Mental Healers

Mesmer, Eddy and Freud

Stefan Zweig

• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781908968838
• Topic: Tecnología e ingeniería
• Subtopic: Biografías de ciencia y tecnología

Franz Mesmer, Mary Baker Eddy and Sigmund Freud—three influential thinkers who travelled very different paths in their search for the crucial link between mind and body. Zweig's brilliant study explores the lives and work of these important figures, raising provocative questions regarding the efficacy and even the morality of their methods. An insight into the minds of three key thinkers who shaped the philosophy of our age, Mental Healers is a wonderfully intriguing and thought-provoking biographical work from a renowned master of the genre.

MARY BAKER EDDY

(1821–1910)

Oh the marvel of my life! What would be thought of it, if it was known in a millionth of its details? But this cannot be now. It will take centuries for this.

Mary Baker Eddy,
in a letter to Mrs Stetson, 1893

LIFE AND DOCTRINE

IN THE LIFE-HISTORY of a human being, the most mysterious moment is that in which he first becomes aware of his own individuality; and in the life-history of the human race, the most mysterious moment is that in which a religion is born. An idea, spreading from one mind, passes like an intoxicating vapour to hundreds, thousands, millions; a casual spark starts a forest fire—such moments are the most wonderful in the story of the human mind. Usually, however, the primary source of such religious currents remains undiscoverable. It has been hidden away by a tangled growth of forgetfulness; and just as the individual is seldom able to recall the instants of his most momentous decisions, so does mankind rarely remember the starting-point of passions of faith.

To all, therefore, who are interested in the psychology both of the masses and of the individual, it must seem a fortunate thing that at length we have had an opportunity of closely studying the origin, the growth, and the diffusion of a mighty religious movement lineament by lineament. For Christian Science only came into being just before the opening of the century in which we are living. Its birth took place during these days of electric light and asphalted streets; in an epoch of unexampled publicity, one which no longer tolerates privacies or secrets, but prides itself on a journalistic apparatus capable of effecting pitiless scrutiny.

In this religio-therapeutic method we can for the first time follow the growth of such a movement by studying contracts, the reports of trials, cheque-books, bank balances, mortgages, and photographs; can from day to day watch the progress of events; can take the miracle of mass suggestion into the psychological laboratory for close examination. Moreover, the fact that in the case of Mary Baker Eddy a worldwide influence has been exerted by an idea which from the philosophical standpoint is extremely childish and alarmingly simple, that in this instance an almost infinitesimal grain of intelligence has started an avalanche—this very disproportion makes the miracle almost more miraculous. We who have seen other miracles of the kind, who have seen Tolstoy’s primitive Christian anarchism and Gandhi’s non-resistance uniting myriads of human beings in their support, can understand readily enough the effect of doctrines which, whether you agree with them or not, are fundamentally reasonable, essentially comprehensible—and in the last analysis the reasonable, the comprehensible, is not really miraculous. Tolstoy and Gandhi, commanding spirits, men with powerful minds, men with all the energy of reasoned thought at their disposal, radiate energy. A strong stimulus has a strong effect. Tolstoy was like a great sculptor. His words merely gave shape to an idea which already existed, though formless, in the mind of the Russian people, the idea of rebellion against the State authority. Gandhi, conversely, has voiced the primal passivity of the Hindus, and has thus revitalized their religion. Both of them have built on the foundation of ancient convictions; Tolstoy gave, as Gandhi gives, an outlet to the current of his time. Equally of Gandhi and of Tolstoy we can say that they did not give expression to an idea, but that in each of them the genius of his own nation found expression for itself. The adoption of that idea by multitudes was, therefore, not a miracle; it was the logical and inevitable outcome of the situation.

