David T. Schmit. History of Psychology, Vol. 21, No. 3, (2018), pp. 187-207
Abstract
The Methodist-Episcopalian minister turned physician and philosopher of healing Warren Felt Evans (1817-1889) was one of the earliest practitioners of mental healing, also known as “mind cure” which spread through the country in the 1880s. Drawing from Evans’s unpublished journals, I recount his struggles with chronic ill-health and his turn to the Quietist mystics and Swedenborg and then to the mesmerist-turned-mental healer P. P. Quimby to procure both healing for his ills and philosophical sanctification for his soul. The transformational route Evans traveled reflects the mytho-religio journey of the wounded healer who suffers through a creative illness on the way to becoming a healer himself. The article places Evans and the mind cure movement within late nineteenth century Boston’s medical and cultural milieu. Evans’s approach to psychological healing is explored by focusing on his mind-body healing philosophy and mental therapeutics as described in his first two mind cure books.
Additional commentary: Evans has been an intriguing but poorly understood historical figure in the history of American metaphysical religion. In his day, he carved out a unique place for his mid to late-19th century healing philosophy and practice at a juncture between psychology, religion and medicine. This is the first article published in over a century based on his unpublished journals. Scholars were unaware that they even existed until I stumbled upon them in 2010. While I was preparing this article, the religious historian Catherine Albanese also found Evans’s journals and published them as a book, The Spiritual Journals of Warren Felt Evans; From Methodism to Mind Cure. I propose that Evans is an unsung pioneer of the use of non-invasive therapeutics to heal. His work helped lay the foundation for American psychotherapy decades before the practice existed in the U.S.
