p. 3 | The Emmanuel Movement

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 18, 1909

The Emmanuel Movement

Its Psychology and Its Methods of Treatment

In order that our readers may have clearly before them the psychological theories maintained by Dr. Worcester, the founder of the Emmanuel Movement, and thus be able to make a close connection between them and the methods of treatment, we will present again the summary which was introduced at the close of last week’s article. From the chapters of the book, “Religion and Medicine,” which were contributed by Dr. Worcester, we made quotations which fully warrant us in summing up his teachings thus:—

1. There is in every man a subconscious mind, which is in one place designated as “the strange power of which we have been so long ignorant, though it resides within us, and manifests itself in so many of the most important acts of our lives.”

2. This subconscious mind is “purer, more sensitive to good and evil, than our conscious mind.”

3. “The subconscious mind has more direct control of our physical processes than the conscious.”

4. “Anything which weakens or depresses our subconscious mind exposes us to disease by rendering us less able to resist its encroachments. And on the other hand, we possess such allies and resources within ourselves that, apart from surgical interference, the physician’s chief function is to awaken in his patient the will to live and to employ every element of resistance which the system itself affords.”

5. The subconscious mind “is more generic, and in closer touch with the universal processes of nature, than our conscious intelligence,” and is “in closer contact with the Universal Spirit than reason.”

It follows that the one who can control the so-called subconscious mind can, through such control, have greater power over the physical processes than it is possible to obtain through the operation of the conscious mind, and that the best method of directing the conduct is to eliminate as far as possible the activity of the conscious mind, and having obtained full possession of the will, to impress such instruction upon the subconscious mind as shall afterward be revealed in the life experience.

It appears that these theories of psychology are not peculiar to Dr. Worcester and the Emmanuel Movement, but that they are adopted in a general way by all so-called psychic healers. Their general application in psycho-therapeutics is set forth in an article in the February number of the Fortnightly Review, from which we quote at some length:—

It is precisely in proportion as the therapeutic system or healer, to whom the sufferer resorts, has the power of eliminating the conscious mind, and thus leaving the whole field clear for the recuperative operations of the subconscious mind, . . . that success will be achieved. For it must be remembered that the conscious mind has a twofold inhibitory effect upon restorative operations. It is not only negatively impotent, through its ignorance of the methods by which the subconscious centers perform their work of restoration of diseased tissues, etc., but it has, in too many cases, a positively harmful influence, inasmuch as it is able to suggest to the subconscious centers ideas of disease in conformity with symptoms with which it is unfortunately familiar.

If, then, it is permissible to believe that the conscious mind was not evolved for the purposes of assisting the internal functioning of the body, and that its influence, when directed toward the internal economics, is of an officiously harmful character, when further it is recognized that on the other hand the subconscious mind is, by nature, fully and adequately equipped for purposes of the regeneration of the body and its maintenance in such condition as will best respond to the archetype of the human species, there will follow the admissible corollary that it is precisely in proportion to the degree of elimination of the conscious mind that in the healing of disease success will be achieved. It comes, in short, to this: that the conscious mind can, though, of course, it does not always, cause disease, whilst the subconscious mind can, and generally will, if it is given a chance, heal disease.—Pages 306-309.

It will, perhaps, render these quotations more intelligible to the average reader if we should briefly expound the evolutionary doctrine of which they are the direct outgrowth. The argument runs briefly this way: all living beings, including man, have been evolved from original protoplasm. The lower orders of life, in which the conscious mind is not developed, surpass the higher orders in their ability to repair damages in the physical system. Some, when forcibly deprived of various essential parts of the body, are able to reproduce them; as, for instance, the crab can grow new legs or claws. As in the evolutionary process the higher orders appeared, the subconscious mind was developed, and took charge of the care and repair of the physical

system.

When the process of evolution reached its climax in the development of man with a conscious mind, it assumed, for some reason not stated by these psychological evolutionists, an unfriendly attitude toward the subconscious mind, and through various emotions exercised an unfavorable influence by the constant suggestion of disease instead of health. This relation between the conscious and the subconscious mind is set forth in the same article in the Fortnightly Review in this way:—

The conscious mind was obviously not created for assisting the internal economy of the individual organism to adapt itself to its physical environment—subconscious nature was managing that quite well by herself, before the appearance of consciousness, and nature’s economic statutes prohibit duplication of function.—Pages 308, 309.

It will thus be seen that these theories of psychology, as applied in psychotherapeutics, are based upon the more comprehensive theory of evolution, and that the two must stand or fall together.

Coming now to the practical application of these theories as exemplified in the Emmanuel Movement, we note, first, Dr. Worcester’s statement concerning the control of the subconscious mind:—

The most important fact which has thus been discovered in regard to the subconscious mind is that it is suggestible, i. e., it is subject to moral influence and direction. In this it does not differ from our ordinary consciousness, except that in certain conditions it is more amenable to external control, and it is in closer contact with our physical functions.