But who was Mary Baker Eddy? Mrs Anybody, unattractive, by no means beautiful, not particularly sincere, rather stupid, one whom it would be a compliment to describe as even half-educated, isolated, unknown, and utterly without position, money, friends, or what the Americans call “pull.” There was no group or sect for her to appeal to; she had nothing in her hand but a pen, and nothing in her mediocre brain but one solitary idea. Everything was against her: science, religion, the schools, the universities, common sense. Nor, at first sight, could any land seem more unfavourable to the spread of so abstract a doctrine than her homeland, the United States, the most matter-of-fact, cold-blooded, and unmystical country in the world. The only force at her disposal to aid her in overcoming all these obstacles was her tenacious, her mulish faith in her own faith, her own creed; and, simply by advocating it with the persistency of a monomaniac she made the improbable true. Her success was utterly illogical. Well, what is the most salient characteristic of miracle? Surely it is the conquest of truth by the inane!

She had nothing but an idea, and an extremely questionable one, but she thought of absolutely nothing else. She had only this one standpoint, but to this she clung as if her feet had been rooted to the earth. Motionless, unshakable, deaf to every objection, with her frail lever she moved the world. In twenty years out of a maze of metaphysical confusion she created a new method of healing; established a doctrine counting its adherents by the myriad, with colleges and periodicals of its own, and promulgated in textbooks credited with inspiration; established a Church and built numerous churches; appointed a sanhedrim of preachers and priests; and won for herself private wealth amounting to three million dollars. Over and above all this, by her very exaggerations she gave contemporary psychology a vigorous forward thrust, and ensured for herself a special page in the history of mental science. In the breadth of her influence, in the swiftness of her success, in the number of her supporters, this old woman, scarcely more than half-witted, always ailing, and of very dubious character, outstripped all the leaders and investigators of our time. Never beneath the eyes of us moderns has spiritual and religious disturbance emanated from any one to the same marvellous extent as from this daughter of an American farmer, this lone being whom her countryman Mark Twain angrily terms “the most daring and masculine and masterful woman that has appeared on earth in centuries.”

Until recently there were but two main sources for a knowledge of the remarkable, the almost preposterous, life of Mary Baker Eddy, two biographies flatly contradicting one another. One of them was an official biography, approved by the Church, canonized by the leaders of Christian Science. In a holograph document the “pastor emeritus,” Mary Baker Eddy herself, recommended this account to the faithful, the credulous, community of her admirers. One would think, then, that this biography by Miss Sibyl Wilbur must be thoroughly dependable, but in fact it is a truly Byzantine example of literary embroidery. Written for the edification of those already convinced “in the style of the Gospel of St Mark” (sic), it exhibits the discoverer of Christian Science in a rose-coloured light and wearing a halo. (For convenience I shall in the present essay speak of it as the “rose-coloured biography.”)

In this rose-coloured biography, Mary Baker Eddy is presented to our unworthy eyes as immaculate, as filled with divine grace, endowed with superhuman wisdom, an emissary from heaven to earth, the paragon of all the excellences. Whatever she does is done well; she embodies every virtue mentioned in the prayer-book; her character is bright with the seven colours of the rainbow, for she is womanly, Christian, motherly, philanthropic, modest, gentle, and mild; but her adversaries are dull-witted, base, envious, criminal, blinded by error, and overflowing with malice. In a word, no angel was ever more angelic than the foundress of Christian Science. With tears in her eyes, the pious disciple contemplates the saintly portrait she limns, a portrait from which every mundane and therefore every characteristic trait has been carefully expunged. But the rival biographer, Miss Georgine Milmine, does her utmost to shatter this golden image with the club of documentary evidence, working as consistently in black as Miss Wilbur does in rose-colour. Miss Milmine shows up the great discoverer of Christian Science as a vulgar plagiarist who stole the theory from the ill-guarded desk of a predecessor; as a persistent liar, an ill-tempered hysteric, a woman with an unpleasantly keen eye to business; as an artful dodger, and as at times a perfect fury. With the industry of an able reporter, there is here collected an abundance of evidence to show how hypocritical, deceitful, crafty, and grasping was Mary Baker Eddy, how preposterous and ludicrous her doctrine. I need hardly say that this biography is no less fiercely discountenanced by the votaries of Christian Science than the rose-coloured biography is passionately extolled. In fact, Miss Milmine’s book is now almost unprocurable. In the bibliography of the most recent life, that by Edwin Franden Dakin, we are told that the copyright of the “black” biography “was eventually purchased by a friend of Christian Science, and the plates from which the book was printed were destroyed. The author has been informed that the original manuscript was also acquired. As a result, this most valuable source-book has become exceedingly rare.” It is interesting to note that Dakin’s Mrs Eddy, being independent, is likewise taboo, and that the Christian Science movement has endeavoured to boycott its sale. In spite of this, the book has been a best-seller.

