rsalia,"[114:1] that by the spells of Thessalian witches, there
flowed into the obdurate heart a love that entered not there in the
course of nature. And to the same authority is accredited the saying
that even the world might be made to stand still by means of a suitable
incantation; a saying which voiced the popular belief in the miraculous
power of words.

There is abundant evidence to show that the phenomena of
psycho-therapeutics were known to the ancients, and that Assyrian
practitioners effected cures by the agency of suggestion, although they
were ignorant of the mode of its operation. The method of treating and
curing in a mysterious way has been a widely spread one. It was known in
Egypt; in Greece there was the temple of Asklepios or Esculapius; it
was prevalent in Rome; it was in vogue during the Middle Ages. There
were oracles and shrines and sacred grottos and springs; and their
existence and the matters and facts relating to the practices and cures
performed at them are quite as well established as are those of Lourdes
in France, or of Sainte Anne de Beaupre, in the Province of Quebec. Dr.
Pierre Janet is of the opinion that always and everywhere these cures
have been effected under the same laws. The maladies that can be cured
have always been the same. There are illnesses that could not be
vanquished at Asklepios; they are obdurate still at Lourdes. The same
things are done to-day that were done in the temples, and under the same
conditions and in the same way, and even in the same space of time. This
historic similitude shows us that the miraculous cures are all of them
subject to the same regular laws. In far-away Japan there exist
precisely the same miracle cures as elsewhere. In fact, it seems to have
been a matter of independent discovery by investigators all over the
world. Dr. Janet is of the opinion that it is not Asklepios that has
copied Assyria, or Lourdes that has patterned after the Greeks, but that
all have worked independently and have attained to a similar use of the
same natural laws.[115:1]

The Anglo-Saxon clergy sanctioned the use of the relics of saints as
having curative virtues in nearly all diseases. A hair from a saint's
beard, moistened in holy water and taken inwardly, was a favorite remedy
for fever.[116:1]

Direct healing power was also ascribed to the tombs of saints, and
indeed to anything pertaining to the latter. In the popular view, sacred
relics were not only potent