One Simple Idea (40 page)

The literature on Mesmerism is vast. The most valuable volumes in assembling this account were
The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry
by Henri F. Ellenberger (Basic Books, 1970);
From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychoanalytic Healing
by Adam Crabtree (Yale University Press, 1993); Abnormal Hypnotic Phenomena, vols. 1–4, edited by Eric J. Dingwall (J. & A. Churchill/ Barnes & Noble, 1968);
A History of Hypnotism
by Alan Gauld (Cambridge University Press, 1992);
The Covert Enlightenment: Eighteenth-Century Counterculture and Its Aftermath
by Alfred J. Gabay (Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2005);
Franz Anton Mesmer: A History of Mesmerism
by Margaret Goldsmith (Doubleday, 1934);
Franz Anton Mesmer: Between God and the Devil
by James Wyckoff (Prentice-Hall, 1975); and
The Wizard from Vienna: Franz Anton Mesmer
by Vincent Buranelli (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1975).

Mesmer himself wrote relatively little. His native language was German, and his public writings were in French and, less often, in Latin. A rare and valuable collection of Mesmer’s written work is
Mesmerism: A Translation of the Original Scientific and Medical Writings of F. A. Mesmer
translated and compiled by George Bloch, Ph.D., introduced by E. R. Hilgard, Ph.D. (Walter Kaufman, 1980). Where I quote Mesmer, I used the Bloch collection, Ellenberger (1970), and Goldsmith (1934).

On the Franklin report, I have benefited from “Mesmerism and Revolutionary America” by Helmut Hirsch,
American-German Review
, October 1943, and
Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France
by Robert Darnton (Harvard University Press, 1968), which has valuable details on political attitudes toward Mesmerism. Also helpful were Anne Harrington’s
The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine
(Norton, 2008), and a translation of the commission’s report by Charles and Danielle Salas published with an introduction by Michael Shermer as “Testing the Claims of Mesmer” in
Skeptic Magazine
, vol. 4, no. 3 (1996). Puységur’s credo (“I believe in the existence within myself”) is from Ellenberger (1970). Sources on the
decline of Mesmerism in Europe include Darnton (1968), Gauld (1992), Ellenberger (1970), and Dingwall (1968).

On the careers of Charles Poyen and Robert J. Collyer, I am indebted to exchanges with historian Keith McNeil, who provided citations and transcriptions of the Belfast (ME)
Republican Journal
articles noted in the chapter. Where Poyen is quoted, it is from his memoir,
Progress of Animal Magnetism in New England
(Weeks, Jordan & Co., 1837). Sources on Poyen’s life include “Charles Poyen Brings Mesmerism to America” by Eric R. Carlson,
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
, vol. 15, 1960; “How Southern New England Became Magnetic North” by Sheila O’Brien Quinn,
History of Psychology
, August 2007; and
The Heyday of Spiritualism
by Slater Brown (Hawthorn Books, 1970). The reference to Poyen being mistaken for an ex-slave is from
The Mad Forties
by Grace Adams and Edward Hutter (Harper & Brothers, 1942). On Robert H. Collyer’s life I benefited from his book
Psychography
(Redding & Co., 1843), his memoir,
Lights and Shadows of American Life
(Brainard & Co., 1838, 1843), Dingwall (1968), and Gauld (1992).

The dates that Quimby encountered Poyen and Collyer can be elusive. Varying accounts, often published many years after the events in question, place Quimby at Mesmerist demonstrations in Maine in the years 1836 and 1838. It is well established that Charles Poyen made a presentation in Bangor in 1836, and Quimby, writing in his notes, places himself there. Less clear are references to an 1838 demonstration. Quimby’s son and executor, George, writing in a biographical article about his father in the
New England Magazine
in 1888, placed Quimby at a Belfast demonstration “about the year 1838”—a date that historians frequently repeat. This may have resulted from a slip in George’s memory (he was writing around fifty years after the fact). The next publicly noted demonstration of Mesmerism in Maine occurred in fall 1841, when the Belfast
Republican Journal
recorded visits from Robert H. Collyer in both September and October. Collyer also cited 1841 as the year he began his presentations. Quimby’s notes recollect his seeing both Poyen
and Collyer. Hence, Quimby witnessed the demonstrations of each man, respectively, in 1836 and 1841. The 1838 date, though widely repeated, appears in no public record.