Thus the interesting thing about Milmine’s biography and Wilbur’s, the black and the rose-coloured, the unorthodox and the orthodox, is that for the unprejudiced student of this psychological case they to a large extent exchange roles. Miss Milmine, whose main object is to make Mary Baker Eddy appear ridiculous, makes her interesting; whereas the rose-coloured biography, with its idolization, makes an unquestionably interesting woman seem incurably ridiculous. For, in truth, the allurement exercised by the complicated mind of Mrs Eddy depends upon the mingling of opposing characteristics; upon a union between extreme foolishness and a good measure of what in her native land is often called “horse-sense”; upon the way in which hysteria is wedded to calculation.

Just as carbon and saltpetre, utterly dissimilar ingredients, make an explosive powder when mixed with sulphur in the right proportions, so has the strange admixture of mystical and commercial, of hysterical and psychological trends produced a wonder-working compost. Not even Ford or Lincoln, not even Washington or Edison, is a more striking example than Mary Baker Eddy of the strange fusion of American idealism and American shrewdness. In the woman, I admit, the image becomes a caricature, like the hero of Cervantes’s famous novel. But just as Don Quixote, despite his fanciful exaggerations, despite his unteachable folly, has for the modern world become a far more effective embodiment of the idealism of the Spanish hidalgo than have the heroes of any of the seriously meant chivalric romances of his day, so does this woman fighting heroically on behalf of an absurdity give us a better understanding of American romanticism than can the professorial idealism of even such a master spirit as William James. We have long known that behind every Quixote in search of the absolute, there struts the eternal Sancho Panza, the spirit of crude common sense, mounted on an ass. But just as, in sun-kissed Castile, the Knight of La Mancha discovered the helmet of King Mambrino and the island of Barataria, so amid skyscrapers and factories, in the land of Wall Street, banks, trusts, and perpetual calculation, did the obstinate and unteachable woman from New England rediscover the kingdom of Utopia. Whoever brings the world a new illusion, enriches the human race.

FORTY WASTED YEARS

THE BAKERS LIVED in a very small, two-storied farmhouse of unpainted wood, at Bow, near Concord, New Hampshire. They had built this house with their own hands, being simple farmer folk, neither rich nor poor, originally from England, but settled in New England for some two centuries. Mark Baker, Mary’s father, was a man of very strict views, his head being as hard as his fist. “You could not move him any more than you could move old Kearsarge,” his neighbours were wont to say of him—Kearsarge being a nearby mountain. This obstinacy, this indomitable will, was certainly handed down to Mary, the seventh child, born 16th July 1821. But she did not inherit the father’s vigorous muscular system and balanced temperament. A frail, pallid, nervous girl, she was from the first over-sensitive. A loud voice made her shrink; a harsh word caused painful excitement; and she could not even go to school regularly, finding the noisy ways of the other children too much for her weak nerves. The delicate child, therefore, was allowed to stay at home and to pick up what she could in the way of learning there—not much, as may well be imagined, in this isolated dwelling, half a mile even from the road.

