Article February 3, 1917 Issue

From Medicine to Mind-healing

CAROLINE BONNEKAMP

It was a longing to be of service to suffering humanity which made me become a nurse in a large hospital in Europe; but as years went by and experiences accumulated, the conviction grew stronger that salvation from suffering and death could not be expected from any of the prevailing systems of medicine. As knowledge of human character increased, I became more and more persuaded that the living of a better life was the only means of securing enduring health and happiness.

Not knowing a better way, I continued the search in different training schools and medical institutions for such a healing system as was gradually formulating itself in my mind, and was at last led to cross the ocean to the United States, having been told I would find there exactly what I was looking for. Along material lines the institution to which I went was certainly interesting and progressive, one of its distinguishing features being the education of the patients to a better understanding of the care of the body; but in a little while it became plain to me that this kind of education was doing the very opposite of what I had hoped it would do. Centering their thoughts on the body filled the patients with fears innumerable, and the results were what might have been expected.

Always driven on by the conviction that a better way could be found, I entered a medical course, solely in order to obtain the degree which would open the way for independent work and investigation. During all these years of hopeful search I enjoyed the privilege of association with several of the best representatives of the medical profession, who always encouraged me and helped me with their wide knowledge and well meaning advice; yet at the end of the third year the work in the clinics and the study of the medical text-books had become so irksome that I decided to "stay out" for at least a year, hoping in this way to gain new ambition and courage to continue my studies, after a short period of rest spent far away from all abnormal conditions and close to nature.

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