Historical Sketch of Christian Science Mind-Healing
HISTORICAL SKETCH
OF
Christian Science Mind-Healing.
I left my native hills, in the rock-ribbed State of
New Hampshire, that I might breathe, in the old Bay
State, the invigorating atmosphere of progress, and
plant the standard of a diviner freedom.
Constant invalidism, the early loss of all I loved, a hunger and thirst after divine things, — for something higher and purer than matter, and apart from it, — caused me, from childhood, to seek diligently the knowledge of God, as the one great, ever-present remedy for all human woe.
The physical side of this research was aided by hints from Homœopathy, sustaining my final conclusion that mortal belief, instead of the drug, governed the action of material medicine.
I wandered through the dim mazes of Materia Medica, till I was weary of “scientific guessing,” as it has been well called. To restore my health, I sought aid from the different schools, — Allopathy, Homœopathy, Hydropathy, Electricity, and from various humbugs, — but without receiving permanent help.
I found, in the two hundred and sixty-two remedies enumerated by Jahr, one pervading secret, — namely, that the less material medicine we have, and the more Mind, the better the work is done; a fact which seems to prove the principle of Mind-healing. One drop of the thirtieth attenuation of Natrum Muriaticum, in a tumbler-full of water, and one teaspoonful of the water mixed with the faith of ages, would cure patients not affected by a larger dose. The drug disappears in the higher attenuations of Homœopathy, and matter is thereby reduced to the proportions of mortal mind; but the curative principle remains, and is found to be even more active.
The mental virtues of the material methods of medicine, when understood, were insufficient to solve my doubts. I must know more of the unmixed, unerring source, in order to gain the Science of Mind, the All-in-all of Spirit, in which matter is obsolete. Nothing less could unravel the mental problem. If I sought an answer from the medical schools, the reply was dark, contradictory, unillumined. Neither ancient nor modern philosophy could clear the clouds, or give me one distinct statement of the Science of Mind-healing. Human reason was not equal to it.
About the year 1862 my health was failing rapidly;
and I employed a distinguished mesmerist, Mr. P. P.
Quimby, whose method of treatment was by
manipulation and water. He helped me temporarily, but I
returned home still an invalid. While with Mr. Quimby
I cured some of his most helpless cases on the general
lines of my own notions, which were then in line with
some of his.
I rearranged a few of his short essays, and gave him also some of my own writings, which remained among his papers, and have been spoken of, by persons unfamiliar with the facts, as his own. Mr. Quimby's son has stated, over his own signature, that he has in his possession all his father's written utterances; and I have offered to pay for their publication; but he declines to publish them, for their publication would silence the insinuation that Mr. Quimby originated my system of healing.
I was ignorant at that time of the nature and effects of Animal Magnetism. Since then I have investigated the different forms of this so-called mind-cure, in order to compare it with Christian Science. These researches have convinced me that Mr. Quimby's practice was the mortal mind-cure, on a material basis, — even one belief displacing another. This is the antipodes of Christian Science, which rests on the divine Mind as its Principle of healing, and on the understanding of this Mind for its healthy and holy influence over the human mind and body. I never heard Mr. Quimby say that he treated disease mentally, and he left no writings to this effect. He believed in matter, and employed it as the visible agent of his cure.
Mr. Quimby did undoubtedly originate advanced thoughts on what may be termed “Mind-cure on a Material Basis” — which is a kingdom divided against itself.
Christian Science is predicated of no such materialistic premises, and deals with no material cause or effect, but definitely discloses the fact that such premises and conclusions are more or less Animal Magnetism. This I now understand; but knew nothing of these points of mental healing until I discovered the Science of Mind healing.
DISCOVERY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
It was in Massachusetts, in the year 1866, and after Mr. Quimby had passed away, that I discovered the Science of Divine Metaphysical Healing, which I afterwards named Christian Science. The discovery came to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and in the January of 1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon.
My immediate recovery from the effects of an injury caused by an accident, an injury that neither medicine nor surgery could reach, was the falling apple that led me to the discovery how to be well myself, and make others so.
Even to the physician who attended me, and rejoiced in my salvation from sickness, I could not then explain the modus of my relief; I could only assure him that the Spirit had wrought the miracle — a miracle which later I found to be in perfect scientific accord with God's law.
