The capacity of thought-reading is the common extent of mesmerism.

Clairvoyance is very rare and can be easily tested by blind-folding the subject and giving him a book to read. If he can read without seeing, that is conclusive evidence that he has independent sight. This was my test during my experiments. This state is of very short duration. They then come into that state where they are governed by surrounding minds. All the mediums of this day reason about medicine as much as the regular physicians. ―They both believe in disease, and both recommend medicine. When I mesmerize my subject, he would prescribe some little simple herb that would do no harm or good of itself. In some cases this would cure the patient. I also found that any medicine would cure certain cases, if he ordered it. 

This led me to investigate the matter and arrive at the stand I now take; that the cure is not in the medicine, but in the confidence of the doctor or medium. A clairvoyant never reasons nor alters his opinion; but if in the first state of thought-reading, he prescribes medicine, he must be posted by some mind interested in it, and also must derive his knowledge from the same source as the doctors do. The subject I had, left me and was employed by John B. Dods[1] , who employed him in examining diseases in the mesmeric sleep, and taught him to recommend such medicines as he got up himself in Latin, and as the boy did not know Latin, it looked very mysterious. Soon after-wards he was at home again, and I put him asleep to examine a lady, expecting that he would go on in his old way, but instead of that he wrote a long prescription in Latin. I awoke him that he might read it, but he could not; so I took it to the Apothecary's, who said he had not the articles, and that they would cost twenty dollars. ―This was impossible for the lady to pay, so I returned and put him asleep again, and he gave his usual prescription of some little herb, and she got well. This, with the fact that all these mediums admit disease, and derive their knowledge from the common allopathic belief, convinces me that if it were not for the superstition of the people, believing that these subjects, merely because they have their eyes shut, know more than the apothecaries; they could make few cures. Let any medium open his eyes, and let the patient describe his disease, then the medicine would do about as much good as brown bread pills. But let the eyes be shut and then comes the mystery. It is true that they will tell the feelings, but that is all the difference.

Now I deny disease as a truth, but admit it is a deception, stated like all other stories, without any foundation, and handed down from generation to generation, till the people believe it, and it has become a part of their lives, so they live a lie, and their senses are in it. To illustrate this, suppose I tell a person he has the diphtheria , and he is perfectly ignorant of what I mean, So I describe the feelings and tell the danger of the disease, and how fatal it is in many places. This makes the person nervous, and I finally convince him of the disease. I have now made one, and he attaches himself to it, and really understands it, and he is in it soul and body. Now he goes to work to make it, and in a short time it makes its appearance. My way of curing convinces him that he has been deceived, and if I succeed the patient is cured. As it is necessary that he should feel that I know more than he does. I tell his feelings. This he cannot do to me, for I have no fears of diphtheria. My mode is entirely original. I know what I say and they do not, if their word is to be taken. Just so long as this humbug of inventing diseases continues, just so long the people will be sick and be deceived by the above named crafts.

Feb. 14, 1862 P. P. Quimby
Excerpted from Historical Newspaper Article
[ For the (Portland) Advertiser.]
INTERNATIONAL HOUSE, Feb. 13, 1862.
Source: Library of Congress microfilm collection of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby materials at designation LC 3:1457

Quimby consistently misspelled the name "Dods" as "Dodds". Something he did throughout his earlier writings identified as his Lecture Notes. I’ve corrected the spelling here for brevity.

[1] John Bovee Dods (1795-1872) was a philosopher, spiritualist, mesmerist, and early psychologist. He was born in New York City and died in Brooklyn (on 21 March 1872), but much of his productive life was spent in Maine.




Dods' was a writer. He published "Thirty Sermons", "Philosophy of Mesmerism" (New York, 1847), "Philosophy of Electrical Psychology" (1849), "Immortality Triumphant" (1852), and " Spirit Manifestations Examined and Explained" (1854).

Rev. John Bovee Dods, one of the few religious trained practitioners, taught along the east coast lecture circuit making its way from the Washington, D.C. are to Philadelphia and new York City, to Hudson, Troy, Albany, and then across to Boston. Reverend Dods resided in Boston, but frequented the various lecture halls along the east coast trying to promote his own take on mesmerism. Dods made good use of the ships, stage coaches and on occasion trains following these routes.