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so simple or so absurd that Mr. Quimby saw there could be no virtue in the medicine. Plainly, both the disease and its cure must be explained on another basis. This we see clearly when we realize that Mr. Quimby himself experienced the benefits of the clairvoyant descriptions, thereby overcoming what had appeared to be threatening diseases, although the true explanation was not the one offered by Lucius.
In the article quoted from above, written when Mr. Quimby had developed and proved his theory of disease so that he could look back and understand the whole phenomenon, so new and at first so baffling in his mesmeric period, he says, "When I commenced to mesmerise, I was not well, according to the medical science; but in my researches I found a remedy for my disease. Here was where I first discovered that mind was capable of being changed.
"Also that, disease being a deranged state of mind, the cause I found to exist in our belief. The evidence of this theory I found in myself; for, like all others, I had believed in medicine. Disease and its power over life, and its curability, are all embraced in our belief. Some believe in various remedies, and others believe that the spirits of the dead prescribe. I have no confidence in the virtue of either. I know that cures have been made in these ways. I do not deny them. But the principle on which they are done is the question to solve; for disease can be cured, with or without medicine, on but one principle. I have said I believed in the old practice and its medicines, the effects of which I had within myself; for, knowing no other way to account for the phenomena, I took it for granted that they were the result of medicine.
"With this mass of evidence staring me in the face, how could I doubt the old practice? Yet, in spite of all my prejudices, I had to yield to a stronger evidence than man's opinion, and discard the whole theory of medicine, practised by a class of men, some honest, some ignorant, some selfish, and all thinking that the world must be ruled by their opinions.
"Now for my particular experience. I had pains in the back, which, they said, were caused by my kidneys, which were partially consumed. I also was 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
