The Henson Journals
Mon 12 January 1925
Volume 38, Page 168
[168]
Monday, January 12th, 1925.
One of the most striking results of the modern developments of our knowledge concerning the influence of mental factors in disease is that they are bringing back medicine in some measure to that co–operation with religion which existed in the early stages of human progress
Rivers. Medicine, Magic & Religion.p 144
Harry Davis and his wife went off in the course of the forenoon. The weather was foggy enough to make travelling somewhat venturesome. The papers report that London was swathed yesterday in a dense fog.
I remained indoors all day, & employed myself in reading with a view to my handling of "Spiritual Healing". I read Rivers's Article in Hasting's Encylopaedia, and also his book on "Medicine, Magic & Religion". Both are most interesting, and (in more than one sense) full of suggestion. His "olive branch" to the clergy amounts to no more than an invitation to co–operation in the sphere of practice while maintaining the old rigid severance in the sphere of theory. Interpreting results according to our several views let us combine in a procedure which, because interpreted as theoretically justified, is confessedly found to be effective. So Priest & Doctor, Faith & Science, shake hands at the Hospital!