One of the conditions favorable to the control of the subconscious mind is “the important matter of confession.” This is clearly stated by Mr. Ray Stannard Baker in his article on The Emmanuel Movement in the American Magazine for December, 1908:—

Before the patient can be successfully treated, he must unburden his soul, must let the minister who is treating him understand to the depths all the sources of his troubles. Without this it is impossible to begin anew, and the very fact that the sufferer can thus unburden himself of his secret troubles and receive sympathetic advice and comfort often starts him on his way toward better living.

This seems to be a part of the general plan by which the patient who seeks the services of a psychic healer has to sink himself, his soul, and his purposes, in the person of the healer, giving to him the fullest possible control of his being. This is further illustrated by the kind of environment provided for the patients, as described by Dr. Worcester:—

I place the man in a comfortable reclining chair, cut off the stream of external sensations by darkening the room and insuring quiet, and I earnestly tell him that in a few moments he will be asleep.

Another practitioner, Dr. Lyman P. Powell, of Northampton, Mass., adopts the same method as is shown in this description of one of his cases:—

The man sat comfortably in an easy chair, the light was turned down, the study was silent and peaceful. Mr. Powell stood behind the chair and told Mr. X to compose himself, that he was going to sleep just as he had gone to sleep before when he had come to the study.

When the conscious mind of the patient has been rendered inactive, and its unfavorable control over the subconscious mind has thus been eliminated, suggestions favorable to health are then made for ten or fifteen minutes in a low monotone to the subconscious mind. We quote one of Mr. Powell’s treatments for alcoholism:—

I told you before that you were not to drink any more. I told you that you could not yield again to the drink habit. You can not drink any more. You will go on now into the perfection of freedom. Your whole physical nature will revolt at the thought of alcohol. If you should take to drink again, it would blast your life, and leave your wife and children without support. It would cost you your position. You are too good a man to drink; you are too fine a character to be ruined by drink. In God’s name I command you therefore not to drink any more. You can not drink any more. You will use every means to keep from drink; you will not be able to drink any more.

If the method already described of eliminating the action of the conscious mind fails in any given case, then hypnotism is employed, according to Dr. Worcester’s own statement:—

Again, in order to deepen the dissociation and to guard against adverse influences, many of the ablest neurologists prefer to give their suggestions through the medium of hypnosis.

Dr. Worcester’s attitude toward hypnotism is frankly stated:—

While I have absolutely no prejudice against hypnotism in safe hands, and while I know its employment to be almost necessary in certain disorders, I doubt very much whether it is necessary or particularly beneficial in the treatment of the ordinary neuroses.

Of the same method of treatment, Mr. Powell gives his view:—

We do not often hypnotize our patients; it is not necessary. Our idea, of course, is to influence their subconscious lives; to replace their hopelessness and moral weakness with suggestions of power and virtue and strength. We do not need to produce a hypnotic sleep, except in rare cases, to reach this end.

In the study of this movement, we have already found that its theology was based upon a pantheistic conception of God, and that it included the essential elements of Spiritualism; we have also learned that its psychological theories are the fruit of evolution, and it now appears that in its method of treatment it is necessary to put the average patient into a semihypnotic state, and in stubborn cases to produce a hypnotic sleep. This gives us a quartette of words with which to define the Emmanuel Movement, namely, pantheism, Spiritualism, evolution, hypnotism. We do not believe that a system to which such labels as these may be legitimately affixed can consistently be regarded as Christian.

The way in which these latest developments of psychology are applied in explaining, according to the demands of modern theology, the experience of Christian martyrs is thus set forth by Dr. McComb, an associate of Dr. Worcester in the Emmanuel Movement:—

So, too, in a measure may we account for the intrepidity, the more than human endurance, with which old men and children, young men and maidens, faced death in the Roman amphitheater in a form so terrible that its mere description turns cold our blood to-day. Auto-hypnotism may well have been the means by which a divine mercy spared them the worst agonies of their fate.

According to this remarkable explanation, the martyrs of all ages, instead of being sustained during the hour of trial by a special grant of divine grace, were made insensible to suffering by hypnotizing themselves. In fact, by this sort of teaching all direct influence of a personal God upon the minds and hearts of men is cut off, and all the experiences of religion are reduced to psychological phenomena. We hope that the conscious mind of believers in divine revelation will be vigorously exercised in repelling such spiritualistic suggestions, and that there may be a body of believers still found on the earth who accept God as a reality, his Word as inspired truth, and his power upon the hearts of human beings as more than a psychological phenomenon.

The views entertained concerning faith by the promoters of the Emmanuel Movement, and their application of it in healing certain forms of disease, are significant and worthy of consideration. We quote from Dr. McComb’s chapter in “Religion and Medicine,” entitled “Faith and Its Therapeutic Power:”—

Religious faith is simply that [or that kind of] trust which the scientist puts in nature and its sequences, which all normally constituted men put in their friends, only now it is extended to the sphere of the unseen, where it becomes trust in the goodness of God, in the divine love as the law of creation.

