577. Nor, again, is this attempt to rise above pain at all exclusively dependent upon the Christian revelation. "Mind-healing" is a generalised term which includes not only so-called Christian science, but a number of other ways of so regarding the universe as to triumph, while still in the body, over bodily distress and infirmity. Oriental ideas of the unreality of matter (Maya), stoical ideas of the sage's command over external circumstances, mystical ideas of the painless ecstasy into which the purified spirit can enter at will; - all these conceptions have the advantage of being independent of dogmatic systems, with the accompanying disadvantage of being difficult for ordinary minds to grasp. Mind-healing is a modern name for all this ancient and lofty protest against the tyranny of the flesh.

The points of view thus briefly hinted at do, no doubt, differ widely from one another. To the believer in mind-cure, - the denier of physical evils, - that anguished supplication of the Lourdes pilgrim for the removal of pains, which the sufferer holds as the most urgent of realities, would be in the highest degree distasteful. To both mind-curer and Lourdes pilgrim alike the charms and fetiches of the African savage would seem contemptible or shocking.

To the readers of this chapter, however, there will be nothing surprising in my own inclination to include almost all these efforts at health under the general category of schemes of self-suggestion. Almost all, I say; reserving thus for future notice the special case - a small element in the general total - of possible cure by definite spirit-agency.1 But with regard to the great bulk of these psychical cures, the differences involved are subjective rather than objective; - are differences in the frames of mind of the sufferers rather than in any scientific evidence as to the nature of the healing agency.

It would not be difficult, I think, to show in detail the crudity even of those schemes of thought which have proved in practice the most helpful in the relief of pain. This crudity, indeed, is inevitable; we are in the very earliest days of self-suggestion; - a few pioneers only are groping after ways in which the suggestions may be made to take hold; - and the task is quite as difficult for the self-suggester as for the hypnotist. The present duty, therefore, of psychical criticism is not so much to expose the inconsistencies of each in turn, as to indicate the lines on which this difficult attempt may be pushed with the best chance of lasting success.

In a paper printed in vol. ix. of S.P.R. Proceedings, in 1893,2 my late brother, Dr. A. T. Myers, and I found little difficulty in pointing out the childish inadequacy of much of the evidence which had then been offered by mind-curers or Christian scientists. We endeavoured to indicate certain simple rules to which such evidence ought to conform, in order to bring it into line with ordinary medical practice. Other critics, no doubt, have urged the same precautions; but I am not aware that any serious effort has yet been made by mind-healers to comply with such conditions. Yet I see a real reason for this reluctance: the Christian scientists, etc, feel more or less consciously that the all-important thing is to keep the self-suggestion strong and undisturbed, and that medical discussion would tend to weaken and disturb it. There is some truth here; and in view of that truth I now think that it may be well] to abstain from analysing absurdities which may very easily drop off from the self-suggestive movement as it gathers confidence from success.

Especially must one insist on the underlying philosophical aspiration, not merely for the prolongation of life on earth, but for the abrogation and annihilation of evil, including physical pain. The strength of the mind-curer's position lies in the true thesis that evil is a less real, a less permanent thing than good. It is well that self-suggestion should be turned in this direction, through whatever strange perversions or exaggerations the ultimate goal be won.

1 See the case of Dr. X. in Chapter VIII (Motor Automatism)., section 833.

2 "Mind-Cure, Faith-Cure, and the Miracles of Lourdes," by A. T. Myers, M.D., F.R.C.P., and F. W. H. Myers, Proceedings S.P.R., vol. ix. pp. 160-210.

578. The so-called "Miracles of Lourdes" present a somewhat different problem. They resemble rather a resuscitation of antique methods of self-suggestion than an attempt at breaking new ground. In describing these as a form of self-suggestion (I should at once explain), I am by no means denying (what I am, in fact, presently about to assert) that some inflow from the spiritual world may be an essential element in all these triumphs over the infirmities of the flesh. All that I deny, - and I think that my Appendix will show that I have ample reason for the denial, - is that there is any real evidence whatever for the agency of the Virgin Mary in these cures. The story is, no doubt, a picturesque one, and (as will again be seen in 578 A) one may fairly credit the original seeress, Berna-dette, with the possession of some kind of psychical faculty. Further than that the legend cannot, I think, be maintained. Judged by our habitual canons of evidence, - which, as the reader knows, do, in fact, admit the veridical character of many apparitions, - there is no reason to suppose that the figure which appeared to Bernadette was more than a purely subjective hallucination; - still less reason to assume that that apparition was in any way connected with the subsequent cures.

As to those cures themselves, moreover, - in spite of many loud assertions, in spite of what I must call the pseudo-accuracy, the pseudo-candour, of some of the advocates of the miraculous at Lourdes, - neither my brother nor I could discover any well-attested incident which raised them into a different category from the marvels which hypnotic suggestion is effecting daily in the cliniques of many physicians. For my brother's discussion of some of the cases oftenest cited at that date I must refer the reader to our article in the S.P.R. Proceedings, previously mentioned. My own analysis of the legend I have thought it needful to reprint in this volume. I have treated the story, I hope, not without sympathy, - in its analogies with much of ancient and venerable tradition, - in its appeal to hopes, not necessarily illegitimate, and ever recurrent in the heart of man. To the student of suggestion, indeed, to the psychologist, the story of Lourdes is a mine of attractive material. Yet from a point of view perhaps pro-founder still, I cannot but sympathise with those wiser Catholics who bitterly regret the whole series of incidents; - who stand aloof from that organised traffic in human ignorance; - from the vested interests sanctimoniously alert on every side; - from the money-changers in the temple; nay, even from that cowardly craving for earth-life prolonged at any cost which drives the leprous and the cancerous to implore a deferment of their entry into the promised heaven.

What a contrast between that crippled and abject multitude, supplicating for another year of useless pain, and Odin's worshippers of old, in a ruder but a braver faith!

"For on earth they thought of my threshold, and the gifts I have to give; Nor prayed for a little longer, and a little longer to live".