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Warren Felt Evans and Mental Healing: Romantic Idealism and Practical Mysticism in Nineteenth-Century America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John F. Teahan
John F. Teahan
Affiliation:
assistant professor of religion in Camden College, Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey.
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Extract

Warren Felt Evans was the first American mental healer to publish his ideas extensively. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866), the father of mental healing in America, bequeathed only scattered manuscripts to his followers. Evans, however, wrote six books that decisively influenced the growth of New Thought, a loosely organized religious movement concerned with health and spiritual integration. This essay contends that Evans' thought and therapy united idealistic philosophy and practical mysticism, thus extending one species of American romanticism, rooted in the Transcendentalist movement, into the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 63 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1979

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References

1. The Mental Cure, Illustrating the Influence of the Mind on the Body, both in Health and Disease, and the Psychological Method of Treatment (Boston, 1869);Google ScholarMental Medicine; A Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Medical Psychology (Boston, 1872);Google ScholarSoul and Body; or, the Spiritual Science of Health and Disease (Boston, 1876);Google ScholarThe Divine Law of Cure (Boston, 1881);Google ScholarThe Primitive Mind-Cure: The Nature and Power of Faith; or, Elementary Lessons in Christian Philosophy and Transcendental Medicine (Boston, 1885);Google ScholarEsoteric Christianity and Mental Therapeutics (Boston, 1886).Google ScholarEvans wrote four books before The Mental Cure that were not specifically concerned with healing: Divine Order in the Process of Full Salvation (Boston, 1860);Google ScholarThe Happy Islands; or, Paradise Restored (Boston, 1860);Google ScholarThe Celestial Dawn; or, Connection of Earth and Heaven (Boston, 1862);Google Scholar and The New Age and Its Messenger (Boston, 1864).Google Scholar

2. See Parker, Gail Thain, Mind Cure in New England: From the Civil War to World War I (Hanover, New Hampshire, 1973), pp. 48–56.Google Scholar

3. Quoted in Leonard, William J., “Warren Felt Evans, M.D.: An Account of His Life and Services as the First Author of the Metaphysical Healing Movement,” Practical Ideals 10, no. 3 (11 1905): 6.Google Scholar Leonard's three other installments of this article, the best source for the existing biographical data about Evans, , appear in Practical Ideals 10, no. 2 (09–10 1905): 1–16;Google Scholar 1, no.4 (December 1905): 9–26; and 11, no. 1 (January 1906): 10–26. This article superceded an earlier work of Leonard's, The Pioneer Apostle of Mental Science: A Sketch of the Life and Work of Rev. Warren Felt Evans, M.D. (np., nd.). Leonard had access to the private papers of Evans for his revised presentation, which includes many quotations from Evans' hournals. According to Evans' descendants, these journals have not survived. See Anderson, C. Alan, “Horatio W. Dresser and the Philosophy of New Thought” (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, 1963), p. 273,Google Scholar for his communication with the Evans family regarding this material. Although William Leonard termed Evans an “M.D.,” Evans never formally studied medicine or received a legitimate medical degree.

4. An interesting journal entry for 1860 indicates that Evans had been speculating about the relationship between faith and disease prior to visiting Quimby. On April 12 of that year he wrote that “I will find in Christ all that I need. He can cure every form of mental disease, and thus restore the body, for disease originates generally, if not always, in the mind.” Quoted in Leonard, , “Warren Felt Evans,” Practical Ideals 10, no 3 (11 1905): 6.Google Scholar For another indication of Evans' early interest in mental healing, see The Happy Islands, pp. 247–248.

5. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 101. The present essay Cites the fifth Boston edition of 1886.

6. The Divine Law of Cure, p. 9.

7. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 186.

8. The Divine Law of Cure, p. 37.

9. Ibid., p. 65.

10. Mental Medicine, p. 174. The present essay Cites the third Boston edition of 1874.

11. Although Evans never alluded to it, a vigorous fundamentalistic faith healing movement, led by the Boston physician Dr. Charles Cullis, had appeared in New England in the 1870s. See Cunningham, Raymond J., “From Holiness to Healing: The Faith Cure in America 1872–1892,” Church History 43 (12 1974): 500–503.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

12. Esoteric Christianity, p. 26.

13. See Young, James Harvey, The Toadstool Millionaires: A Social History of Patent Medicines in America Before Federal Regulation (Princeton, 1961),Google Scholar especially chapters 7–12.

14. Mental Medicine, p. 141.

15. Ibid., p. 185.

16. Ibid., p. 144.

17. Ibid., p. 16.

18. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. vi.

19. Ibid., p. iv.

20. Evans' assertion that the medical profession was becoming more conscious of the role of the mind in causing illness is supported by a recent study. See Hale, Nathan G. Jr, Freud and the Americans: The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876–1917 (New York, 1971).Google Scholar

21. The Primitive Mind-Cure, pp. 166–167.

22. Ibid., p. 2.

23. Esoteric Christianity, p. 72.

24. The New Age, p. 47.

25. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 5.

26. The New Age, p. 26.

27. Esoteric Christianity, p. 129.

28. Ibid., p. 82.

29. The Primitve Mind-Cure, p. 169.

30. The Divine Law of Cure, pp. 15 and 20.

31. Esoteric Christianity, pp. 52–53.

32. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 10.

