The Mystery of Magnetic Healing: Exploring an 1800s Occupation
The Blunt family continues to keep me quite distracted. When I found Harrison’s death certificate to verify his birth and death, I found his occupation quite interesting.
Many times occupations ‘back in the day” were very straightforward. Usually on the census, you will see common occupations like farmer, housewife, blacksmith, laborer etc. But on this Death Certificate, there was a new one for me. A different type of Rabbit Trail…this one goes into Google to begin with.
One of the first articles that I found seemed to connect the possible dots. William D Jones established the practice of ‘magnetic healing’. According to the article, Jones grew up on farms in Wisconsin and Iowa. In 1899 Jones opened an office in Bloomington, IL, and taught his ‘Jones Method” of magnetic healing.
After scanning through many articles, I was reminded that my grandfather wore a copper bracelet. He swore by it for his arthritis. As I poked around a bit more it seems that is may be what the ‘magnetic healing’ may have been about. I am assuming Harrison went through this school, or another similar in focus and began ‘healing’ people.