466 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eled in the search for health by pilgrims who are dissatisfied with the 

 highways over which medical science goes its steady, though it may be, 

 uncertain gait. Among them there is both plausible exaggeration and 

 ignorant perversion and dishonest libel of the relations that bind to- 

 gether body and mind. Among the several schisms from the Mother 

 Church of Christian Science there is one that claims to be the 'rational 

 phase of the mental healing doctrine/ that acknowledges the reality of 

 disease and the incurability of serious organic disorders and resents 

 any connection with the "half-fanatical personality worship [of Mrs. 

 Eddy] as quite as foreign to its tenets as would be the views of the Tree 

 Eeligious Association' to the Tope of Rome.' 'Divine Healing' ex- 

 hibits its success in one notable instance, in the establishment of a 

 school and college, a bank, a land and investment association, a printing 

 and publishing office and sundry Divine Healing Homes; and this pros- 

 perity is now to be extended by the foundation of a city or colony of 

 converts who shall be united by the common bond of faith in divine 

 healing as transmitted in the personal power of their leader. The 

 official organ of this movement announces that the personification of 

 their faith "makes her religion a business and conducts herself upon 

 sound business principles." With emphatic protest on the part of each 

 that he alone holds the key to salvation, and that his system is quite 

 original and unlike any other, comes the procession of Metaphysical 

 Healer and Mind-Curist and Viticulturist and Magnetic Healer and 

 Astrological Health Guide and Phrenopathist and Medical Clairvoyant 

 and Psychic Scientist and Mesmerist and Occultist. Some use or abuse 

 the manipulations of Hypnotism; others claim the power to concen- 

 trate the magnetism of the air and to excite the vital fluids by arousing 

 the proper mental vibrations, or by some equally lucid and demonstrable 

 procedure; some advertise magnetic cups and positive and negative 

 powders and absent treatment by outputs of 'psychic force' and count- 

 less other imposing devices. In truth, they form a motley crew, and 

 with their 'Colleges of Fine Forces' and 'Psychic Research Companies,' 

 offering diplomas and degrees for a three weeks' course of study or the 

 reading of a book, represent the slums of the occult. An account of 

 their methods is likely to be of as much interest to the student of fraud 

 as to the student of opinion. 



There can be no doubt that many of these systems have been stimu- 

 lated into life or into renewed vigor by the success of 'Christian Science'; 

 this is particularly noticeable in the introduction of absent treatment as 

 a plank in their diverse platforms. This ingenious method of restor- 

 ing the health of their patients and their own exchequers appealed to 

 all the band of healing occultists from Spiritualist to Vibrationist, as 

 easily adaptable to their several systems. In much the same way Mes- 

 mer, more than a hundred years ago, administered to the practice which 



