Quimby's mental healing

Domain XIV · Western esoteric, divinatory & new spiritual movements · Phineas Parkhurst Quimby · 1859 · Portland, Maine, USA

What it is

This is a historical healing practice, not a current therapy with a manual or training body. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (born Lebanon, New Hampshire, 1802; died Belfast, Maine, 1866), a clockmaker, took up mesmerism in the late 1830s, then dropped trance work and treated patients by sitting with them…

Format

• Mesmerist period (late 1830s to 1840s). Quimby became interested after a visiting lecturer demonstrated mesmerism in Belfast; George Quimby dates this to about 1838, a Unity course to 1836. The MBE Papers name Charles Poyen among those who brought mesmerism to New England; George Quimby does not…
• Turn from mesmerism. Quimby concluded that his subject was reading the beliefs of patients or bystanders rather than their bodies, that one mind was influencing another, and that healing came from changing belief rather than from remedies or a magnetic fluid; he gave up mesmeric work.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• This is a historical healing practice, not a current therapy with a manual or training body. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (born Lebanon, New Hampshire, 1802; died Belfast, Maine, 1866), a clockmaker, took up mesmerism in the late 1830s, then dropped trance work and treated patients by sitting with them and explaining what he took to be the mental cause of their illness. His core idea of change: illness follows a…
• What is practised today: no organisation offers training in "Quimby's method" as such. His legacy reaches clients through (a) the New Thought churches (Unity, Divine Science, Religious Science / Centers for Spiritual Living), whose courses teach him as a founder figure and whose absent-healing ministries (e.g. Silent Unity) are linked by Unity teachers to his absent treatment; (b) free online copies of the 1921…

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Evidence status (one line): Quimby's claims to cure disease by explanation, touch or absent treatment were never tested under controlled conditions and rest on his and his patients' testimony; historians place mind cure among the cultural roots of American psychotherapy (Caplan 1998, as reviewed by…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Does it involve fasting, a special diet or 'detox'? Have you discussed this with your doctor?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• : worsening illness, secrecy. Working: the child is medically assessed.
• : inability to make decisions without the healer; debt. Working: the client chooses freely and can say no.
• : dual relationships, the client feeling rejected. Working: the client understands the role and the alliance holds.
• : hopelessness, suicidal ideation (follow current risk-assessment practice), hiding symptoms from family. Working: less shame, more willingness to seek help.
• : concealment from doctors, worsening symptoms, a child's untreated illness (move to B8). Working: the client keeps medical contact and holds both frameworks.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.