[ p. 95 ]
THE most striking, though not the most far-reaching, phenomenon of faith is to be seen in spiritual healing. This has always been an element, not only in Christianity but in all religions. Its essential character discussed.
The peculiar position of the Gospel miracles, and their real evidential value. Parallels in modern times. The great difficulty of obtaining evidence as to the nature of the cures which are effected by ‘ spiritual ’ means.
The modern discovery of psychological healing as a science has opened up new problems. It has made it possible to accept many of these healings as perfectly normal cases of suggestion. But this explanation does not cover the ground either of the Gospel miracles or of modern healings. And very great difficulties arise as to the distinction between ‘ functional ’ and ‘ organic ’ disorder. The common belief that all ‘ spiritual ’ cures are simply due to suggestion is based upon a misunderstanding both of the nature of these cures and of the full implications of suggestion.
This can be illustrated from the methods of psychotherapy. Both the simple treatment by suggestion and the more complex methods of rationalization and analysis are found in the end to depend upon prestige in the method, or in the healer, and faith in the patient. The whole issue is thus not physical or purely mental, but personal.
This can be seen again by considering the nature of a ‘ cure,’ Psychotherapy in fact demands an end or goal, and, in effect, a religion. It thus points the way to an understanding of the efficacy of a true religion.
Some suggestions from the modern ‘ pattern-psychology ’ as to the true nature of both spiritual and psychological healing.
[ p. 96 ]
[ p. 97 ]
Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole ; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. St. Mark v. 34.
UNTIL these latter sceptical days the connection between healing and religion was unquestioned. No miracle was altogether impossible where the gods were concerned, but while nature-miracles were always a dream of fantasy, miracles of healing were, and are still, an everyday fact. We are not concerned in these lectures with the problem of the nature-miracles recorded in the Gospel tradition. If the Christian belief in Jesus as God is true they stand in a different category from all other miracles of the kind, and certainly they are unique alike in their spiritual purpose and in the restraint with which they are recorded. But they have ceased to have direct evidential value. A faith that rests upon miracle is not Christian faith at all.
The miracle of healing rests upon a very different footing. ‘ The cures have been numerous and undoubted. They have been by no means confined to Christianity. The temple inscriptions at Epidaurus testify to the gratitude of patients almost as numerous as those at Holywell or Lourdes. Even the witch-doctor has white magic available as well as black, and his prestige is due at least as much to success in curing as to success in cursing. Within Christianity itself orthodoxy has no prerogative in this matter. The prayer of faith, with or without the laying on of hands, has again and again raised the sick, whether the healer be a saint of the Western Church, such as St. Catherine of Siena, or of the Eastern, such as Father John of Cronstadt, or a layman of some Protestant body, such as [ p. 98 ] Mr. Hickson, or a Christian Science practitioner with his simple and impossible philosophy, or even a Mormon elder with his crude transatlantic supplement to the Bible.’ [1]
That these cures have been in the main cures of disorder arising from causes well known to psychology need not be doubted, nor indeed are such cures, as some critics seem almost to suggest, in any way discreditable to religion. ‘ Nothing,’ says Janet, ‘ is more difficult to cure than a neuropath, and Lourdes would deserve all its reputation and more if it were pre-eminent for the cure of neuropaths alone.’ [2] The importance of suggestion in this connection has often been emphasized, and undoubtedly the promise and hope of a cure, resting upon the immense prestige of shrine, saint, or system, plays an immensely powerful part in bringing about the desired result. But, as Janet points out, other psychological factors enter in. He fully admits the statement made by Bertrin in defence of the Lourdes miracles, that ‘ patients are cured who had no hope of cure, blind unbelievers who spoke evil of religion and were none the less cured ; and there have been others who have been cured after returning home, when they had ceased to expect a cure.’ [3]
‘This,’ Janet says, ‘merely proves that religious faith is not the only factor ; the instinctive respect foj" wealth and power has made it possible for kings to cure illness just as well as priests. The journey, fatigue, the strangeness of the environment, a new physical and moral hygiene, emotional shocks of all kinds, the effect of public opinion exercised in virtue of the reputation of the remedy, the powerful and little understood influence of the crowd all these things combine to work on the patients’ minds.’ [4]
[ p. 99 ]
Some of these influences are physical. Others come within the scope of suggestion in the broad sense. Among the rest Janet calls special attention to the importance of nervous and mental excitation, breaking the spell of the ‘ depression of nervous energy ’ and arousing a response to new interests and possibilities. [5] This is obviously not suggestion, but it is closely allied to that suggestibility to which the appeal of suggestion is made. In a primitive, almost a childish sense, it is the dawn of faith.
Of the cures thus wrought we may leave on one side those due to physical agency for which the religious setting is merely a background. There remain an immense number which must be assigned to psychological or spiritual causes, operating through the religious environment. If, again, there are any of these which must be called strictly miraculous, in that stupid sense of the word which identifies the miraculous with the unpredictable, arbitrary, and irrational, we have no more to say. Miracles of such a kind do not bear witness to the God of Christianity, but to a sheer and terrifying disorder at the heart of things. At the best they display a God Sultanic in character, [6] taking the one of two women grinding at the mill and leaving the other, for no reason save that of his meaningless and mysterious pleasure. The world does well to be terrified of ghosts and strange supernatural happenings, for they threaten man’s sanity, as well as his peace. A mere arbitrary multiplication of loaves and fishes is no better, unless there is such love manifest in the miracle that we can bear with the miracle for the [ p. 100 ] sake of the love. And casual healings that save some and leave others, of equal need and hope and faith, to suffering and despair, [7] are no more a witness to the love of God than is the Augustinian and Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional election, with its inevitable corollaries of limited salvation and the foreordained doom of the majority of mankind.
