing power will make more effective the "touch," so effective that it will be felt throughout the world, flinging wide, not merely the doors of an 3 architectural institution for the few, but the gates of heaven itself to in-streaming millions, and gaining thus a crown of imperishable glory. There is surely no human triumph that can compare with the winning of such a crown of rejoicing; and no demonstration of healing can exceed or equal the results of that royally mental touch. The results of the exercise of Israel's kingly prerogative appear prefigured in the Apocalyptic vision of the Holy City: "And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it (Rev. 21, ver. 24). Sec. V. Page Line "When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, . . . And the Lord shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go 397 46 forth as the lightning: . . . they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land" (Zech. 9, ver. 13, 14, 16). 440 18 5 The healing message of truth shot from Judah's bow is surely Ephraim's royal touch on the thought of the material world, destroy- 398 16 ing the Apocalyptic dragon, and bringing the "tens of thousands " of Ephraim into the Kingdom of Christ on earth. MODERN VIEWS. 76 37 Thoughts in action admittedly appear to control the muscles, as in the playing of music, the forming of a letter with a pen, the 78 strokes of an artist's brush upon his canvas. If the human consciousness has apparently complete control over muscular action, why does it not equally control all other functions of the body? 15 It has this apparent control, and this is now being taught by scientific men. Lord Kelvin, in "The Fortnightly Review," March, 1892, says: "The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry hitherto entered on." 20 Martin Crane, in "Right and Wrong Thinking," from which some half-dozen of the following quotations are taken, deals very fully with "mental" effect. President Hall, of Clark University, is reported as saying, before a session of the American Medico-Psychological Society in 125 Boston, that "the relations between the body and the emotions 16 are of the closest" and "there can be no change of thought without a change of muscle." He also suggests the possibility that the 193 13 right course in thinking might develop the muscle as well as the 201 right course of exercise. 0 Professor C. A. Strong, of Columbia University, says, "Recent psychologists tell us that all mental states are followed by bodily changes. . . . This is true of desires, of emotions, of pleasures and pains, and even of such seemingly non-impulsive states as sensations and ideas. It is true, in a word, of the entire range of our mental life. The bodily effects in question are, of course, nct limited to the voluntary muscles, but consist in large part, of less patent changes in the action of heart, lungs, stomach, and other viscera." 40 Professor James, of Harvard University, has said: "All mental states... lead to inconspicuous changes in breathing circulation, general muscular tension, and glandular or other visceral 30 Page Line 193 19 Sec. V. activity, even if they do not lead to conspicuous movements of the muscles of voluntary life . . . all states of mind, even mere thoughts and feelings, are motor in their consequences." Professor Ladd, of Yale, says: "Even the most purely vegetative of the bodily processes are dependent for their character upon ante- 5 cedent states of mind." Professor Münsterberg, of Harvard, said, in his Lowell Institute lectures, that the slightest thought influences the whole body, and, further: "There is never a particle of an idea in our mind which 18 not the starting point for external discharge," or in less technical 10 language, the starting-point for some bodily action. In illustration, he said that thinking increases the activity of the minute perspiration glands of the skin. This has been measured so accurately by the proper apparatus that it is possible to determine the activity or intensity of a person's thinking by its effects upon these glands. 15 Dr. W. G. Anderson. of the Yale Gymnasium, has made similar observations upon the athletes of that University, with like results. A man perfectly balanced on a table would find his feet sinking if he went through mental leg gymnastics, thinking about moving. his legs without making the movements. This shows that it is 20 thought which sends the blood to the legs even when they are entirely at rest. Dr. Anderson says, "Pleasurable thoughts send blood to the brain; disagreeable ones drive it away." How important the above statements are in the light of our present demonstrable knowledge that all the phenomena of human 25 life are ethereal illusions, the body equally with the so-called "mind." Professor Barrett, Professor of Physics of the Royal College of Science, Dublin, says: A red scar or a painful burn, or even a figure of a definite shape such as a cross, or an initial, can be caused to 3 appear on the body of the entranced subject, solely through suggesting the idea."* A friend of mine once saw, to her astonishment, what appeared to be a great red scar right across the face of her brother, who was asleep. On waking up he told her that he had dreamt that he had been fighting, and had had a sabre-cut, 3: exactly where the scar appeared. The appearance passed off in a short time. St. Francis of Assisi furnishes an early historical case of this kind. His contemplation of the wounds of Jesus was of such an intense character and so long continued, that his own body finally presented appearances similar to the vivid picture which he had so long entertained. Not only were there similar wounds in his hands, in his feet, and side, but the appearance of nails in the * The Humanitarian," 1895. 5 MENTAL CONDITIONS CREATE CHEMICAL CHANGES. Sec. V. 193 wounds was so realistic that after his death an attempt was made to draw them out, supposing them to be really nails. There have been something like ninety or a hundred well-authenticated cases of a similar character since the time of St. Francis. Professor Elmer Gates. of the Laboratory of Psychology and Psychurgy, Washington, D.C., plunged his arm into a jar filled with. water up to the point of overflow. Keeping his position without moving, he directed his "thinking" to the arm, with the result that the blood entered the arm in such quantities as to enlarge it and cause the water in the jar to overflow. Refer to Page Line The Professor went even further than this. By directing the "thoughts" to his arm for a certain length of time each day, for many days, he permanently increased both its size and strength, and he instructed others so that they could produce the same effect 15 on various organs of the body, thus demonstrating the accuracy of the suggestion of President Hall, of Clark University, that muscle can be developed by thinking (so-called), as well as by exercise. Sandow, the teacher of physical culture, has found the same thing. 201 Changed Mental Conditions Create Chemical Changes.-Professor Gates has dealt fully with the results of thinking in a long series of most comprehensive and convincing experiments. He found that change of the mental state changed the chemical character of the perspiration. When treated with the same chemi cal reagent, the perspiration of an angry man showed one colour, A that of a man in grief another, and so on through the long list of emotions, each mental state persistently exhibiting its own peculiar result every time the experiment was repeated. These experiments show clearly, as indicated by Professor James's statements, that each kind of thinking is followed by changes in glandular or visceral activity, and the production of different chemical substances which were being thrown out of the system by the perspiration. J When the breath of Professor Gates's subject was first passed through a tube cooled with ice so as to condense its volatile constituents, a colourless liquid resulted. He kept the man breathing through the tube, but made him angry, and five minutes after, a sediment appeared in the tube. Anger gave a brownish material; sorrow, grey; remorse, pink, etc.; showing, as in the experiments with the perspiration, that each kind of thinking had produced its own peculiar material, which the system was expelling. Hate Producing Poison. Professor Gates continued his experiments, collecting the brownish material until he obtained sufficient of that substance to be able to administer it in the form of medicine to men and animals. In every case it produced nervous excitability or irritability. In his experiments with another class of thought 27 |