Mary was not distinguished for good looks, her best feature being her large, grey eyes, while her thin, compressed lips gave her narrow face an energetic expression. But, though not pleasing in appearance, this strange, self-willed, nervous child had a strong desire to please, or at any rate to impress. Those who knew her in childhood declared that she always seemed to be “showing off” for the benefit of those about her. She believed herself reserved for something “higher,” and this conviction made her “put on airs.” She adopted a peculiar gait, had a fancy for using long words she had hunted up in the dictionary, and in general was distinctly artificial. Alike in clothing and in demeanour, she was resolved to distinguish herself from “ordinary” folk. But an American farming population has neither time nor inclination to heed such whims in a child; and since no one seemed to notice her self-assertive impulse (one of the most vigorous of the nineteenth century) what could be more natural than that she should take strong measures, morbid measures, to make herself conspicuous? The will-to-power, when it can find no outlet, is directed inwards; the frustrated impulse plays havoc with the sufferer’s own nerves.

Before puberty, Mary had not infrequently had convulsive seizures and had given other signs of excessive nervous excitability. When it became obvious to her that such attacks aroused sympathy and attention, she began consciously or unconsciously (the border-line is hard to define) to cultivate these hysterical fits. She had or she feigned (once more, who can distinguish genuine hysteria from malingering) hallucinations and paroxysms of anxiety. Suddenly she would give a loud cry, and would fall as if insensible. Her parents feared she must be suffering from epilepsy; but when the doctor was called in he said that the illness was not so serious, and diagnosed, rather mockingly, “hysteria mingled with bad temper.” Seeing for himself that the attacks, though frequent, were never dangerous, and that they were especially apt to occur whenever Mary could not get her own way, Mark Baker, inexperienced though he was in matters medical, became suspicious. When after a “scene,” she would grow rigid and (without hurting herself) would tumble apparently senseless on to the floor, he no longer bothered about her, and went off to his work. When he came home in the evening, he would usually find that, unaided, she had been able to pick herself up. As if nothing had happened, she was sitting in a chair quietly reading a book.

Still, she had gained her end by letting her nerves run riot in this way, had won for herself a peculiar position in the house. Her sisters had to sweep and to scrub, to sew and to cook, to milk and to churn; her brothers had to work in the fields; but Mary had been released from all these “ordinary” labours. What she had thus been able to achieve at fifteen was an enduring conquest. Never, not even in the time of her utmost poverty, would she do a hand’s turn of commonplace housework. From the outset she had had a fixed determination to live a “peculiar,” a “higher” life than that of the simple farmers from whom she had sprung. Of all maladies, hysteria is unquestionably the most intelligent, the one most intimately expressive of individual impulse, the one which alike in the offensive and the defensive most plainly reveals the sufferer’s secret wishes. In these respects Mary Baker, iron-willed, was a typical hysteric. No power on earth would ever compel her to do what she did not want to do. While her sisters were busily occupied, this little American Bovary was reading books, making others wait on her, and enjoying the luxury of self-pity. She gave no trouble so long as she got her own way; but as soon as she was crossed, as soon as anything she did not like happened, she would promptly “throw a fit,” have a “tantrum,” let her nerves take charge. While still under the parental roof, this domineering solipsist, this young woman who would never adapt herself to others’ wishes, had shown herself to be a far from agreeable housemate. The characteristics thus early manifested were conspicuous all through her life. Whatever she did and wherever she went, her overweening self-will was destined to create tension, conflict, and crisis, for she would never allow any one else’s wishes to prevail against hers. Her invariable demand was for subordination to her own ego, for which the universe itself was too small.

In view of Mary’s peculiarities, there can be no doubt that the rest of the family must have been highly delighted at her marriage. This took place on 12th December 1843, to Washington Glover, known for short as “Wash,” a hale young New Englander, who had been trained as a mason and had then gone south to start a small contracting business in Charleston, South Carolina. Thither the bride of two-and-twenty departed with her husband, and during this brief interlude of married life we hear nothing of hallucinations or hysterical fits. Mary Glover’s letters dilate upon her happiness and breathe an atmosphere of health. As so...