When we have thus eliminated the purely physical and the wholly miraculous, there remains a vast body of evidence for healings not in the least irrational, but far outstripping the achievements and explanations of physiological or of psychological medicine. That there are physiological and psychological factors there is, of course, no doubt, and these are perfectly capable of scientific study. But it would be wholly unscientific to refuse to recognize in all healing, and not merely in these more specifically religious healings, a factor of which a materialistic and deterministic science can give no account. The very term suggestion, so commonly used as though it conveyed a complete explanation of all that happened in Galilee or happens at Lourdes, contains within itself the recognition of such a factor. For suggestion is the counterpart of faith, and faith is a personal relationship and no mere psychological mechanism. It is not the least remarkable feature of the Gospel narratives that our Lord insists everywhere that His healings are not miraculous in the pagan, irrational sense. ‘ Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole, enter into peace,’ [8] ‘ According to your faith be it done unto you.’ [9] ‘ Go thy way ; thy faith hath made thee whole.’ [10] It might be faith in the patient, or the faith of his friends, [11] but always there must be faith. In His own village of Nazareth faith [ p. 101 ] was lacking, ‘ and he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief.’ [12] Here we find a piece of true psychological insight which we may take as our clue in the whole tangled problem of spiritual healing, a problem desperately perplexing to the Church of to-day. For the Church, has good cause for anxiety, challenged as she is by the immense and unverifiable claims of Christian Science, and confused by enthusiastic reports of missions of healing. There is an insistent demand that the ministry of healing should be recognized, a demand by no means easy to meet until it is more clear how that ministry may be wisely exercised, or what results it may be expected to achieve. And yet while the Church is waiting for more knowledge, taking counsel with doctors and psychologists, seeking to understand the kinds of disorder which may be expected to yield to spiritual treatment, it may well be that she should rather be praying, ‘ Lord, increase our faith,’ For the limits of physical and mental treatment are beginning to be fairly clear. There is no reason in the world why the Church should be content to work within those limits. ‘ All things,’ said Jesus, ‘ are possible to him that believeth,’ [13]
It is this emphasis upon faith which gives the Gospel records their unique position in the history of religious healings. [14] The faith upon which Jesus always insisted was faith in God. [15] Doubtless many of His healings rested upon something much more elementary. His personal prestige as a healer must inevitably have led to many cures of hysterics of different kinds, and He must have had experience of those cases in which the first astonishing cure was followed by a disastrous relapse, cases where the first stirring of [ p. 102 ] faith never passed beyond the level of bare suggestibility. The evil spirit had been cast out, but its house was left empty, swept, and garnished, ready for any new tenancy, and ‘ the last state of that man becometh worse than the first.’ [16] ‘ Behold thou art made whole : sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee.’ [17] It is entirely in accordance with this that we find far more stress laid by Jesus upon the healing of the spirit than upon the healing of the body. The true need of the palsied man at Capernaum was a need for forgiveness. The healing of his body followed, but in a manner which suggests that alike to the sick man and to his healer that need came very really in the second place. [18]
The important thing for Christ was not the bodily healing, but the spiritual healing and the faith which both made the bodily healing possible and gave it its saving grace. It is very good that psychical cures should be understood and practised intelligently ; but the important thing for faith-healing remains the spiritual change a new belief and confidence in the power and reality of the love of God on which it lays its chief emphasis. [19]
Evidence is lacking for any estimate of the permanence of the cures wrought by Christ, but it is clear enough that He cannot be classed as one of those who work by a mere superficial suggestion. For the disciples, wholly unlearned in psychology, the wonder of the cures was enough. That they recorded the miracles is a proof of their belief in the Divine power which blessed His ministry. The climax and seal of that belief is to be seen in the narrative of Acts, when the disciples went on to work miracles not through faith in God but through faith in the Name of Jesus : ‘ In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk ’ ; [20] [ p. 103 ] ‘ By faith in his name hath his name made this man strong, whom ye behold and know : Yea, the faith which is through him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.’ [21] But this faith, to St. Peter and St. John, meant nothing less than faith in Jesus as God. It is the practical counterpart of that conviction which had come to St. Thomas when the Resurrection appearance crowned his love with assurance.
This is the real though indirect evidential value of the Gospel miracles. They are a complete proof, by the very fact of their place in the narrative, of the belief of the early Church. Only those who accepted Jesus as Lord and God could have written in this way. And the narrative carries further proof of its accuracy and authenticity in its clear subordination of the miraculous element to the known and comprehensible principle of faith. The world, and even the Church of Christ, has hardly been able to take Him at His word when He tells man that his own faith has made him whole. It does not sound nearly mysterious enough. Yet it is true, and the way of faith is open for all who will enter upon it. And the mystery remains, for the end of that way is not seen as yet.
When we turn to the study of the actual effects of faith in the healing of the body we are faced not with too little material but with far too much. The recorded miracles of faith in modern times far surpass, in the variety of their claims, the sober narratives of the Gospels. And there is no reason whatever to doubt the substantial sincerity of the astonishing records whether of Lourdes, or of Christian Science, or of Mr. Hickson’s missions. [22] There is honesty enough, though enthusiasm may have outrun all ordinary [ p. 104 ] common sense, in the testimonies of Christian Scientists, even when they solemnly record the cure of a horse from colic by the agency of a short homily upon its perfection as God’s handiwork, [23] or bear witness to the extinguishing of some blazing spirit by the aid of a few reflections upon the impossibility of accident in the thought of God. [24] And the sinister possibilities of disaster through the neglect in Christian Science circles of elementary precautions against infection and the like, possibilities so serious that Christian Science must on the whole be regarded as an actual menace, should not blind us to the very real results achieved. Undoubtedly there have been healings, even if we can get no clear diagnosis as to the true nature of the disorders cured, and in worth far more than the healings has been the peace of mind which has come to thousands as they let their minds rest in the thought of that love of God which the Churches have too often failed to proclaim in any form that man could recognize.
The actual nature of these healings is exceedingly difficult to ascertain. So far as the miracles of Lourdes are real miracles [25] they obviously have no significance for psychology and, if we dare suggest it, very little significance for religion either. [26] The evidence is, of course, carefully recorded, and yet it is impossible to avoid the impression that it is collected not with a view to understanding, but with a view to finding cases which cannot [ p. 105 ] be understood. [27] That numerous cures take place is beyond all question. That the vast majority are cases of nervous disorder cannot be seriously disputed. [28] Of the rest it may suffice to quote Janet’s verdict :
Collections of observations concerning miracles are not scientific works, and should not be criticised in the same mannei as collections of medical observations. It is extremely difficult to appreciate the worth of each individual fact, and yet there emerges a general impression of the truth of the whole. . . . Speaking generally, I believe that cures take place at Lourdes. [29]
But the evidence for these cures is, as Janet goes on to point out, exactly upon a level with the amazing records of successful healing accomplished during the period when animal magnetism was in vogue. [30] When the fashion changed and the magnetizers were discredited, the stream of healings ceased. Somewhere behind this curious mass of evidence we are undoubtedly dealing with a phenomenon of faith, whether at the primitive level of credulity, or at the higher level of hope and love. And we have only to go back to Epidaurus to see the same phenomenon, producing upon so sober a critic as Galen much the same impression as the Lourdes healings make upon Janet.