I then withdrew from society about three years, to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind,that should “take the things of God” and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle, God.
The Bible was my textbook. It answered my questions as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue. Their spiritual signification appeared; and I apprehended for the first time, in their spiritual meaning, Jesus' teaching and demonstration , and the Principle and rule of Metaphysical Healing, — in a word, Christian Science.
The miracles recorded in the Bible, which had before seemed to me supernatural, grew divinely natural and apprehensible. It was uninspired interpreters whose ignorance pronounced Christ's healing miraculous, instead of seeing therein the operation of divine law.
Jesus of Nazareth was a natural and divine Scientist. He was so before the material world saw him. He who antedated Abraham, and gave the world a new date in the Christian era, was a Christian Scientist, who needed no discovery of the Science of Being, in order to rebuke the evidence of the material senses with his spiritual evidence. To one “born of the flesh,” however, Divine Science must be a discovery. Woman must give it birth. It must be begotten of purity, since none but the pure in heart can see God — the Principle of all things pure; and none but the pure could first state this Principle, could know yet more and more of the Infinite, could utilize Truth, and absolutely reduce the demonstration of Spirit, in Divine Science, to the apprehension of the age.
I wrote also, at this period, comments on the Scriptures, setting forth their spiritual interpretation, the Science of the Bible, and so laid the foundation of my work called Science and Health, published in 1875.
If these notes and comments, which have never been read by anyone but myself, were published, it would serve to prove how little I then really understood of Christian Science. Like all great truths, this developed itself to me gradually. These early comments are valuable to me as waymarks of progress, which I would not have effaced, — but not as spiritual finalities.
Up to that time I had not fully grasped the Life-faith, now so precious to me. Naturally, my first jottings were but efforts after Truth, reaching out prayerfully, in the night of belief. In Longfellow's language:
But the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God's right hand in that darkness,
And are lifted up and strengthened.
The divine hand led me into a new world of light and Life. As a child prattles to its mother of what it sees and hears, though not fully comprehending the world-vision, so my heart overflowed in words, a few of which were committed to paper; but those scribblings were like those of a newborn child , who sees a fresh universe — old to God , but new to the little one.
During these years of prayerful study and reflection, it became evident to me that the Divine Mind alone must answer me, and be found as the Life, or Principle, of all being; and that I must acquaint myself with God, if I would be at peace. He must be mine practically, guiding my every thought and action; else I could not understand the omnipresence of Good (the Saxon term for God) sufficiently to demonstrate, even in part, the Science of the perfect Mind and divine healing.
I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in Divine Science. The “first must become last.” My reliance upon material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and understanding must reduce all things real to their own mental denomination, Mind, which divides, subdivides, increases, diminishes, constitutes, and sustains, according to the law of God.
I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, and that nothing else could. How it was done, the Science of Mind must reveal. It was a mystery to me then; but I have since understood it. All Science is a revelation. Its Principle is divine, not human, reaching higher than the stars of heaven.
In 1870 I copyrighted a pamphlet on Metaphysical
Healing, entitled The Science of Man. This little book
I converted into the chapter Recapitulation, in Science
and Health. It was so new,—the basis it laid down for
physical and moral health was so hopelessly original,
and men were so unfamiliar with the subject, that I
did not venture upon its publication until 1876. I had
learned that the merits of Christian Science must be
proven, before a work on this subject could be profitably
published. Five years after taking out my first
copyright I taught Metaphysical Healing, by writing out
my manuscripts for students, and distributing them
unsparingly. This will account for certain unpublished
manuscripts extant, which the evil-minded would insinuate
did not originate with me. The lady who held the
copies that have since been published by Mr. Dresser as Mr. Quimby's writings, has avowed that they were in
my own handwriting at the time of Mr. Quimby's death.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH.
The first edition of this, my most important work, containing a full statement of Christian Science, — the term employed by me to express the Divine Science of Mind-healing, that I had discovered, — was published in 1875 .
