Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing

"A fouth o' auld knick-knackets, Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets, Wad haud the Lothians three, in tackets, A towmond guid; An' parritch pats, and auld saut backets, Afore t...

"Man is a dupeable animal. Quacks in medicine, quacks in religion, and quacks in politics know this, and act upon that knowledge. There is scarcely anyone who may not, like a tr...

"Mennes fortunes she can tell; She can by sayenge her Ave Marye, And by other Charmes of Sorcerye, Ease men of the Toth ake by and bye Yea, and fatche the Devyll from Hell."--BALE.

"Such medicines are to be exploded that consist of words, characters, spells, and charms, which can do no good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatius proves; or the...

"Some are molested by Phantasie; so some, again, by Fancy alone and a good conceit, are as easily recovered.... All the world knows there is no virtue in charms, &c., but a stro...

"When time shall once have laid his lenient hand on the passions and pursuits of the present moment, they too shall lose that imaginary value which heated fancy now bestows upon...

"Death is the cure of all diseases. There is no _catholicon_ or universal remedy I know, but this, which though nauseous to queasy stomachs, yet to prepared appetites is nectar,...

Probably no one would claim that the phenomena now grouped under the head of hypnotism were unknown before the end of the sixteenth century. They are as old as man, yes, probabl...

"The quack astrologer offers, for five pieces, to give you home with you a Talisman against Flies; a Sigil to make you fortunate at gaining; and a Spell that shall as certainly...

"Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that for a time can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like steel, so that the weak become so mighty."--...

"The office of the physician extends equally to the purification of mind and body; to neglect the one is to expose the other to evident peril. It is not only the body that by it...