As to the application of this principle in the system of healing, Dr. McComb writes further:—

What indeed is psycho-therapy at bottom but an elaborate system of suggestion, and what would suggestion avail were it not met with trust on the part of the sufferer? Faith is as necessary in a psychological clinic as at Lourdes or St. Anne de Beaupré. “Confidence,” says Feuchtersleben, “acts like a real force.” Hence it is not so much the quality as the strength of the faith that is of vital moment so far as the removal of a given disorder is concerned. The relic of a dead superstition, a bone from the supposed skeleton of a medieval saint, may achieve as great things in the cure of physical disorders as faith in the living God.

This modern idea concerning faith and its application as a therapeutic agent is also dwelt upon in the article in the Fortnightly Review, from which quotations have already been made:—

Faith is an old-fashioned word, which needs explanation by the light of modern psychological facts. There have been many definitions of faith, but probably the best for our purpose would be that faith is “belief without conscious knowledge.” But belief in what?—Belief in the capacity of some power to bring salvation to body or to soul. It matters not whether that power be supposed to reside in a human being, or a roasted toad carried round the neck tied up in a silk bag. The therapeutic result will be the same. . . . It is true that in a majority of cases this faith is placed in the power of a person or an object that has no power. A live spider worn round the neck in a nutshell can scarcely be said to have power in itself, apart from the condition of mind which it induces, to cure the ague, any more than all the wicked old kings and queens of England and France can be said to have special power to heal scrofulous disease. But the point is that, granted the existence of a power within the organism instinctively capable of repairing injuries and preserving the ideality of the type, it is of small consequence in whom, or in what, the faith of the patient is placed, so long as that faith is strong enough to act as eliminator of the counter-suggestion of the conscious mind that disease is likely to continue. There is then no miracle, but the cure is the most truly “natural” thing in all the world.—Page 311.

According to the views of these new-theology psychologists, faith, instead of being a living principle by virtue of which the power of God is made effective in the individual experience, becomes synonymous with the confidence which one places, either with or without any basis for it, in any person or thing. This is far from that conception of faith which is found in the Scriptures, and is another proof that these modern interpreters of religious doctrine have substituted their own philosophy for that system of Christian truth revealed in the Bible. Not only so, but they even attempt to show that Christ employed these same psychotherapeutic principles in doing his works, and that his miracles are therefore “natural.” The writer of the article in the Fortnightly Review refers to “the great psychical healer Christ,” regards the faith exercised in him for healing as of the same kind already described, and states that “it seems probable that in cases where the principle of faith was lacking, Christ had resort to the natural magnetic healing powers of his own person.” No explanation is offered, however, of the method employed in healing the nobleman’s son (John 4: 46-54), who did not exercise faith on his own part, and upon whom Christ did not lay his hands as the means of applying “the natural magnetic healing powers of his own person.” Neither is the case of Lazarus cited as an illustration of the application of these modern theories of psychotherapy. Evidently another theory will need to be invented to cover such cases as these.

We think sufficient evidence has now been submitted concerning the theology, the psychology, and the methods of treatment of the Emmanuel Movement to furnish a basis for a verdict concerning it. In view of the testimony of its advocates concerning the principles underlying this movement, and their application to the cure of certain classes of ailments, we have no hesitancy in declaring that in the Emmanuel Movement we have a revival of Oriental philosophy, an exploitation of a spiritualistic psychology, and an application of wrong principles concerning the relation of one human mind to another. In this system, the so-called “God-nature within us” takes the place of the true God, human philosophy is substituted for revealed truth, and men are taught so to submit themselves to the control of another human being as utterly to pervert the divine principle of the freedom of the will and its active use in the control of human conduct. Speaking frankly, we regard the theology as heathenish, the psychology as visionary, and the methods as little better than magical incantations.

As to the explanation of undisputed results exhibited in the Emmanuel Movement, we must remember that there is a “god of this world,” who during the present order of things is permitted to exercise a powerful influence in the affairs of this world, even to causing bodily affliction, as in the case of Job; and that it is only the exercise of the constant protecting care of God which prevents daily exhibitions of this malevolent purpose. He who by the use of his permitted power can bring physical trouble, can appear to remedy the trouble by ceasing to exercise that power, and a sufficient explanation of such a course may be offered if by this restoration to normal health a greater and more permanent control is really gained over the life of the individual. As throwing further light upon this matter, we call attention to the fact that the only forms of disease treated by these psychotherapeutic healers are what are classified as functional diseases, being chiefly those in which the condition of mind appears to have a most powerful influence over the physical system. It was by direct control of the mind yielded to his specious suggestions that Satan, in the form of the serpent, secured his present power over the human family enthralled by sin. It is through the same channel that he works most effectively at the present time to maintain his usurped dominion over the same human family weakened through generations of indulgence in sin.

In this connection, it seems appropriate to quote a statement made by Mrs. E. G. White, and reported in the General Conference Bulletin of April 6, 1903, page 87:—

You know that Satan will come in to deceive if possible the very elect. He claims to be Christ, and he is coming in, pretending to be the great medical missionary. He will cause fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men, to prove that he is God.

Further reference may be made from time to time to the Emmanuel Movement, which already is reported as having spread to at least seventy-five churches in this country, but the consideration already given to it in this series of articles will, we hope, enable our readers to arrive at an intelligent conclusion concerning the claims of this movement and its interpretation of the gospel of Christ.