[ p. 106 ]
‘ We have proof,’ says Galen, ‘ at the temple of Aesculapius that many serious illnesses can be cured solely by the shock administered to the mind.’ [31]
In the case of Christian Science and of the healing missions of Mr. Hickson the scientific observer is in an even worse position. Nobody doubts that much good is done, and yet it seems to be completely impossible to obtain evidence as to the real nature of the disorders which are cured. The Committee on Spiritual Healing appointed by the Archbishops has recently tried to procure such evidence in the case of two missions loudly acclaimed as successful. In one case there was a long printed list of specific healings, several of these being healings of physical disorder of the most explicit character. Yet letters sent to every doctor and to every clergyman in the districts concerned failed to produce any information as to the real nature of these more definitely organic cases. [32] Those who have attempted the same task in the case of Christian Science have met with the same result. The abundance of published testimonies [33] tells us very little. They rest solely upon the sensations and opinions of the patients concerned. Even when they quote the verdict of some doctor they only quote it in support of their own preconceived ideas. Nor can they be trusted to quote correctly. Evidence which passes through the mind of a neurotic patient emerges transformed beyond recognition, as all who have dealt with such cases are well aware. Criticism is at once stilled by accusing the critic of false belief in matter. This was the answer to Myers [ p. 107 ] when, in 1893, he endeavoured to ascertain the true facts of a particular cure, and identically the same answer has been officially made to Mr. Fisher’s recent book. [34]
These things are not encouraging, and they leave an unpleasant suspicion that along with the good there is a grievous risk of serious harm in these movements. There is a complete absence of diagnosis, no attempt being made to cope with the significance of physical symptoms. There is no recognition of the mental factors involved, and especially of the fact that the strong element of suggestion is liable in certain types of case to produce most undesirable results. And in Christian Science at least for this criticism does not apply to Mr. Hickson’s work no attempt is made to guard against the bitter disappointment which results when hopes are raised far beyond any probability or possibility of fulfilment.
And yet, when the worst has been said, these movements have opened our eyes to new and immense possibilities inherent in faith. The final comment of Janet, no very friendly critic of Mrs. Eddy and her followers, deserves to be repeated : ‘ When true psychotherapeutics replaces Christian Science, it will be incumbent on its practitioners [ p. 108 ] to remember what they owe to their forerunner.’ [35] We may add that there will be no such true psychotherapeutics unless the religious values preserved in Christian Science are retained. For the strength of Christian Science is that with all its simple-minded credulity, its mass-suggestion, and its shirking of criticism, it has placed the love of God in the forefront of its teaching. It has helped men to forget their silly and unnecessary fears, their exaggerated anxieties, in the contemplation of that love. And therein it has been true to the mind of Christ, and some at least of its work fully deserves to stand side by side with His.
It was with the therapeutic extravagances of Mesmer and the magnetizers that the methods of religious healing began to be developed upon scientific lines. [36] The link with religion can be clearly seen in the mysterious setting of darkness and music with which he surrounded his famous magnetic tub, and his own lilac robe and magnetic wand. But a new step had been taken. It was no longer a quest for miracles but for scientific healing making use of known forces. That the theory of animal magnetism was all wrong mattered little. Subsequent experimenters could amend the theory when once the principle of enquiry was established. Charcot, at the Salpetriere, in those studies of hysteria which paved the way for the work both of Janet and of Freud, was directly influenced by the work of the magnetizers. Perhaps even more important was the daring generalization of the American watchmaker, Phineas P. Quimby, who in 1859 abandoned magnetic practice, and developed the thesis that all cure is the work of the mind. It was Quimby who cured Mrs. Eddy of partial paralysis, and whose teaching was embodied by her in the epochmaking system of Christian Science. Christian Science [ p. 109 ] knows no psychology, but the thesis that it is mind and not matter which counts in the battle for health is the link between psychology, hitherto a purely academic subject, and medicine. The idea proved a fruitful one far beyond the borders of Christian Science, and thus the science of psychotherapy was born.
It would be absurd to claim that this new science has reached maturity as yet. The accurate study of its successes and, still more, of its failures has barely begun. But it is at least fully recognized that we are working within the domain of science, and not of miracle. And the recognition of this fact has been of the utmost importance. It has led to a complete change of attitude towards the whole question of spiritual healing not only among psychologists but in the popular mind. And it has introduced certain simplifications of theory, the most notable being the distinction between organic and functional disorder, which seemed at first sight likely to solve all outstanding problems, whether of the Gospel miracles or of the modern practice of spiritual healing. But, as has always happened when a new scientific generalization is introduced, we can already see that scientific and popular enthusiasm has outrun the facts. A more sober analysis shows new problems opening up on all sides, problems very unlikely ever to be solved at all by the methods of pure science.
The change in popular outlook was due to the discovery of the mind as a separate entity. Hitherto the mind had been the special property of the philosophers, and the academic discussion of its functions and properties had been carried to a very high level of accuracy. And almost from the first the philosophers had been aware that the relationship between mind and matter, or, more strictly, between mind and reality, involved problems of the most intractable kind. But when enthusiasts like Quimby, and the many exponents of popular ‘ Mind-cures,’ brought home to the [ p. 110 ] man in the street, and even to the doctors, the fact that they possessed minds, these further problems were utterly hidden from them. ‘ What is matter ? Never mind. What is mind ? No matter,’ The famous Punch jest sufficiently reflects the popular attitude. Some optimists, such as the Christian Scientists, leaped to the conclusion that matter can only be an illusion of the mind, and that therewith pain and evil are illusions too. In that case man needs no more than to rid himself of the illusion and all will be well. The philosophers had tried that path long before, and found that it led nowhere. But Mrs. Eddy and her friends were no philosophers, and nothing would have made her admit that theories, however illuminating, must submit to fact. To the end she proclaimed her gospel, rigorous the while in her insistence upon the service of her illusory meals, and even more upon the payment of her illusory fees, and so died, believing herself the victim of a magnetic persecution which could destroy her despite its non-reality.
