Valentine Greatrakes

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Valentine Greatrakes (14 February 1628 - 28 November 1683), also known as 'Greatorex' or 'The Stroker', was an Irish healer who toured England in 1666, claming to cure people by the laying on of hands.

1 Biography
2 Bibliography
3 In fiction
4 External links

[edit] Biography

He was born in Affane Castle, County Waterford, Ireland where he began his career as a noted Stroker or healer. Healing, to deserve the name, requires either faith in the patient, or robust health united with a strong will in the operator.The disease may be extirpated by the imperative will of the operator which, consciously or unconsciously, draws to and reinforces itself with the universal spirit of nature, and restores the disturbed equilibrium of the patient's aura. He may impose the hands as an auxililiary and 'will' as Newton did, also the healer of many thousands of sufferers, and like many others; or like Jesus, and some apostles, he may cure by the word of command. The process in each case is the same. In all instances, the cure is radical and real, and without secondary ill-effects. Valentine Greatrakes was blessed by this divine gift to heal, and he was a very strong, healthy, positive and determined man using his discovered gift to heal many of the poor.

[edit] Bibliography

A Brief Account of Mr. Valentine Greatrakes and Divers of the Strange Cures by him lately performed. Written by himself in a letter Addressed to the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. 1666

In 1670 the poor well-known Irishman Valentine Greatrakes was endorsed by the celebrated Robert Boyle, President of the Royal Society of London.

[edit] In fiction

Greatrakes was mentioned briefly in Susannah Clarke's novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. (pp 211)
A play by Jim Nolan on Valentine Greatrakes played at the Finborough Theatre, London, in March 2006.
An important character in William Carleton's The Evil Eye or, The Black Spectre.
Greatrakes (using the alternate spelling "Greatorex") features prominently in Iain Pears's "An Instance of the Fingerpost".