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centrate our magnetic currents, and the act also brings our mind into a more positive state.

In the fifth step, it is better to first pass the fingers of the positive hand across the palm of the negative hand; but this is not essential, if the alternative motions of the hands be repeated two or three times.

Some per

sons find it difficult to decide which hand or which side of the body is positive. The right is generally the positive; but as there are exceptions to this statement, we may say that the hand, the cheek, the wrist that is habitually warmer than the other, indicate that that side is positive, and the cooler, the negative. One may test one's own cheeks, always with the same hand; or have another person test one's hands, with his same hand, of course, as his own hands differ in temperature from each other.

We have thus described the five physical steps of the process, leaving it to Chapter XVIII to show how to combine them with the mental steps given in previous chapters of the book.

"Conscious Law is king of kings

From world to world the Godhead changes,

Thou meetest him by centuries,

And lo! he passes like the breeze:

Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy,

He hides in pure transparency;

He is the axis of the star,

He is the sparkle of the spar;

He is the heart of every creature,

He is the meaning of each feature;

And his mind is the sky,

Than all it holds more deep, more high."

EMERSON.

CHAPTER XVII.

SOME PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS.

It is well to ascertain which side of the body is positive and which is negative, not so much to begin with the proper hand in the fifth step, as to know which side of the body is more liable to disease by being negative, and which hand to use in correcting our own ailments and those of other people, as it is generally better to make use of the positive hand.

While we shall not look for symptoms of liver trouble or appendicitis on our left side, nor for inflammation of the cardiac orifice on the right, yet where the opposite parts are similar, the negative side is more prone to disease. The left being usually negative, ovarian tumors and the like are apt to come on that side. One who is developing into a magnetized condition will find that he can easily avert an ailment in himself or in another by the simple application of his positive hand, if he do it just as soon as the slightest pain begins. This is especially the case when it is a slight inflammation; but when the liver is gorged with bile by a long course of improper food, or the spine has begun to curve, or a tumor has formed in the ear, it will take something more than the "laying on of a hand" to remove the trouble. The powerful magnetic healer and perhaps skillful mechanical appliances will then be necessary.

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But such things need never come to our posterity if all the rules of health described before are attentively followed.

A grown person can often remove serious trouble from the small body of a child by laying the positive hand on the affected stomach or abdomen, or aching tooth or ear. Where a part of the head or body reached by any one of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves is in pain, it is well to place the positive hand at the base of the sufferer's brain, and the other hand on the part that pains, and then wait quietly until your stronger magnetism begins to run from his brain to the part affected, when relief will be sure to follow. But as the mind re-acts on the body, do not attempt these normal methods unless the sufferer, child or grown, likes you, and has confidence in you. Even Jesus had to be sure that the sick man "believed" that he could heal him.

But as the writer has not much experience as a healer, she will not continue these suggestions. She will content herself by pointing out the process by which each one can become magnetic and in better physical health, leaving the application of magnetic currents to those whose work lies in that direction. Her own health has been remarkably improved by following the directions laid down in this book, and she is happy in communicating them to others.

One side of the body is positive and the other negative, and it is also true that the front of the body is always positive, and the back negative. The back having less resistant power, a draught on the exposed back of the neck will cause one to catch cold, when the same draught in front would be harmless. Disembodied

172 A BATTERY MANIPULATED BY SPIRITS., friends can reach us more easily where we are negative to their influences. In my own case, a loving pressure on the left brow, or cheek, on shoulder, especially on the back of the latter, shows me that some friend out of the body is in sympathy with what I may be doing. While yet engaged with my school, if my talk with the class turned on purity or spirituality, I was often suddenly reminded of my mother by her stroking my left brow. How little did those impressionable young girls realize the unseen forces that were at work with their loved teacher !

When we have become well magnetized by a long course of these or similar processes, our unseen helpers can bring us very effective aid if we are ill. At the risk of awakening an incredulous smile on the part of some readers, I will give an instance of this in my own case.

Before having quite eschewed the "flesh-pots of Egypt," and having been visiting friends a number of weeks, I found myself on returning home feeling quite ill. I did not know that I was bilious, but I could not work nor enjoy myself. One day I went through the magnetic process, and drawing the window shades down, I seated myself in the same chair where I once felt myself in my father's embrace, saying to myself, "Perhaps my spirit friends can help me." Very soon, I felt a hand make a powerful downward stroke over the liver with more force than I could possibly use. The stroke was repeated more strongly, and was followed by a third that was so powerful that I involuntarily put my hand to push it away, and said, "Oh! don't; I can't bear it." Every bad feeling at once disappeared, and I then realized that the liver had been engorged, and that three

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strokes by a powerful unseen battery had freed it from the excess of bile.

Many mediums can relate similar incidents, and we are not surprised that those who do not know the close connection between the two worlds, and the power of the disembodied to aid us, if we give them the right conditions, are unable to accept the truth of such statements. But as this connection is manifested in many new cases with each succeeding year, we have not nearly so much doubt regarding their universal acceptance by and by as Fulton had when his little steam-craft made its first journey up the Hudson river, in sight of crowds of doubters on the bank.

As many of my readers are troubled with insomnia, I will now relate how greatly I have been helped in this direction. Up to the time that I began to realize the help of the invisibles, which was during the winter of 1887-8, I had been a very poor sleeper. Inability to get a healthful amount of sleep had been fastened on me about twenty-three years before this time. Always a hard worker in my profession, and placed in positions of great responsibility, I had been for many years so nervous that any noise in the hour or two after retiring put me into the sleepless condition. A blind rattling, the voice of a neighbor, a piano within hearing, the mouse foraging for something to fill his empty little stomach, threw painful shocks through my system, and made me unable to sleep till two, or four o'clock, or till the hour came to rise and renew my daily toil. I had tried all the methods that I ever heard of. One might aid me perhaps once, but never again. Valerian, chloral, and other medical drugs always made me more restless.