33. The New Age, p. 67.

34. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 75.

35. The Divine Law of Cure, p. 98.

36. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 142.

37. The Divine Law of Cure, p. 10.

38. See Dresser, Horatio W. (ed.), The Quimby Manuscripts: Showing the Discovery of Spiritual Healing and the Origin of Christian Science (New York, 1921),Google Scholar especially chapter 16.

39. Dupré, Louis, The Other Dimension: A Search for the Meaning of Religious Attitudes (Garden City, New York, 1972), p. 488.Google Scholar

40. Quoted in Leonard, , “Warren Felt Evans,” Practical Ideals 10, no. 2 (09–10 1905): 12–13.Google Scholar

41. The Divine Law of Cure, p. 14.

42. Ibid., p. 141.

43. Esoteric Christianity, p. 30.

44. Soul and Body, p. 125.

45. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 91.

46. Ibid., p. 178.

47. Esoteric Christianity, p. 29. For other explicit connections between health and mystical union, see The Mental Cure, pp. 216–217; The Divine Law of Cure, pp. 18, 42, 256; and The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 195.

48. Esoteric Christianity, p. 156.

49. Mental Medicine, p. 32.

50. Ibid., p. 182.

51. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 107.

52. Evans did not originate the term “vital magnetism,” which had appeared in earlier English books, such as DrHaddock, Joseph W., Somnolism and Psycheism, Phenomena of Nervation as Revealed by Vital Magnetism or Mesmerism, Considered Physiologically and Philosophically (London, 1851),Google Scholar and the Rev. Pyne, T., Vital Magnetism (London, 1844).Google Scholar

53. Esoteric Christianity, p. 141.

54. Divine Order in the Process of Full Salvation, p. 23.

55. Esoteric Christianity, p. 152.

56. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. 162.

57. On Prince, see Hale, , Freud and the Americans, pp. 124–132.Google Scholar

58. For an analysis of Beard, see Rosenberg, Charles E., “The Place of George M. Beard in Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 36 (05–06 1962):245–259.Google Scholar

59. Meyer, Donald, The Positive Thinkers: A Study of the American Quest for Health, Wealth and Personal Power from Mary Baker Eddy to Normal Vincent Peale (New York, 1965), p. 312.Google Scholar

60. See Braden, Charles S., Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought (Dallas, 1963), pp. 126–128,Google ScholarLeonard, , “Warren Felt Evans,” Practical Ideals 10, no. 4 (12 1905):25–26,Google Scholar and 11, no. 1 (January 1906):15–16; Dresser, Horatio W., A History of the New Thought Movement (New York, 1919), pp. 148–149;Google Scholar and Judah, J. Stillson, The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movements in America (Philadelphia, 1967), pp. 146–147, 160, 169, 170, 189, 198, 209, 240, and 300,Google Scholar for estimates of Evans' influence on New Thought.

61. In 1871 Mrs. Eddy referred to Evans in a letter as “that half scientist, a former patient of Dr. Quimby.” Quoted in Peel, Robert, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Discovery (New York, 1966), p. 269.Google Scholar

62. The Happy Islands, p. 251. Phineas Quimby is often credited with the first use of the term “Christian Science,” but it does not appear in any of his manuscripts until February, 1863. See Dresser, Horatio W. (ed.), The Quimby Manuscripts, p. 388.Google Scholar The term had been used earlier in a much different context by the Rev. William Allen in his 1850 publication, The Elements of Christian Science.

63. In addition to the above cited work by Peel, see his Christian Science: Its Encounter with American Culture (New York, 1958),Google Scholar and Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial (New York, 1971)Google Scholar for information about Mrs. Eddy.

64. Dresser, A History of the New Thought Movement, chapter 4.

65. See Braden, , Spirits in Rebellion, pp. 9–26,Google Scholar for a summary of New Thought beliefs. Gottschalk, Stephen, The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life (Berkeley, 1973),Google Scholar chapter 3, examines the relationship between Christian Science and New Thought. Cunningham's, Raymond J. “Christian Science and Mind Cure in America: A Review Article,” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 11 (07 1975): 229–305,3.0.CO;2-0>CrossRefGoogle Scholar offers an insightful appraisal of the secondary literature.

66. Ahlstrom, Sydney E., A Religious History of the American People (New Haven, 1972), p. 1029.Google Scholar See also Mead's, Sidney E. review of Miller, Perry, The Transcendentalists: An Anthology in The Journal of Religion 31 (01 1951):52–54.Google Scholar Mead argues for the continuity of the Transcendentalist impulse after 1850, and asserts on page 53 that “the ideas of the Transcendentalists… flowed rather directly into New Thought, Christian Science, and a host of more or less related cults.”

67. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. vi.

68. See Braden, , Spirits in Rebellion, pp. 28ff.Google Scholar

69. The Primitive Mind-Cure, p. iv.

70. Health and the Inner Life: An Analytical and Historical Study of Spiritual Healing Theories, with an Account of the Life and Teachings of P. P. Quimby (New York, 1906), p. 249.Google Scholar

71. Dresser, , A History of the New Thought Movement, p. 313.Google Scholar