But for more ordinary people, and here the doctors must be included, the mind was just a new factor to be taken into account. Some disorders were undoubtedly physical. For others no physical cause could be assigned and it was now unnecessary to have recourse to theories of evil spirits or Divine judgments. This new entity, the mind, operating through its special mechanism, the nervous system, was sufficient to explain everything. In particular the manifold symptoms of somnambulism and hysteria could readily be shown to be simply the physical expression of mental processes. And thus a valuable working distinction was made. Where an obvious physical cause could be assigned a disorder was called organic. Where there was no such cause discoverable it was called functional and its origin was sought in some maladjustment of the mind. Attention was specially paid to the immense possibilities of suggestion. [ p. 111 ] Maladies of all kinds, ranging from insomnia and headaches to paralysis of the limbs or of one or other of the senses, were shown to arise from unconscious auto-suggestion, and often to be readily curable if a more powerful suggestion was brought to bear upon them.
The effect upon ordinary educated opinion as to the possibility of belief in miracles has been very great. It has at once become an easy matter to accept many of the healings recorded in the Gospels and in the legends of the Saints, as perfectly normal cases of suggestion-treatment. And though this explanation cannot be applied in all cases to the narratives as they stand, it is easy to see that in an age which had not made the distinction between the organic and the functional, the undoubted occurrence of the most startling functional cures would lead to an uncritical belief in any cure, however improbable, which might happen to be recorded. It would have been impossible too, for narrators, however honest, to tell the story of these cures without introducing details inconsistent with their functional character. Thus while the scepticism of the early critics as to the general trustworthiness of the narratives is now seen to be unjustifiable, it remains true that the story of the miracles must henceforth be read with a new understanding. But this is not all. The mere invocation of the words ‘ functional ’ and ‘ suggestion ’ does not end the matter. We have already seen that suggestion is no mere mechanical mental operation. It works between and in persons, and it is powerless without at least the beginnings of faith. Neither the Saints, nor our Lord Himself, used a considered psychological technique. We can interpret something of the psychology of their healings in perhaps the majority of the cases recorded, but what is significant is that these healings flowed naturally and inevitably from their personality, as it was brought into contact with those about them. As we come to understand the personality of our [ p. 112 ] Lord more and more fully we find there resources of love and faith, and a knowledge of God, utterly transcending those which have ever been possessed by any other healer. In the light of that understanding it would be sheer presumption to assume that we, who know so little in our own lives what love and faith may be, are in any position to say what is or is not possible in the Gospel story.
Two considerations must be taken into account if we would appreciate rightly the present position. In the first place the term ‘ mind ’ has no clear meaning. The idea that we possess a sort of superior, non-physical, structure called the mind, and that this is capable of strict scientific study and liable to its own disorders, parallel in type to those of the body, has led to endless confusion. The most serious result of this belief has been the conviction, still widely held, that psychotherapy can become a science in the same sense in which medicine is a science, dealing with the minds of patients on principles as impersonal as those of the surgeon when he removes an appendix, or, for that matter, of the butcher when he carves up a sheep. In that case all that would be necessary would be a correct diagnosis and the correct application of the appropriate mental stimulus. The most disastrous failures of psychotherapy have been due directly to this belief, and nothing is so necessary, if progress is to be made in this direction, as the recognition of the fact that patient and healer alike are persons, and that all that goes to make up personality, on both sides, is directly involved in the treatment. In medicine the ideals of the physician are a thing indifferent, provided that he knows his work and makes no mistake in his dealings with the body. There is no such thing as a mind which can be used so cavalierly. In the treatment of all so-called mental cases person and person meet, and the ideals and moral standards of the healer count for at least as much as his technique. Let those who feel [ p. 113 ] themselves called to so responsible a practice give good heed to themselves.
And, secondly, the distinction between functional and organic, however useful, is so obscure that it creates difficulties at every turn. Certainly it is true that such external circumstances as the loss of a limb, or the invasion of the body by a multitude of micro-organisms, are in themselves independent of our thought and purposes. Yet even under such definitely physical circumstances man makes response not as a mere mass of chemical substances or of living tissues, but as an organism. It is the whole person that is involved, and the whole person, freedom, purpose, and love included, which makes response. The resultant symptoms and the progress of the disorder are in each case a blending of the functional and the organic, and both must have due consideration in its treatment. Doctors and nurses know well that they must not distress their patients. They have seldom thought out clearly all that is implied in so elementary an aspect of their profession. Similarly the so-called functional disorders are, one and all, expressed in physical condition or in physical behaviour. Even in such cases as the phobias the distress of the condition is largely a physical matter. The glandular reactions, the breathing, the heart, the digestion, may all be involved. The cause of the disorder, as matters now stand, may, to all appearance, be utterly remote from external conditions. Memories wholly or partly hidden, purposes which have failed to secure a direct expression in life, are found upon investigation to be the most vital factor in producing the symptoms. Yet one case will be cured by diet, another by bromide, and another by psychoanalysis. Who is to say where the functional ends and the organic begins ? In some cases there is no functional disorder, until a lowered physical condition causes, as we most inaccurately name it, a nervous breakdown. In [ p. 114 ] others there is grave mental aberration except when undei the stress of some severe physical ailment a temporarj sanity supervenes.
What then, in this confusion of terminology, becomes of the common belief that spiritual healings, including the miracles of the Gospels, are mere cases of functiona disturbance cured by suggestion ? Translated into the essential meaning of the terms all that has been said is thai a disordered life has been enabled to adapt itself to its conditions, and that this has resulted from a response tc the person of the healer. We have come back once more to faith made strong by love.
The nature of the factors concerned in such healing may be illustrated from the methods employed in moderr psychotherapy. These are, broadly speaking, three. [37] There is the simple and direct attack upon the symptom by suggestion-treatment, whether some degree of hypnosis is employed or not. There is the appeal to the reasoning power of the patient, in the effort to enable him to face his problem sanely and without fear. This method oi rationalization is, of course, in its elementary forms almost universal. We all use it daily in trying to help our friends. But it has been reduced to a system and given a scientific status especially by Dubois of Berne. And there is the still more complex method of mental analysis, developed in its pure form by Freud, but very widely used, sometimes in combination with one or both of the other methods, by psychiatrists who differ widely from Freud both in theory and in the aim of their treatment. In particular Adler and Jung have used analysis in support of the individual [ p. 115 ] and creative tendencies of the patient. They seek not simply for the past conditions under which the disorder appeared but for the attempted solution of life’s problem which the disorder represents. This is the line of attack now taken by the majority of psychotherapists in this country. It does full justice to personality, to free individual possibilities, and seeks by a process of re-education to adjust these to the patient’s everyday life.
We notice at once the same phenomenon that appeared in the study of religious healings. Each of these methods can claim its long list of successes. Suggestion-treatment especially, under the leadership of Coue, assumed almost epidemic proportions, and has developed into various schools of ‘ New Psychology ’ which offer a ready treatment for all diseases, either through a course of lectures or through sessions at which corporate suggestions of health are offered indiscriminately (though not without a fee) to all who come. Psycho-analysis at one time threatened to have an almost similar vogue, but, fortunately for itself, was at once too scientific and too expensive in time, effort, and money. So, in the past, have hypnotism, magnetism, and many much stranger modes of treatment had their indisputable triumphs. It is a necessary inference that the prestige of the system, and still more of the particular healer, has much to do with his success. Coue might sing the praises of auto-suggestion, and teach his patients how to treat themselves, but to the end it was in auto-suggestion as taught by Coue that they trusted. [38] True auto-suggestion can be used as a treatment, but it has proved to have only a very narrow range of usefulness. It is obviously helpless against any of the graver neuroses. The analytic methods, again, guard [ p. 116 ] against suggestion in every possible way and yet there is no question that their efficacy is largely dependent upon the assurance of the patient that he will be cured if only he can recover the lost memories relevant to his condition. ‘ The whole procedure of psycho-analysis,’ says Rivers, ‘ is calculated to bring into play the agencies of faith and suggestion.’ [39] In treatment by rationalization success is made to depend entirely upon making the patient accept the point of view of his mentor. Dubois, its most thoroughgoing exponent, laid down as the law of his method the principle which actually underlies, in some degree, all modes of mental treatment : ‘ The nervous patient is on the way to health as soon as he has the conviction that he can be cured ; he is to be considered as cured on the day when he thinks himself cured.’ [40] But this conviction depends again upon faith in the treatment and in the person of the healer.
Faith then, even if it is only at the primitive level of credulity, seems to be a prerequisite of all forms of healing that rise above the crude physical level. And we can go further still. The methods and results of psychotherapy furnish a strong indication that the degree and quality of the faith are of the highest significance. A study of these methods is not without its lesson for those who would press the Church to set healing in the forefront of its work.
The general purpose of treatment is to enable the patient to face the facts of life and to react to them in a better way. This definition holds alike for medicine, for psychotherapy, and for religion. Of the three main methods used in psychotherapy that of suggestion can show the most rapid results. It offers the patient exactly what he wants, relieving him, if he is sufficiently suggestible, of the undesirable symptom and giving him assurance and hope. It does nothing whatever to remove the cause of the symptom. If [ p. 117 ] that happens to be a serious and progressive physical disorder it may easily leave it to develop unchecked until there is no hope of a cure. The records of Coué’s work are almost terrifying in the blindness of their optimism. [41] To encourage elderly folk with unclassified disorders to trot round the garden, [42] to tell the paralytic that he can move his limbs, without asking why they are paralysed, [43] will certainly produce cures. Who can say how many disasters have resulted as well ? And with the hysterics who respond most readily to such treatment there is no cure of the hysteria itself. Suggestion-treatment ignores the fact that the disorder is itself the patient’s attempt to secure some end, some victory over life’s problems. To cure the symptom only invites the appearance of other symptoms which may be at least as serious. The story is told of a doctor who by repeated suggestion cured a patient of the conviction that he was a dog. The cure was reported triumphantly with the appended note. ‘ Unfortunately he now believes that he is a water-rat.’ Of an enormous number of religious healings the same criticism must be made. It is of the very first importance that in any development of spiritual healing the Church should go far beyond the crudities of mere suggestion. The great danger of missions of healing is that by their very prestige and by their impressive setting they act with immense power along these lines. They attract and profoundly affect hysterics of all kinds. But they give little guarantee that the cures so achieved are radical. Even if the patients develop a new and an edifying piety, this may easily be nothing more than a new phase of their hysteria, as far removed from true religion as fantasy is from fact. ‘ This man was a sinner and [ p. 118 ] he is cured. Unfortunately he now believes that he is a saint.’ The old weakness of which the sin was a symptom is but written large in the new Pharisee. And there is always the disturbing possibility of relapse.
Those who undertake such missions should be very careful on two main points. Everything should be done that those who come for healing are not led to dwell only upon the hope of cure in some specific and direct form. They should be prepared for a new realization of the love and power of God, and be told that they are to try for a time to forget themselves and their troubles in His presence. The whole mission should be essentially an act of worship, expressing and evoking faith, and faith not in cure but in God. And, secondly, nothing is so important as the following up of the mission by the steady education of those who have been helped. They have to learn to make their cure real by understanding the facts of their life, and supremely the fact of God whom they must learn not only to trust but to love. And if they cannot at first love God, let them begin by loving and serving their fellowmen. Only in a mission conducted in such a spirit can we be sure that the devils cast out will not return with seven other devils worse than themselves.
This means that we must add to methods of suggestion something at least of rationalization and re-education. Nor will it suffice to be content, as Dubois seems to be, with the production of a strong conviction, a ‘ fixed idea,’ of the possibility of a cure, or of its achievement. [44] There must be a real attempt to understand, to face the facts as they are, and above all the facts of personal relationship. There is no condition of life, however physically crippled or hampered of opportunity, through which love cannot express itself. Often there is only need of a little understanding to set the way free for love.