No precise records show when Quimby and Lucius Burkmar started working together, but the intrepid researchers Ervin Seale and his collaborator Erroll Stafford Collie, in
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby: The Complete Writings
, vol. 1 (1988), turned up letters of introduction that show the two men traveling together by early November 1843. Horatio Dresser in
The Quimby Manuscripts
(1921) reprints an article from the
Bangor Democrat
(ME) in April 1843, that shows Quimby and Lucius, age seventeen, giving a demonstration, along with Lucius’s twenty-three-year-old brother, Henry. It is not fully clear when Quimby stopped working with Lucius, but Seale’s annotations indicate 1847. Lucius’s extant journal writings about his experiences with Quimby conclude in 1845.

Quimby’s quote “disease is in his belief” is from Dresser (1921). His reference to the cure being “not in the medicine” is from his letter to the
Portland Daily Advertiser
(ME), published February 14, 1862. His statement “why cannot I cure myself” appears in
Phineas Parkhurst Quimby: Revealer of Spiritual Healing to this Age
by Ann Ballew Hawkins (DeVorss, 1951) and in “True Origin of Christian Science,” an unsigned article in the
New York Times
, July 10, 1904. Neither Hawkins nor the
Times
article have proven wholly reliable sources for quoted material, but the statement is closely echoed in Dresser’s
The Quimby Manuscripts
. Quimby’s statement “all science is a part of God” is from
The Complete Collected Works of Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
(2008, 2012). Quimby’s statements on “false beliefs” and “our happiness” are from Dresser (1921). Arthur Vergara’s “New Thought’s Unfounded Foundation,”
Creative Thought
, July 2011, directed me to Quimby’s early use of the term “unconscious.” For a full view of Quimby’s use of the term, see Hughes (2009) and
The Complete Collected Works of Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby
(2008, 2012).

Quimby’s cure of the mayor of Bath, Maine, is from “Mary Baker G. Eddy,” part 2, by Georgine Milmine,
McClure’s Magazine
, February 1907. The Milmine series of articles is controversial; if approached cautiously it
can provide useful historical portraiture. For the series background, see Gillian Gill’s indispensable
Mary Baker Eddy
(Perseus/Radcliffe Biography Series, 1998). Quimby’s reported cure of the woman who was unable to speak is from a transcribed letter of April 29, 1862, in the
Portland Daily Advertiser
, found in the archives of the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity, Boston. Quimby’s large number of patients is reported in “Warren Felt Evans, M.D.,” by William J. Leonard,
Practical Ideals
, vol. 10, no. 2, September–October 1905. The article on his patients coming from “the four winds of heaven” is quoted from Dresser (1921).

The neighbor’s recollection of Quimby in Belfast is from a testimonial dated January 14, 1907, by Charles C. Sargent, in the archives of the Mary Baker Eddy Library. Quimby’s unsuccessful treatment was reported in a letter dated April 10, 1907, by Lydia P. French, also in the Mary Baker Eddy Library archives. These passages are quoted courtesy of the Mary Baker Eddy Library.

A rare biographical record of Warren Felt Evans appears in an early-twentieth-century series of articles by William J. Leonard in the journal
Practical Ideals
, starting with “The Pioneer Apostle of Mental Science,” in vol. 6, no. 1, July–August 1903, and continuing with “Warren Felt Evans, M.D.,” published in three parts: in vol. 10, no. 2, September–October 1905; vol. 10, no. 3, November 1905; and vol. 10, no. 4, December 1905. Unless otherwise indicated, Evans is quoted, as are his journal passages, from this series. Also helpful is the article “Warren F. Evans” by Robert Allen Campbell,
The Christian Metaphysician
, November 1888. I am grateful to historian Keith McNeil for providing these rare articles.

Swedenborg is quoted on the mind and body from his 1771 book,
The True Christian Religion
, English translation published by J. B. Lippincott, 1875. See Chapter 8 of this book for the full rendering of Swedenborg’s statement. Evans’s quote about the preexistence of disease is from his book
The Primitive Mind-Cure
(H. H. Carter & Co., 1885). Julius Dresser’s 1876 recollection is from his pamphlet,
The True History of Mental Science
(1887).

On the life and career of Mary Baker Eddy key books include Gill
(1998); Satter (1999);
The Emergence of Christian Science in American Life
by Stephen Gottschalk (University of California Press, 1973); Robert Peel’s three-volume biography,
Mary Baker Eddy
, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston:
The Years of Discovery
(1966),
The Years of Trial
(1971), and
The Years of Authority
(1977); and Peel’s
Christian Science: Its Encounter with American Culture
(Holt, 1958). Peel and Gottschalk were each affiliated with the Christian Science church, but their scholarship has proven independent-minded and impeccable. For an overview, I also benefited from the exhibits and resources at the Longyear Museum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Eddy is quoted about her father from her
Retrospection and Introspection
(1891, 1892, First Church of Christ, Scientist)

The Eddy-Dresser correspondence of 1866 appears in Peel (1966) and Gill (1998). Eddy’s handwritten note is preserved in the archives of the Mary Baker Eddy Library.

