person of John Bovee Dods. Dods was the author of a book which was published in 1850. It contained ideas he had taught for twenty years and was entitled “The Philosophy of Electrical Psychology.” He gave public lectures in Belfast, exchanged ideas with Quimby, and took into his employ Quimby’s subject, the lad Burkmar. When Quimby again employed Burkmar he found that Dods had been using him to read clairvoyantly the minds of patients and influencing him to prescribe remedies which Dods manufactured.
Quimby thought that overreaching, and when Burkmar diagnosed cases for him, he influenced him to prescribe simple herbs. These remedies appeared to effect cures as well as the higher-priced ones and Quimby began to believe that it was not the medicine that was doing the curing but the patient’s confidence in the doctor or medium. This was a decided step in a progression of reasoning which, had he possessed the mental equipment, might have carried him into the realm of psychological discovery. He was working honestly and cautiously, however, and so accomplished a modicum of success as a magnetic healer. He first abandoned medicines and second, dismissing the subject he had so long relied upon, began to sit directly with his patients, for he had discovered his own clairvoyant ability to read his patient’s thoughts or induce him to tell “all his sensations.” His cures were in part accomplished by directing the patient’s thoughts to another part of the body from that supposed to be affected. Thus a
