● ● ● only that he seemed to understand their sufferings and that he manipulated them. Typical statements by those who visited him in the Portland years were: “He never told me how he healed, but employed rubbing in my case.” “He told me to look at him, and he looked me straight in the eyes for five or ten minutes, still holding my hands. After this process he dipped his hands in water and vigorously rubbed my head.” “Mr. Quimby told me that I must have explicit faith in him and believe that I had no pain at all. The treatment was entirely by manipulation. I never, in the different times that I visited him, heard him mention God in any way.”57
One man stated that Quimby talked politics while rubbing the head; a woman remembered that “society talk” accompanied the treatment; and a patient who knew him well wrote: “While manipulating his patients, Dr. Quimby invariably entertained them by telling stories or carrying on a conversation in a light vein. He was of a happy disposition, jovial and honest and I had great respect for him.”58
One of his leading champions in later years explained that “very often after a sitting with a patient the patient would say, ‘O doctor, tell me how you cure?’ Usually he would say, ‘Oh, I don’t know myself,’ simply to get rid of the patient.”59 This is corroborated by the reminiscences of many patients, and a particularly interesting instance is given in an affidavit by Mrs. Emma A. Thompson, then Emma Morgan. Quimby ● ● ●
57 Affidavits and reminiscences available in Subject File, P. P. Quimby - Affidavits, Etc., MBEL: Helen M. Austin; Amos Weston; Sarah M. Day; Frank H. Miller; Martha J. Hinds. Agnes M. Jenks, 24 February 1937, Reminiscence, MBEL. Among other similar statements is a letter from one Gorham D. Gilman to Georgine Milmine, intended to furnish her with further ammunition against Mrs. Eddy. Telling of his visit to Quimby in Portland and of Quimby’s rubbing his sister’s head, he reported that when asked about his method Quimby replied: “I do not know much more about it than you. There is nothing occult about it that I know of. I simply know that I have this power given to me. I do not understand what it means; do not know what it is, or where it comes from. I simply know of its possession. I make no claims of originality or any supernatural gift.” Gilman then continues: “He seemed a simple, straightforward man desirous of doing good and relieving suffering. . . . My point is that Dr. Quimby distinctly disavowed any ‘revelation’ or supernatural power. Saying ‘I do not know,’ while Mrs. Eddy, a pupil, claims to know it all.” Gorham D. Gilman to S. S. McClure Co., 18 December 1906, LSC004, MBEL.
↑58 [Martha J.Hinds, affidavit, 19 January 1907, Subject File, P.P. Quimby-Affidavits, Etc. - Austin To Mullen, MBEL.]
↑59 Julius A. Dresser, The True History of Mental Science: The Facts Concerning the Discovery of Mental Healing, revised with notes and additions by Horatio W. Dresser (Boston: Geo. H. Ellis, 1899), p. 38n.
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