Mental Healings in Ancient Times.

   Through the ages, people in every continent, climate, and culture have instinctively known that somewhere there resided a healing power that could restore the abilities and functions of a person’s body to its normal state of efficiency and good health. They believed that this strange power could be invoked un

der certain conditions and that if it were invoked properly, the alleviation of human suffering would follow. The history of all nations presents testimony in support of this belief.

In the early history of the world, the power of secretly influencing men for good or evil, including the healing of the sick, was said to be possessed by priests, priestesses, and holy people. They claimed to possess powers derived directly from God that included the healing of the sick. The procedures and processes of healing varied throughout the world, but they generally included supplications and offerings to the God; various ceremonies, such as the laying on of hands and incantations; and the use of amulets, talismans, rings, relics, and images.

For example, in the religions of antiquity priests in the ancient temples gave drugs to their patients and practiced hypnotic suggestions as they went to sleep. The patients were told that thegods would surely visit them in their sleep and heal them. Many healings followed.

The devotees of Hecate were told to mix lizards with resin, frankincense, and myrrh and pound all this together in the open air under the crescent moon. After performing these bizarre and mysterious rites, they prayed to the goddess, took the potion they had just compounded, and went to sleep. If their faith was strong enough, they saw the goddess in a dream. This rite, which sounds so strange, even fantastic, to our ears, was often followed by healings.

 

People in ancient times worked out many effective ways to tap the incredible power of the subconscious mind and use it for healing. While they knew that these procedures worked, however, they did not understand how or why they worked. Today, we can see that they were using potent suggestions to the subconscious mind. The rituals and potions and amulets appealed powerfully to the imagination of people and favored the acceptance by the subconscious mind of the insistent suggestions given by the healer. But the work of healing was done by the patient’s own subconscious mind.

and peculiar the remedies and methods used by the healers, the more likely the patients were to believe that anything so strange must be unusually powerful. Their aroused emotional state made it easier for them to accept the suggestion of health, in both their conscious and subconscious mind. This point will be discussed at greater length in the next chapter.