Eddy’s statement on evil is from her
Message to the Mother Church
, June 1901 (Rumford Press, 1902). Her reference to “material medicines” is from her
Miscellaneous Writings
(1896). Eddy’s tribute to Quimby (“who healed with the truth that Christ taught”) appeared in the
Lynn Weekly Reporter
(MA), February 14, 1866. Eddy’s statement on “Quimbyism” is from Peel’s
The Years of Discovery
(1966), which is also the source for Eddy’s correspondence calling Evans a “half scientist.”

Details on the Dresser family can be found in C. Alan Anderson’s doctoral thesis,
Horatio Dresser and the Philosophy of New Thought
(Department of Philosophy, Boston University, 1963). Anderson provides rare and important source material on the life of Horatio Dresser, whom he depicts, with persuasiveness, as a notable philosopher. For Horatio Dresser’s analysis of New Thought and related movements, see his essay collection,
Voices of Freedom
(G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899). Anderson himself was an impassioned and thoughtful scholar of New Thought; he passed away in 2012. His essays on the history of New Thought can be found at
www.​New​Every​Moment.​com
.

The career of Edward J. Arens is considered in J. Gordon Melton’s important article “The Case of Edward J. Arens and the Distortion of
the History of New Thought,”
Journal for the Society of the Study of Metaphysical
Religion (hereafter cited as JSSMR), Spring 1996. The
Journal for the Society of the Study of Metaphysical Religion
was the sole scholarly journal dedicated to the study of New Thought. Its twenty volumes, published from spring 1995 to fall 2004, gathered some of the finest historical study and criticism of this metaphysical movement, whose impact and history have generally been underappreciated in academia. The journal’s tenure was too short and its availability today is unfortunately limited. I am very grateful to its founding editor, Dell deChant, for lending me his very rare complete set.

Andrew Jackson Davis’s reference to a “Divine Positive Mind” is from his 1847 book,
The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice to Mankind
, a massive and sprawling channeled work that briefly gained considerable popularity.

Eddy’s charge of “ignorant Mesmerist” typifies the byzantine polemics of this debate. Historian Horatio Dresser repeated this charge—e.g., in the journals
The Arena
of May 1899 and
Unity
of March 1906, and again in his 1919 book
A History of the New Thought Movement
. Eddy used the phrase once in a private letter to Unitarian minister James Henry Wiggin on January 15, 1886. It is not clear whether Dresser would have seen this letter. Likewise, important historical works, such as Charles Braden’s
Spirits in Rebellion
, suggest that Eddy called Quimby a “mere Mesmerist.” The sources again are unclear.

Eddy is further quoted on Quimby from her self-published pamphlets
Historical Sketch of Metaphysical Healing
(1885) and
Historical Sketch of Christian Science Mind-Healing
(1890).

Horatio Dresser’s handwritten letters of February 3, 1900, to Mary Baker Eddy, and January 15 and February 3, 1900, to Judge Hanna, are in the archive of the Mary Baker Eddy Library. They are quoted courtesy of the Mary Baker Eddy Library.

George Quimby’s guardedness about his father’s manuscripts is depicted in “The Story of the Real Mrs. Eddy,”
Human Life
, April 1907, one article of a thirteen-part series that Sibyl Wilbur wrote on Eddy for
Human Life
magazine from December 1906 to December 1907. Horatio Dresser
also alludes to his long efforts to gain access to Quimby’s writings in
The Quimby Manuscripts
(1921). Valuable details about this appear in Gill (1998).

Eddy’s quote “I re-arranged a few” is from her
Mind-Healing: Historical Sketch
(1888). George Quimby’s observation about Eddy sitting with Quimby is from Dresser’s
The Quimby Manuscripts
(1921). The
New York Times
published its unsigned assessment of Eddy as “True Origin of Christian Science,” July 10, 1904. My conclusion about the article mislabeling Eddy’s preface as Quimby’s own is from a comparison of transcribed manuscripts in the Mary Baker Eddy Library to the
New York Times
analysis. Specifically, a transcription of a Quimby manuscript acquired by the archive in 1941 shows the preface with the tagline “Mary M. Glover,” the name Eddy used in 1868. Gillian Gill (1998) notes: “It is also accepted by all that by 1868 Mrs. Glover had appended to this text a signed preface of her own …”