[ p. 119 ]
It is this need for understanding which makes analysis peculiarly significant among therapeutic methods. Here at least there is a thorough and a drastic facing of facts, [45] including those so completely hidden from the patient himself that they can only be revealed by long and patient investigation. We are not now concerned with a criticism of the different schools of analysis. Attention has already been called to the element of faith and suggestion which is involved. Even more important is the element of love. It is generally agreed that while the recall of hidden memories and the release of pent-up emotion may be necessary in some cases as a preliminary to recovery, the actual cure is accomplished through the transference, [46] the personal relationship which is set up between the analyst and his patient. Here the problem of adjustment to life is fought out upon a small scale. The analyst is for the time being in the position of parent, [47] and the patient works out anew the difficulties and possibilities of the ‘ love-life,’ facing his fears, his selfishness, his [ p. 120 ] obsessive appetites, the impossible and devastating demands of his own ego, until, if the treatment succeeds, he attains his own adult freedom. He is a child no more and can face the world again without disaster. [48]
Undoubtedly where analysis is successful its results are more permanent and satisfactory than those of any other mode of treatment. That it is not always successful is due not only to its difficulty and expense, and to factors, physical or mental, which lie beyond our knowledge and control, but also to the immense demands which it makes upon the analyst. For it is, unfortunately, by no means always true that the physician can heal himself. The patient may be grievously hampered, especially in the later phases of the treatment, by the inadequacy of the analyst’s own moral and spiritual standards and ideals, a danger which has been partially recognized in psycho-analysis by the almost universal requirement that the analyst shall himself undergo an analysis as part of his training. But this is usually understood to be merely the best way of acquiring the technique, and of making sure that there are no serious repressions which might distort the analyst’s own view of the problems brought to him. We must make bold to ask much more. If we are indeed to submit ourselves and our difficulties to the methods of psycho-analysis, we are trusting to that which begins with faith and reaches its solution through love. We must demand that faith and [ p. 121 ] love have their perfect work. We cannot trust any who do not find in faith and love the key not only to problems of personal adjustment but to reality itself. In a word, psycho-analysis must be firmly grounded upon religion. It may, if it will, destroy for us our religious fantasies, but only if it does so in the name of religious truth. [49]
It is when we ask what precisely is meant by the term ‘ cure ’ that we perceive the incompleteness of psychotherapy and its need for something more than a technique. The patient is to be set free from symptoms and restored to health. But even in the physical sense it is difficult to define health clearly. In the field of social conduct and personal relationship we see at once that mental health is something different for each person. Moral standards and ideals have to be considered. It may be necessary to set social usefulness against perfect physical balance, love against comfort. And upon these things psychotherapy proper has nothing to say. As a science it has no moral standards, and though among those who follow Jung and Adler great attention is paid to the life-purposes and ideals of the patient these are not criticized and developed by comparison with any higher standard, except in so far as the psychiatrist goes beyond his scientific role and assumes that of a moral or religious adviser. The climax of absurdity is reached in Coue’s famous formula, ‘ Every day in every way I grow better and better,’ for the interpretation of the standard of health to be attained is left entirely to the patient’s imagination. And Christian Science is little better with its curious supposition that God, being love, must provide whatsoever His children may desire, regardless apparently of any higher end than their convenience and ease.
[ p. 122 ]
It is here that religion comes into the field. We saw in an earlier Lcture that the psychological account of the development of the ego seemed to postulate a reality of exactly the type to which religious faith also looks. So the systems of psychotherapy are found to be incomplete, and threatened with ineffectiveness, unless they are allied with an outlook essentially religious. [50] For psychotherapy, like religion, is concerned with persons and not with mental disorders. [51] The adage, ‘ There are no diseases, there are only sick persons,’ holds true. And in dealing with persons we come into touch not merely with their memories or their instinctive reactions, but with their whole system of moral choices. Above all, as Freud himself has taught us, we are concerned with their most intimate and vital personal relationships. It is only in the religious account of the world that these find their full significance. For the love of man, which is the key to all moral and spiritual value, is a thing transient, a shadow that departeth, unless it rests upon love undying, real, eternal, the love of God.
We may add one final psychological point. It seems to be more and more clear that we cannot study organic structure simply as a mechanism, without reference to its function or purpose. It is at least as true to say that the function determines the structure as that the structure determines the function. A very considerable school of psychologists is now urging the dynamic significance of [ p. 123 ] patterns, or functional schemata. Head, in his great work on aphasia, has shown that the functions of the brain are not as rigidly determined by its structure as the older anatomists thought, and that there is definite evidence in cases of injury of the partial modification of the structure to meet the needs of thought and speech. [52] MacCurdy [53] has argued in detail that exactly the same dynamic patterns reveal themselves in man’s physiological and in his psychological development. The Gestalt-psychologie of Kohler [54] and Koffka [55] is moving along a parallel line of thought. But if this approach to the problem of life proves to be sound we at once begin to see something of the mechanism operative in suggestion-treatment and in psychotherapy generally. The pattern of health suggested in the treatment may have difficulty in establishing control in an organism long held in the domination of other, less adequate, patterns, but at least it will have power. And where earlier patterns have failed to establish organic control, where, in other words, there is sickness or mental disorder, the new suggestion may well prove effective. Function will react upon organism, and cures of the most unexpected kind may result.
But we see, too, that upon such a theory religion must be the most powerful curative force of all. For it is in the sphere of religion that the highest patterns of human freedom and human purpose reveal themselves, as men find their lives by losing them in God. Here we have, perhaps, the key to the immense efficacy of methods of religious healing which, although they are open to all manner of psychological criticism, yet produce results which do seem [ p. 124 ] to have permanence and to bring peace. [56] But the real effectiveness of the religious solution will not be found mainly or most significantly in the crude miracles of suggestion and credulity which any charlatan can in some degree copy. It will rather appear in that ordered development of personality which is found in those who see life steadily and see it whole, whose whole character is built up by the progressive establishment of sentiments which rise through the love of man to the love of God. Here there may well be healing, and I should be sorry if I should be thought to have set bounds to its possibility. But, beyond all healing, there will be health, for the power of the higher life will be upon them, body and soul, and whatever external circumstance may befall them, even though it be a Cross, all will be fashioned to the perfection of the Pattern of the Service of God, ‘ unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’
[ p. 125 ]
It is interesting, in view of the difficulty of estimating the modern evidence for miraculous healings, to compare the impression made by the ‘ magnetisers ’ upon so shrewd an observer as S. T. Coleridge, and recorded by him in an annotated copy of Southey’s Life of Wesley (as quoted in a footnote to his Table Talk, under date April 30, 1830. The passage must have been written before 1834. The vogue of magnetism increased until about 1850. It came under destructive scientific criticism from 1840 onwards. See Janet, Psychological Healing, pp. 37 ff.) : ‘ The coincidence throughout of all these Methodist cases with those of the Magnetists makes me wish for a solution that would apply to all. Now, this sense or appearance of a sr.nse of the distant, both in time and space, is common to almost all the magnetic patients in Denmark, Germany, France, and North Italy, to many of whom the same or a similar solution could not apply. Likewise, many cases have been recorded at the same time, in different countries, by men who had never heard of each other’s names, and where the simultaneity of publication proves the independence of the testimony. And among the Magnetisers and Attesters are to be found names of men whose competence in respect of integrity and incapability of intentional falsehood is fully equal to that of Wesley, and their competence in respect of physio- and psycho-logical insight and attainments incomparably greater. Who would dream indeed of comparing Wesley with a Cuvier, Hufeland, Blumenbach, Eschenmeyer, Reil, etc. ? Were I asked, what I think, my answer would be,—that the evidence enforces scepticism and a non liquet ;—too strong and consentaneous for a candid mind to be satisfied of its falsehood, or its solvibility on [ p. 126 ] the supposition of imposture or casual coincidence ; too fugacious and unfixable to support any theory that supposes the always potential, and, under certain conditions and circumstances, occasionally active, existence of a correspondent faculty in the human soul. And nothing less than such an hypothesis would be adequate to the satisfactory explanation of the facts ;—though that of a metastasis of specific functions of the nervous energy, taken in conjunction with extreme nervous excitement, plus some delusion, plus some illusion, plus some imposition, plus some chance and accidental coincidence, might determine the direction in which the scepticism should vibrate. Nine years has the subject of Zoo-magnetism been before me. I have traced it historically, collected a mass of documents in French, German, Italian, and the Latinists of the sixteenth century, have never neglected an opportunity of questioning eye-witnesses, ex. gr. Tieck, Treviranus, De Prati, Meyer, and others of literary or medical celebrity, and I remain where I was, and where the first perusal of Klug’s work had left me, without having moved an inch backward or forward. The reply of Treviranus, the famous botanist, to me, when he was in London, is worth recording :—“ Ich habe gesehen was (ich weiss das) ich nicht wiirde geglaubt haben auf ihren erzahlung,” etc. “ I have seen what I am certain I would not have believed on your telling ; and in all reason, therefore, I can neither expect nor wish that you should believe on mine.” ’ [57]
No criticism could be more obviously honest than such a casual note. The problem of evidence has changed very little in a hundred years, and the parallel between religious and pseudo-scientific healing is as perplexing as ever.
