(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
His boyhood was that of a farmer’s son, but he aspired to a college education and attended Chester Academy to prepare for Middlebury College, which he entered in 1837.
In the following year he entered the sophomore class in Dartmouth College, where he remained until the middle of his junior year, when, eager to enter upon the Methodist ministry—and perhaps to wed—he left without a degree.
Career
He was descended from John Evans, one of the early settlers of Roxbury, Mass.
He was first assigned to the Goffstown mission.
He served in no less than eleven charges until 1864 when he withdrew from the Conference.
He had been an assiduous reader of Swedenborg and now with a group of followers united with the New Church.
Having developed “a nervous affection that was complicated with a chronic disorder” (Leonard, post), he visited Dr. Phineas P. Quimby [qw. ]
of Portland, Me. , for treatment in 1863, and became not merely a patient but a disciple of this well-known healer.
This was a turning point in his career.
He visited Dr. Quimby a second time and then himself began to practise “mental medicine at Claremont, N. H.
Here he wrote in 1869 The Mental-Cure, Illustrating the Influence of the Mind on the Body, both in Health and Disease, and the Psychological Method of Treatment.
This was followed by Mental Medicine: a Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Medical Psychology (1872) and Soul and Body; or the Spiritual Science of Health and Disease (1876).
These three volumes contain the essential features of his philosophy and therapy.
His system of therapy is frankly derived from Quimby (Mental Medicine, p. 210) whose success was due, Evans believed, to the recognition of the power of suggestion—to reliance upon psychical remedies instead of drugs.
Disease, ” wrote Evans, “is not so much a mere physical derangement . .. as it is an abnormal mental condition . .. a wrong belief, a falsity” (Ibid. , p. 209).
“If by any therapeutic device you remove the morbid idea you cure the malady” (The Divine Law, p. 9).
This, he believed, was the explanation of the cures wrought by Christ.
The theoretical basis for mental cure he found in the idealistic philosophy of Berkeley and the German thinkers from Fichte to Hegel, and in the spiritual philosophy of Swedenborg.
He has thus many points of contact with the New England Transcendentalists; and he anticipated by some years the doctrine laid down by Mary Morse Baker Eddy \_q. v. '] in Science and Health.
Sometime in the year 1870 Evans established a sort of sanitorium—the Evans Home—in Salisbury, Mass. , where he is said to have effected all manner of cures by mental treatment and to have taught others to practise mental medicine.
Those publications had a wide sale, but Evans was never interested in financial profit (Leonard, post).
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Religion
Subsequently he wrote three books on Swedenborgian- ism, none of which had any enduring significance.
His fame was more than local, and, in order to reach those who could not come under his immediate instruction, he published The Primitive Mind Cure (1885) and Esoteric Christianity and Mental Therapeutics (1886).
Views
Quotations:
Disease, ” wrote Evans, “is not so much a mere physical derangement . .. as it is an abnormal mental condition . .. a wrong belief, a falsity” (Ibid. , p. 209). “If by any therapeutic device you remove the morbid idea you cure the malady” (The Divine Law, p. 9).
Connections
On June 21, 1840, he married Charlotte Tinker, but he was not admitted to the New Hampshire Conference of the Methodist Church until 1844.