The Science of Psychic Healing

This book is intended to be a plain, simple, practical presentation of the various forms of Psychic Healing. We have said very little about theory—although giving a general outline of the underlying theories that the healer may understand the nature of the work he is doing—and have tried to make the book tell “how” to do the work.

In introducing the subject we wish to say that we have not tried to make a religion of Psychic Healing, for this seems a folly to us. We do not see why Psychic Healing should be made into a religion, any more than should Drug Healing, Massage, Osteopathy, or any other form of healing. All true healing results from an application of perfectly natural laws, and the power employed is as much a natural law as is electricity. For that matter, all natural laws are of “divine” religion, and are equally worthy of respect and reverence.

This book is not a book of theories—it deals with facts. Its author regards the best of theories as but working hypotheses to be used only until better ones present themselves. The “fact” is the principal thing—the essential thing—to uncover which the tool, theory, is used. The sanest thinkers—the best investigators—hold no theory, not even the one dearest to them, that they are not ready and willing to throw away when a better one presents itself, whether that better one be discovered by themselves or other persons. This is the true philosophical spirit. It is true that this book may appear dogmatic rather than argumentative. But the author knows of no better way to present the facts of the subject, concisely and to the point—free from the web of theory, and the quicksands of argument. And so he has decided to take the liability of the charge of “dogmatism,” in order to deliver his message to you in the style that he feels will reach the greatest number, and thus do the most good.

William Walker Atkinson (December 5, 1862 – November 22, 1932) was an attorney, merchant, publisher, and author, as well as an occultist and an American pioneer of the New Thought movement. He is also known to have been the author of the pseudonymous works attributed to Theron Q. Dumont and Yogi Ramacharaka.

Due in part to Atkinson's intense personal secrecy and extensive use of pseudonyms, he is now largely forgotten, despite having written more than 100 books in the last 30 years of his life. (He obtained mention in past editions of Who's Who in America, Religious Leaders of America, and several similar publications—-but these are mostly subscription based, and reflect more on his desire to be known than his contemporary fame.) His works have remained in print more or less continuously since 1900.

No record exists in India of a Yogi Ramacharaka. Furthermore, although Atkinson may have travelled to Chicago to visit the 1892-1893 World's Columbian Exposition, where the authentic Indian yogi Swami Vivekananda attracted enthusiastic audiences, he is only known to have taken up residence in Chicago around 1900 and to have passed the Illinois Bar Examination in 1903.

When Atkinson wrote under the pseudonym Yogi Ramacharaka, he claimed to be a Hindu. As Ramacharaka, he helped to popularize Eastern concepts in America, with Yoga and a broadly-interpreted Hinduism being particular areas of focus. The works of Yogi Ramacharaka were published over the course of nearly ten years beginning in 1903. Some were originally issued as a series of lectures delivered at the frequency of one lesson per month. Additional material was issued at each interval in the form of supplementary text books

Atkinson's claim to have an Indian co-author was actually not unusual among the New Thought and New Age writers of his era. Atkinson was not alone in embracing a vaguely exotic "orientalism" as a running theme in his writing, nor in crediting Hindus, Buddhists, or Sikhs with the possession of special knowledge and secret techniques of clairvoyance, spiritual development, sexual energy, health, or longevity.