I venture to use a paragraph from an article of my own, first printed in the Morpeth Review and then published as a pamphlet by the Guild of Health under the title Psychology and Spiritual Healing. For a full statement of the facts cf. Janet, Psychological Healing, pp 21-97. ↩︎
Op. cit. p. 50. ↩︎
Lourdes, apparitions et gucrisons, p. 185. ↩︎
Psychological Healing, pp. 51 f. ↩︎
Psychological Healing, pp. 51 f. Precisely what is meant by excitation is not quite clear, nor is the phrase ‘ depression of nervous energy ’ much better. 1 he latter is rather a description of a psychological symptom than of any definite physical condition It never seems to be the nerves that become overtired. Exhaustion of the synapses only means that the nerves work the harder, and we become, as we say, ‘ jumpy ’ It is for this reason that I have given ‘ excitation ’ a psychological and not a physiological meaning. ↩︎
H. Anson in Concerning Prayer, pp. 69 ff. ↩︎
It should in fairness be said that both at Lourdes and in Mr. Hickson’s missions there is ample evidence of spiritual strength and comfort gained by many who are not actually cured. ↩︎
Mk. v. 34. ↩︎
Mt. ix. 29. ↩︎
Mk. x. 52. ↩︎
E.g. Mt. viii. 5-13 ; Lk. vii. i-io ; Mk. ii. 5, vii. 25-30, ix. 14-27; Jn. iv. 46-53, xi. 40. ↩︎
Mk. vi. 5, 6. ↩︎
Mk. ix. 23. ↩︎
See especially E. R. Micklem, Miracles and the New Psychology. ↩︎
Mk. xi. 22. ↩︎
Mt. xii. 43-45. ↩︎
Jn. v. 14. ↩︎
Mk. ii. 3-12. ↩︎
A. C. Turner in Concerning Prayer, p. 403. I owe the reference to Micklem, op. cit. p. 132. ↩︎
Acts iii. 6. ↩︎
Acts iii. 16. ↩︎
Sincerity is, however, no proof against the creative powers of rumour, or the transformations which result from the unconscious desires and enthusiasms of the individual. Anson, Spiritual Healing, pp 179-181, illustrates this vividly from first-hand experience. ↩︎
Janet, Psychological Healing, p. 92, quoting Milmine’s Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy. ↩︎
Fisher, Our New Religion, p. 155. ↩︎
No definition of the ‘ miraculous,’ as applied to the events at Lourdes, has been given by the Holy See, and Roman Catholic accounts of the cures contain such notes as ‘ The author only claims natural scientific certainty with regard to the cures, and disclaims any intention to anticipate the decision of ecclesiastical authority with regard to them ’ (Woodlock, The Miracles at Lourdes, p. 2 ; cf. Marchand, The Facts of Lourdes, p. xvi). ↩︎
I am greatly encouraged in this boldness by Quick’s similar remarks In Liberalism, Modernism, and Tradition, p. 73. ↩︎
Great care is taken at the Bureau des Constatations at Lourdes to secure medical evidence, though an examination on the spot is only made if a cure is claimed. As some 600,000 pilgrims visit Lourdes yearly nothing more can be expected. Dr. de Grandmaison, in Twenty Cures at Lourdes, Medically Discussed, has given an account of some of the more definitely organic. The Bureau is not equipped with the more important modern medical apparatus. In particular cases of cure of old-standing fractures, described by de Grandmaison, there was no examination by X-rays. The best account of the medical evidence is that by Dr. A. Marchand in The Facts of Lourdes and the Medical Bureau. The casesheets brought by the pilgrims are models of scientific detail and accuracy, so far as doctors are prepared to furnish the facts required. But I cannot declare myself convinced. Nor, for my purpose in these lectures, is a decision necessary. Hadfield, in Psychology and the Church, pp. 238 f. t finds the evidence ‘ not always very convincing.’ ↩︎
Janet, Psychological Healing, p. 49. ↩︎
Op. cit. p. 45. ↩︎
See Additional Note, p. 125. ↩︎
Quoted by Janet, op. cit. p. 49. ↩︎
It should be added that there was plenty of evidence of the cure of ‘ functional ’ disorders, and, which is the greatest achievement of these missions, of spiritual conquest and of peace of mind brought even to those who were not healed. In such disorders as consumption this alone is no mean advance towards health. ↩︎
The long section entitled ‘ Fruitage ’ at the end of Science and Health is more than enough to convince any intelligent reader of the complete lack of any critical care in the recording of the cases. ↩︎
The answer to Myers, in 1893, was published in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, ix. p. 173. It simply exhorted Myers and his friends : ’ If they will come out of their material beliefs, they will learn more in one day than they can otherwise learn in an age.’ The example of Jonah in leaving the darkness of the whale’s belly was held up for them to follow. But no information was given as to the case. I owe the reference to Janet, op. cit. p. 93. The reply to Mr. Fisher, in the Times Literary Supplement of Dec. 5, 1929, shows no advance in mental outlook : ‘ Not one word that Mr. Fisher has written will have the slightest effect on the faith of the Christian Scientist, for the Christian Scientist knows that Mr. Fisher is only writing about his false concept of Christian Science and its teaching. . . . Truly St. Paul has said, " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." Mrs Eddy, through her spiritual discernment, has been able to lay bare the so called carnal mind and its inconsistencies.’ There is more of the same kind, but nothing to enlighten the scientific enquirer as to the real nature of the facts. ↩︎
Psychological Healing, p. 97. ↩︎
Psychological Healing, pp. 30 ff. Janet gives some useful notes on the literature. ↩︎
W. Brown, Psychology and Psychotherapy, gives perhaps the best general account. Hadfield, in Psychology and the Church, pp. 249 ff., adopts a division similar to that employed above. The fullest account is Janet’s Psychological Healing, but this, though monumental in scholarship and in detail, is too empirical to form a good basis for theoretical discussion. ↩︎
