Norton’s mother later arranged for private treatments, and Norton himself made notes of the conversations which he and his father had with Quimby when the latter came to their house to treat his patient.²⁵

Water, he explained to them, was “a good conductor of vital energy, and when the hands are wet the current flows better from the treater to the patient.” But he stressed the importance of the “utmost purity of thought” in the former, and when the senior Norton asked him how he could charge himself with vital energy, he replied that the first thing was “a pure life,” then pure food and drink. He also discussed the more advanced views which he was developing at that time, and young Norton concluded that his “confusion of thought and his lack of ability to formulate a precise theory” was owing to his lack of training and his materialistic background.²⁶

But the young man was fascinated by Quimby and admired him. He later described him as “a man of a most kindly nature” and as an “honest, honorable man, always fearlessly speaking the truth as he understood it.” He was a man “of a deeply religious nature without being pious,” though Norton felt that his nature was basically intellectual rather than spiritual. Had he been trained or educated he “would have, without doubt, reached a commanding place among able thinkers.”²⁷

The dangers of his treatment were obvious. Mrs. Norton’s neuralgia improved so long as she had his personal attention, but when he moved to Portland toward the end of 1859 a relapse occurred. She made several visits to Portland to receive treatment, and each time was helped, but afterwards was worse than ever. A more dramatic example was recorded by her son: