and incapable of attempting to
deceive by fraud. Notoriety was distasteful to him, and in this respect
he was above the plane of an ordinary charlatan. An enthusiast, he
believed himself to be invested with divine healing powers. His success
was surely due to forcible therapeutic suggestions communicated by him
to the minds of highly imaginative and credulous people, who reposed
confidence in his methods. It mattered not that they believed the cures
of their nervous disorders to be wrought solely through the physical
agency of laying-on of hands, whereby some mysterious healing force,
magnetic or otherwise, was communicated to them.

In attempting an explanation of the cures wrought by Greatrakes, Henry
Stubbe, a contemporary writer, affirmed that "God had bestowed upon Mr.
Greatarick a peculiar temperament, or composed his body of some
particular ferments, and the effluvia thereof, sometimes by a light,
sometimes by a violent friction, restore the temperament of the
debilitated parts, reinvigorate the blood, and dissipate all
heterogeneous ferments out of the bodies of the diseased, by the eyes,
nose, hands and feet." There is nothing recorded in regard to
Greatrakes's methods (says Professor Joseph Jastrow, in "Fact and Fable
in Psychology"), which definitely suggests the production of the
hypnotic state; but direct suggestion, reinforced by manipulation,
obviously had much to do with the cures.

In 1666 the Chamberlain of the Worcester Corporation expended ten
pounds, fourteen shillings in an entertainment for "Mr. Greatrix, an
Irishman famous for helping and curing many lame and diseased people,
only by stroking of their maladies with his hand and therefore sent for
to this and many other places."

From a letter written by Greatrakes to the Archbishop of Dublin, it
appears that he believed himself to be inspired of God, for the purpose
of curing disease. He received lavish hospitality in many homes, when at
the height of his popularity, and was regarded as a phenomenal adept in
the art of healing by touch.[257:1]

If there exists such a thing as the "gift of healing," Greatrakes
appears to have possessed it. Dr. A. T. Schofield believes that in
certain rare cases individuals are endowed with the faculty of curing by
touch, to which the terms magnetic, psychic, occult, hypnotic, and
mesmeric have been applied. This power is resident in the operator, and
has nothing to do with suggestion; whereas in so-called fait