W. Brown, Science and Personality, p. qy. The evidence of Coué’s own book, Self Mastery by Conscious Auto-suggestion, with its long series of personal tributes to Coué himself, is amply sufficient. ↩︎
Instinct and the Unconcious, p. 183. ↩︎
Die Psychoneurosen und ihrt psychologische Behandlung, p. 202. ↩︎
The statement may be too strong, but the accounts of Coué’s work show little trace of diagnosis, and there is no doubt of its complete absence in many of his followers. I can only give the impression produced upon me by, e.g., the account of the Nancy clinic given by Brooks in The Practice of A utosuggestion, an account authorized by Coué himself. ↩︎
Op. cit. p. 28. ↩︎
Op. cit. p. 21. ↩︎
For a criticism of Dubois see Pfister, The Psychoanalytic Method, pp. 441 ff. ↩︎
On this aspect of Freud’s work see Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, pp. 166 ff. ↩︎
The term ‘ transference ’ was originally used by the magnetizers, and later by Charcot, to denote a phenomenon of ‘ major hypnotism ’ in which cataleptic seizures affecting one side of the body could be transferred to the other side by the application of a magnet. In modern psycho analysis it is used in the manner described above. See Jung, Analytical Psychology, pp. 407 ff. : ‘ The physician has himself become the object of the unconscious libido. If this is not the case, or if the patient will on no account acknowledge the fact of transference, or again, if the physician either does not understand the phenomenon at all, or does so wrongly, then violent resistances make their appearance, which aim at completely breaking off relations with the doctor. . . . But if the transference to the physician takes place and is accepted, a natural channel has thereby been found, which not only replaces the former, but also makes a discharge of the energic process possible, and provides a course that is relatively free from conflict.’ Cf. Freud, Introductory Lectures, pp. 368 ff., and Pfister, The Psychoanalytic Method, pp. 464 ff. There are abundant discussions of the term in the Freudian literature. See also W. Brown, Psychology and Psychotherapy , pp. 108 ff. ↩︎
Not necessarily as a ‘ father-substitute ’ (see Jung, op. cit. p. 409). There is a wide field of usefulness for women doctors who can take the mother relationshin to their patients. ↩︎
The goal which is sought in the final dissolution of the transference is stated by Pfister (op. cit. p. 444) in a passage worth quoting : ‘ While Dubois leads his medical authority into the field full tilt, Freud allows the patients to find the truth themselves as much as possible. The former holds his patients in the father-complex, the latter sets them free. The former wishes to free by a “ fixed idea,” the latter by re-education to have the patient find for himself the law of his own inner self and the best possible realization of his capabilities. . . . Thus the beautiful word, self- education, has with Freud a much deeper significance than with Dubois : the man does not force and persuade himself to a larger life, he loves himself into it.’ The disciple here puts the matter more truly and more finely than the master has ever done. ↩︎
Pfister, The Psychoanalytic Method, p. 408 : ‘ Psycho-analysis gives no explanation of the content of truth in religion, although it eliminates neurotic forms of religion which do not hold their own against the reality-thinking.’ ↩︎
Hadfield, in Psychology and the Church, pp. 255 ff. See also his essay in The Spirit (ed. Canon Streeter), pp. 113 f., and the references there given : ‘ I am convinced that the Christian religion is one of the most valuable and potent influences that we possess for producing that harmony and peace of mind and that confidence of soul which is needed to bring health and power to a large proportion of nervous patients. In some cases I have attempted to cure nervous patients with suggestions of quietness and confidence, but without success until I have linked those suggestions on to that faith in the power of God which is the substance of the Christian’s confidence and hope.’ Cf. Thouless, An Introduction to the Psychology of Religion, p. 277. ↩︎
H. Anson, Spiritual Healing, chap. i. ↩︎
H. Head, Aphasia and Kindred, Disorders of Speech. For a general summary see vol. i. pp. 533 ft . The statement above is based upon his clinical material and upon his conclusion stated on p. 549. ↩︎
Common Principles in Psychology and Physiology. ↩︎
The Mentality of Apes. ↩︎
The Growth of the Mind. ↩︎
‘ It has been said that religion is only a form of neurosis which, for some reason, is not regarded as pathological. There is, however, a good reason why the religious redirection of the libido is not considered to be pathological, for, unlike the neurotic symptom, it provides a permanent and satisfactory solution of the erotic conflict. . . . This would seem to suggest very strongly that the religious solution of the erotic conflict is different in kind from the neurotic solution, and that when the soul which has found no earthly satisfaction for its love directs that love to God, it is doing something very different from the creation of a phantasy loveobject in place of a real one. It has found a satisfactory resting-place for its love, instead of finding an unsatisfactory solution of the conflict between desire and reality in the neurotic symptom or in the phantasy. . . . That -there is this difference between the effectiveness of these two ways of dealing with his desire, seems to suggest that such different effects do not proceed from the same cause. … It seems reasonable to suppose that the genuine satisfactoriness -of the religious solution of the erotic conflict is the result of the fact that its object is a real one that God is not merely a phantasy creation of the worshipping mind ’ (Thouless, An Introduction to the Psychology of Religion, pp. 277 f.). ↩︎
Table Talk of S. T. Coleridge, ed. Morley, p. 72 n. ↩︎