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Primitive Psycho therapy And Qua
Agrippa
HEINRICH CORNELIUS AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM, a German alchemist, philosopher, and cabalist, of noble ancestry, was born at Cologne, on the Rhine, September 14, 1486. Having received a liberal education and being by nature versatile, he became in his y...
Ancient Medical Prescriptions
From early times it was a universal custom to place at the beginning of a medical prescription certain religious verses or superstitious characters, which formed the invocation, or prayer to a favorite deity. Angelic beings were frequently appeale...
Animal Magnetism
Although curative attributes were ascribed to the magnet in ancient times, and the same belief prevailed in the Middle Ages, the noted charlatan Paracelsus (1493-1541) was the first to propound the theory of the existence of magnetic properties in...
Balsamo
One of the most notorious charlatans of the eighteenth century was Giuseppe Balsamo, who was born at Palermo, Sicily, June 2, 1743. Though of humble origin, this arch-impostor assumed the title of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, and styled himself G...
Cardan
JEROME CARDAN, an Italian physician, author, mathematician and philosopher, was born at Pavia, September 24, 1501. He was the illegitimate son of Facio Cardan, a man of repute among the learned in his neighborhood, from whom Jerome received instruct...
Copy Of Certificate
These may Inform all whom it might Concern, that Mr. John Kaighin, of the Province of West New Jersey, hath lived with me (here under named) a considerable time, as a Disciple, to learn the Arts and Mysteries of Chymistry, Phys...
Fludd
ROBERT FLUDD, surnamed "the Searcher," an English physician, writer and theosophist, member of a knightly family, first saw the light at Milgate, Kent, in the year 1574. His father, Sir Thomas Fludd, was Treasurer of War under Queen Elizabeth. Rober...
Gassner
JOHANN JOSEPH GASSNER, who was regarded as a thaumaturge by his partisans, and as a charlatan by his opponents, was born at Bratz, a village of the Austrian Tyrol, August 20, 1727. He was educated at Innsbruck and Prague, became a priest, and settle...
Greatrakes
VALENTINE GREATRAKES was born at Affane, County of Waterford, Ireland, on Saint Valentine's Day, February 14, 1628. He was educated a Protestant at the free school of Lismore near his home, and at Trinity College, Dublin. At the outbreak of the C...
Healing-spells In Ancient Times
Neither doth fansy only cause, but also as easily cure diseases; as I may justly refer all magical cures thereunto, performed, as is thought, by saints, images, relicts, holy waters, shrines, avemarys, crucifixes, benedictions, c...
Lilly
WILLIAM LILLY, a famous English astrologer of yeoman ancestry, was born at Diseworth, an obscure village in northwestern Leicestershire, May 1, 1602. In his autobiography he described his native place as a "town of great rudeness, wherein it is not ...
Medical Amulets
Among the various subjects which belong to the province of medical folk-lore, one of the most interesting relates to amulets and protective charms, which represent an important stage in the gradual development of Medicine as a science. And especia...
Medicinal Runic Inscriptions
The discovery of the script of the ancient Germans, supposed to be of Egyptian or Phenician origin, was attributed to Wodan, who was regarded as the chief expert in magical writing. The so-called noxious runes were thought to bring evil upon enemi...
Metallo-therapy
Metallo-therapy has been defined as a mode of treating various affections, chiefly those of a nervous character, by the external application of metals. It was recommended by Galen and other medical writers, but they attributed its curative powers ...
Nostradamus
MICHEL DE NOTREDAME, or NOSTRADAMUS, a celebrated French physician and astrologer, of Jewish ancestry, was born at Saint-Remi, a small town in Provence, December 14, 1503. Both of his grandfathers were practitioners of medicine, and his father, Jacq...
Paracelsus
THEOPHRASTUS BOMBASTUS VON HOHENHEIM, commonly known as Paracelsus, was born in 1493 at Maria Einsiedeln, near Zurich, Switzerland. When he was nine years old, his father, who was a reputable physician, removed his residence to Carinthia. Paracelsus...
Phylacteries
They ware in their foreheads scrowles of parchment, wherein were written the tenne commaundements given by God to Moses, which they called philaterias. JOHN MARBECK, Book of Notes and Common-Places: 1581. There we...
Quacks And Quackery
Quackery and the love of being quacked, are in human nature as weeds are in our fields. DR. J. BROWN, Spare Hours. They are Quack-salvers, Fellowes that live by senting oyles and drugs. ...
Quacks And Quackery Continued
An English physician, who practised during the early part of the reign of King James I, described the charlatan of that period as shameless, a mortal hater of all good men, an adept in cozening, legerdemain, conycatching, and all other shifts and ...
Remedial Virtues Ascribed To Relics
A relic has been defined as an object held in reverence or affection, because connected with some sacred or beloved person deceased. And specifically, in the Roman Catholic and Greek churches, a saint's body or portions of it, or an object suppose...
Styptic Charms
Fancy can save or kill; it hath closed up wounds, when the balsam could not, and without the aid of salves, to think hath been a cure. CARTWRIGHT. With bandage firm Ulyss...
Talismans
A talisman may be described as an emblematical object or image, accredited with magical powers, by whose means its possessor is enabled to enlist the aid of supernatural beings. Frequently it is a precious stone, sometimes a piece of metal or parc...
The Blue-glass Mania
As illustrative of the power of the imagination, the so-called blue-glass mania, which prevailed extensively in this country, affords a striking example. About the year 1868, General Augustus J. Pleasanton, of Philadelphia, made some experiments t...
The Curative Influence Of The Imagination
At the present day the remarkable benefit which often results from hygienic and mental influences combined is well shown in the so-called Kneipp cure, originated by Sebastian Kneipp, formerly parish priest of Woerishofen in Bavaria. Briefly, its c...
The Healing Influence Of Music
Dubito, an omnia, quae de incantamentis dicuntur carminibusque, non sint adscribenda effectibus musicis, quia excellebant eadem veteres medici. HERMANN BOERHAAVE. (1668-1738.) Preposterous a...
The Healing Influence Of Music Continued
Dr. Herbert Lilly, in a monograph on musical therapeutics, expresses the opinion that musical sounds received by the auditory nerve, produce reflex action upon the sympathetic system, stimulating or depressing the vaso-motor nerves, and thus influ...
The Power Of Words
In every word there is a magic influence, and each word is in itself the breath of the internal and moving spirit. JOSEPH ENNEMOSER: The History of Magic. There is magic in words, surely, and many a treasur...
The Royal Touch
Malcolm. Well; more anon.--Comes the king forth, I pray you? Doctor. Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces The great assay of art; but at his touch-- Such sanctity hath hea...
The Temples Of Esculapius
It has been truly said that temples were the first hospitals, and priests the earliest physicians. In the temples of Esculapius, in Greece, a main object of the various mystic rites was to exert a powerful influence on the patient's imagination. T...
Van Helmont
JOHANN BAPTIST VAN HELMONT, a celebrated Belgian physician, scholar and visionary, of noble family, was born at Brussels in 1577. At an early age he began the study of medicine, and was appointed Professor of Surgery at the University of Louvain. Be...