Quimby’s influence, but to actually possess clairvoyant abilities of his own. Quimby discovered that Lucius could in fact diagnose the diseases of others with great accuracy.
One day Lucius offered a diagnosis for Quimby himself, who had been suffering considerable back pain that he had never mentioned to Lucius. Lucius told Quimby that his kidney was detaching, and he proceeded to pass his hands over the area, telling Quimby it was now fixed. Afterwards, Quimby never again felt a pain in this area, and was effectively cured. This lead Quimby to believe that Lucius was reading his mind, and convincing him that his ailment did not exist.
Phineas Quimby’s son George wrote about his father’s life and curious healing techniques for New England Magazine in 1888:
Mr. Quimby was of medium height, small in stature, his weight being about one hundred and twenty-five pounds; quick motioned and nervous, with piercing black eyes, black hair and whiskers; a well-shaped, well-balanced head; high, broad forehead, a rather prominent nose, and a mouth indicating strength and firmness of will; persistent in what he undertook, and not easily defeated or discouraged.
In the course of his trials with subjects, he met with a young man named Lucius Burkmar, over whom he had the most wonderful influence; and it is not stating it too strongly to assert that with him he made some of the most astonishing exhibitions of mesmerism and clairvoyance that have been given in modern times . . .
Mr. Quimby’s manner of operating with his subject was to sit opposite to him, holding both his hands in his, and looking him intently in the eye for a short time, when the subject would go into that state known as the mesmeric sleep, which was more properly a peculiar condition of mind and body, in which the natural senses would or would not operate at the will of Mr. Quimby. When conducting his experiments, all communications on the part of Mr. Quimby with Lucius were mentally given, the subject replying as if spoken to aloud. . . .
It should be remembered that at the time Mr. Quimby was giving these exhibitions, the phenomenon was looked upon in a far different light from that of the present day. At that time it was a deception, a fraud, and a humbug; Mr. Quimby was vilified and frequently threatened with mob violence, as the exhibitions smacked too strongly of witchcraft to suit the people.
As the subject gained more prominence, thoughtful men began to investigate the matter, and Mr. Quimby was often called upon to have his subject examine the sick. He would put Lucius into the mesmeric state, [and Lucius] would then examine the patient, describe his disease, and prescribe remedies for its cure.
After a time Mr. Quimby became convinced that whenever the subject examined a patient, his diagnosis of the case would be identical [to] what either the patient himself or someone present believed, instead of Lucius really looking into the patient, and giving the true condition of the organs; in fact, [Quimby believed] that he was reading the opinion in the mind of someone, rather than stating a truth acquired by himself.
Becoming firmly satisfied that this was the case, and having seen how one mind could influence another, and how much there was that had always been considered as true, but was merely some one’s opinion, Mr. Quimby gave up his subject, Lucius, and began the developing of what is now known as mental healing, or curing disease through the mind.
While engaged in his mesmeric experiments, Mr. Quimby became more and more convinced that disease was an error of the mind, and not a real thing; and in this he was misunderstood by others, and accused of attributing the sickness of the patient to the imagination, which was the very reverse of the fact. No one believed less in the imagination than he. “If a man feels a pain, he knows he feels it, and there is no imagination about it,” he used to say.
But the fact that the pain might be a state of the mind, while apparent in the body, he did believe. As one can suffer in a dream all that it is possible to suffer in a waking state, so Mr. Quimby averred that the same condition of mind might operate on the body in the form of disease, and still be no more of a reality than was the dream.
As the truths of his discovery began to develop and grow in him, just in the same proportion did he begin to lose faith in the efficacy of mesmerism as a remedial agent in the cure of the sick; and after a few years he discarded it altogether.
Instead of putting the patient into a mesmeric sleep, Mr. Quimby would sit by him; and, after giving him [an] account of what his troubles were, [Quimby] would simply converse with him, and explain the causes of the troubles, and thus change the mind of the patient, and disabuse it of its errors and establish the truth in its place; which, if done, was the cure.
He sometimes, in cases of lameness and sprains, manipulated the limbs of the patient, and often rubbed the head with his hands, wetting them with water. He said it was so hard for the patient to believe that his mere talk with him produced the cure, that he did this rubbing simply [so] that the patient would have more confidence in him; but he always insisted that he possessed no “power” nor healing properties different from anyone else, and that his manipulations conferred no beneficial effect upon his patient.
He never went into any trance, and was a strong disbeliever in Spiritualism, as understood by that name. He claimed, and firmly held, that his only power consisted in his wisdom, and in his understanding the patient’s case and being able to explain away the error and establish the truth, or health, in its place. Very frequently the patient could not tell how he was cured, but it did not follow that Mr. Quimby himself was ignorant of the manner in which he performed the cure.
Suppose a person should read an account of a railroad accident, and see in the list the name of his son who was killed. The shock on the mind would cause a deep feeling of sorrow on the part of the parent, and possibly a severe sickness, not only mental, but physical.
Now, what is the condition of the patient? Does he imagine his trouble? Is it not real? Is his body not affected, his pulse quick, and has he not all the symptoms of a sick person, and is he not really sick?
Suppose you can go and say to him that you were on the train, and saw his son alive and well after the accident, and prove to him that the report of his death was a mistake. What follows? Why, the patient’s mind undergoes a change immediately, and he is no longer sick.
It was on this principle that Mr. Quimby treated the sick. He claimed that “mind was spiritual matter and could be changed,” that we were made up of “truth and error;” that “disease was an error, or belief, and that the Truth was the cure.” And upon these premises he based all his reasoning, and laid the foundation of what he asserted to be the “science of curing the sick” without other remedial agencies than the mind.
Quimby’s escapades with Lucius and his clairvoyant abilities had no small influence on spiritualists of the time, and, based upon their performances, many began utilizing the Mesmeric trance to achieve clairvoyant capabilities. It was on account of these unexplainable mind readings that Quimby came to question what was happening in Mesmerism, eventually developing his own system of spiritual healing. In Quimby’s teachings, the emphasis was on the action of God, rather than merely the influence of one human mind on another. Quimby was convinced that he had rediscovered the healing method of Jesus. He abandoned his assistant Lucius and developed his own theory of healing, called the “Quimby Method,” reintroducing the earlier Hermetic ideas that God was the driving force behind the success of Mesmeric treatment.
“Now for my particular experience,” writes Mr. Quimby in an article quoted in The True History of Mental Science:
I had pains in the back, which, they said, were caused by my kidneys, which were partly consumed. I was also told that I had ulcers on my lungs. Under this belief, I was miserable enough to be of no account in the world. This was the state I was in when I commenced to mesmerize. On one occasion,
