Manipulations upon the operator’s person are said to affect the “spiritual” body of the subject miles away. Or another technique—and one which Quimby frequently used, according to his letters—is said to be possible: “Instead of applying his hands to himself, the operator may in thought, apply them to the person he would affect, and where and in what way the diseased condition would require. This mental act affects the spiritual organism of the invalid, and through this the physical body.”⁸

It is interesting that for Evans, as for Quimby, there was no line between suggestion with religious overtones and the crudest beliefs inherited from Mesmer. Even as late as 1873 in Mental Medicine Evans had no doubt of the existence of a magnetic fluid diffused through space and flowing between the celestial bodies, the earth, and animated beings. He did not doubt the effect of a magnet on the human body: “Even the magnetic sleep may be induced by it. As a therapeutic agent I have found it far more valuable than the electro-magnetic battery.” He advocated the use of magnetized water.⁹ Like Quimby, who told young Charles Norton that because of the earth’s magnetic currents “light complexioned persons should face east while being treated, dark complexioned persons should face north,” Evans found the patient’s position important; preferably the recipient of treatment should sit with his back to the north pole.¹⁰ “This will increase his susceptibility to the psychic influence, and tend to invert the magnetic poles of the body. The brain, which is normally positive, or the north pole of the body, will become negative, and its magnetism will flow downward toward the feet.”¹¹

This sort of fatuity, though interwoven with elements of rational psychology and Swedenborgian idealism, makes Evans’ books, enormously popular in their own day, dead as doornails in ours. His importance today is purely historical: for the backward light he throws on Quimby and the forward light on New Thought—of which, together with Dresser, he may be considered one of the founders.