Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/552

492 To dispel disease and to promote individual health and happiness, Davis says, the Divine Principle working through Nature has provided certain remedial agents. These agents are "Dress, Food, Water, Air, Light, Electricity, and Magnetism." "Vital magnetism and electricity," he writes, "are the divine elements of spiritual nourishment, and are the mediums through which the spirit acts upon the body; and to restore harmony or health, the prime-moving principle in the body must be addressed by and through identical mediums or elements."

He also says: "By self-magnetisation, or by the magnetic or spiritual action of the influence of one individual upon another . . . the human soul can rise superior to every species of discord, and thus subdue and expel disease."

Davis believed that Christ employed animal magnetism in making cures. "It is clear, at least to the interiorly-en lightened mind, that Christ cast out diseases, Satans, or devils, by the exercise of that spiritual power, which, in our century, has unfortunately been termed 'Animal Magnetism.' "

In applying his principle practically to the care of the sick, he recommends a cheerful, hopeful spirit on the part of the patient, strict attention to diet and temperature, and regular, simple habits. Occasionally, as for rheumatism, he prescribes a kind of beverage and gives instructions how to prepare it. "The patient is requested to remember," he writes, "that I recommend a reconciliation with Nature, and not medicines, to accomplish his cure."

Like Mrs. Eddy, Davis had not much respect for learning. "Book-learning," he writes, "is mainly ephemeral and useless; but Wisdom which unfolds from out the depths of intuition, is