Lourdes, naturally, repudiates this classification of her cures, and claims a place apart. She points to the unex- ampled multitude of cures wrought by her; she points to their intrinsic marvellousness. The great number of cures wrought at Lourdes is not due, however, to any peculiarity in the curative power which she possesses, but to the ex- cellence of its exploitation. It will hardly be contended that her patients are miraculously brought to Lourdes. That the power by which her cures are wrought differs in- trinsically from that at work elsewhere is not obvious. To all appearance, all these cures are the same in kind and are the products of the same forces set in action after es- ' sentially the same fashion. These forces are commonly summed up, in large part at least, under the somewhat vague term "suggestion." The term is, perhaps, not a very good one for the particular circumstances, and must be understood when used in this connection in a very wide
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sense. It means at bottom that the immediate curative agency is found in mental states induced in the patient, powerfully reacting, under the impulse of high exaltation, on his bodily functioning.140 With his eye precisely on Lourdes, J. M. Charcot sketches with a few bold strokes the working of this suggestion in the mind of the patient. "In a general way," he says,141 "the faith-cure does not develop the whole of its healing force spontaneously. If an invalid hears a report that miraculous cures take place in such and such a shrine, it is very rarely that he yields to the temptation to go there at once. A thousand material difficulties stand, at least temporarily, in the way of his moving ; it is no light matter for a paralytic or a blind man, however well off he be, to start on a long journey. He ques- tions his friends; he demands circumstantial accounts of the wonderful cures of which rumor has spoken. He re- ceives nothing but encouragement, not only from his imme- diate surroundings, but often even from his doctor, who is unwilling to deprive his patient of his last hope, especially if he believes his malady to be amenable to the faith-cure — a remedy which he has not dared to prescribe himself. Besides, the only effect of contradiction would be to heighten the patient's belief in a miraculous cure. The faith-cure is now born, and it continues to develop. The forming of the plan, the preparation, the pilgrimage, become an idee fixe. The poor humiliate themselves to ask alms to enable them to reach the holy spot; the rich become generous toward the poor in the hope of propitiating the godhead; each and all pray with fervor, and entreat for their cure. Under these conditions the mind is not slow to obtain mas- tery over the body. When the latter has been shaken by a fatiguing journey the patients arrive at the shrine in a state of mind eminently receptive of suggestion. 'The mind of the invalid,' says Barwell, 'being dominated by the firm conviction that a cure will be effected, a cure is effected forthwith.' One last effort — an immersion at the
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pool, a last most fervent prayer, aided by the ecstasy pro- duced by the solemn rites — and the faith-cure produces the desired results; the miraculous healing becomes an accomplished fact."
If any one wishes to feel the intensity with which the last stages of this process of suggestion are brought to bear on the sick at Lourdes, the perfect art with which the whole dramatic machinery is managed,142 he need only read a few pages of the description of Monsignor Benson of what he saw at Lourdes. Like Bertrin,143 Benson scoffs at the notion that "suggestion" can be thought of as the impul- sive cause of the cures; but like Bertrin he defines sugges- tion in too narrow a sense and no one pictures more vividly than he does suggestion at work. Here is his description of the great procession and blessing of the sick.144
"The crowd was past describing. Here about us was a vast concourse of men; and as far as the eye could reach down the huge oval, and far away beyond the crowned statue, and on either side back to the Bureau on the left, and on the slopes to the right, stretched an inconceivable pavement of heads. Above us, too, on every terrace and step, back to the doors of the great basilica, we knew very well, was one seething, singing mob. A great space was kept open on the level ground beneath us — I should say one hundred by two hundred yards in area — and the inside fringe of this was composed of the sick, in litters, in chairs, standing, sitting, lying, and kneeling. It was at the farther end that the procession would enter.