The physiology of faith and fear, or, the mind in health and disease / by William S. Sadler.

  • Sadler, William S. (William Samuel), 1875-1969.
Date:
[1912]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The physiology of faith and fear, or, the mind in health and disease / by William S. Sadler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE IN recent years we have been literally deluged with liter- ature on “ Suggestion,” “ Mental Healing,” “ Hypnotism,” “ Psychotherapy,” psychic fads, and various healing “ isms,” not to mention “ New Thought,” “ Christian Science,” and other systems of religious teaching. It would seem as if doc- tor, preacher, and layman were now vying with one another in an effort to atone for their past indifference to, and neglect of, the important subjects, Mental Healing and Moral Thera- peutics. We are now passing through a period of popular reaction against the scientific materialism of the last century. The common people are awaking to the fact that the mental state has much to do with bodily health and disease. The book- makers, in their efforts to satisfy the universal demand for teaching on various phases of mental healing, have flooded us with literature, much of which is premature, unscientific, incomplete, and highly disastrous in its misleading influence upon the popular mind and morals. It is to be deplored that practically every system of modern mental healing has declared as the secret of its success its association with some creed or cult — claiming that physical healing was dependent upon the acceptance of some particular moral teaching or system of religious belief. At the very outset we desire to separate the study of mental healing from any and all particular brands of religion — not from religion as a state of mind, but from any particular system, sect, or form of religious belief. We approach the subject of mental healing from the stand- point of the physician — the physiologist. We examine all claims and apparent cures from the standpoint of actual exper- iments, clinical observations, and laboratory investigations • • vu