Geheimnisvolle Heilkunst

The Supernatural

by Jeremy Kingston

bk

Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

A pseudonym used by John Gregory Betancourt.

Reviews

[Annabelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here be faith healers, which Brazil (Jose Arigo) and the Philippines (Antonio Agpaoa) provide ample representation, bogus or otherwise, Anton Mesmer, hypnosis, auras and Kirlian photography, the psychosomatic ailments that beset Elizabeth Barrett pre-Robert Browning, the power of the mind to cure illness. This book was published in 1975. Today some of its hypotheses actually ring true. Diseases like cancer, for instance, are now largely believed to be triggered by cortisol, the stress hormone. As the book sums it up quite nicely in one of the later chapters, "a belief in a life force of some kind is central to many successful methods of healing. If its existence has not yet been proved, it may be because scientific instruments are simply not sensitive enough for the task. The end of this particular story lies in the future."

* In 1985, a dear aunt left us a set of books on the Supernatural. Published in the mid-seventies, the books are dated by today's standards, and sketchy even back then--an encyclopaedia/The Sun hybrid. Over the years, the titles got lost, and those which remained had broken spines and missing pages, a result of persistent re-readings . I've always wanted to recapture the fascination I had for these books, so when I saw a mint set available on eBay in 2018, I bought it.