When it was first printed, the critics took pleasure in saying, “This book is indeed wholly original, but it will never be read.” The first edition numbered a thousand copies. The thirty-eighth edition was reached in 1888. Those who formerly sneered at it, as foolish and eccentric, now declare Bishop Berkeley, David Hume, Ralph Waldo Emerson, certain German philosophers, or some unlearned mesmerist, to have been the real originators of Mind-healing, as therein stated.
My reluctance to give the public, in my first edition of Science and Health, the chapter on Animal Magnetism, and the divine purpose that I should do so, may have an interest for my readers, and will be seen in the following circumstances. I had finished that edition as far as that chapter, when my printer informed me that he could not go on with my work. I had already paid him $700.00, and yet he stopped my work from being printed. All my efforts to get him to finish my book were in vain. After months had passed, I yielded to my constant conviction that I must insert in my last chapter a partial history of what I had already observed of mental malpractice.
Accordingly, I set to work, contrary to my inclination, to fulfil this painful task, and finished my copy for the book. As it afterwards appeared, my printer resumed his work at the same time, finished printing the copy he had on hand, and then started for Lynn to see me. The afternoon that he left Boston for Lynn, I started for Boston with my finished copy. We met at the Eastern depot in Lynn, and were both surprised, — I to learn that he had printed all the copy on hand, and had come to tell me he wanted more, — he to find me en route for Boston, to give him the closing chapter of my first edition of Science and Health. Not a word had passed between us while this went on. I had grown disgusted with my printer, and become silent. He had come to a standstill through different motives and circumstances.
Various books on Mind-cure and Christian Science have since been issued, in imitation of mine. Most of them accept the human mortal mind as a healing agent; whereas this mind is not a factor of the Principle of Christian Science. The name Mind-cure is also conferred upon Hypnotism and Animal Magnetism; but these methods, set forth as Scientific, are the antipodes of Science, and are wholly pernicious.
Since the publication of Science and Health I have been in the constant receipt of letters, informing me that people are healing themselves and others by the knowledge gained from this book. It was for this purpose that I wrote the book, and the human means have been blessed by divine Intelligence.
Even the Scripture gave no direct interpretation of the Scientific basis for demonstrating the Divine Principle of healing, until the Key to the Scriptures, in Science and Health , unlocked this mystery of godliness.
Science and Health is the textbook of Christian Science. Other writers on this Science base their disquisitions more or less upon this work. All of them borrow largely from my writings, and only a few cite their authority.
Some excuse for this plagiarism is afforded by the fact that my books are the first ever written or published on Christian Science Mind-healing, are exhaustive in their treatment of the subject, and complete. This is plain since nothing else has been found that is as comprehensive and demonstrably correct. I deprecate the dishonesty which prompts any so-called Christian Scientist to withhold my name, while appropriating my language and ideas, and even credit these citations to another author, who has but touched the hem of the garment of Christian Science, and not embraced the living Truth, heart to heart.
These detractors confiscate the ideas of those whose lives they misrepresent; but Life and its ideal are inseparable, and one's thoughts on ethics, or the Science of Christianity, are not, can not be, understood by those who persistently misunderstand or misrepresent the thinker. If one's spiritual ideal is comprehended and loved, the thinker is embraced in the same mental mood. The Science of Mind excludes opposites, and rests on unity. Envy must die of Love, or else lose its meaning, and live to lament it. The mind to which this Science was revealed must have risen to the altitude that let in light, light beyond what others saw, and this growth could never be lost, because it was growth. No mortal could have informed the human mind, of what the mortal and carnal can not discern.
PERSONALITY.
The immortal man being spiritual, individual, and eternal, his mortal opposite must be material, physically personal, and temporal. Physical personality is finite; but God is infinite. He is without materiality, without finiteness of form or Mind.
Limitations are put off in proportion as the fleshly nature disappears, and man reflects Spirit.
When I discovered Divine Science I named it Christian, because it is kind and spiritual. God, I called Immortal Mind. That which sins, suffers, and dies, I named mortal mind. The physical senses, or sensuous nature, I called error and shadow. Soul I denominated Substance, because Soul alone is truly substantial. God I characterized as individual entity, but His physical personality I denied. The Real I claimed as eternal; and its antipodes, or the temporal , I described as unreal. Spirit I called the reality; and matter I called unreality.
I knew the human conception of God to be that He was a physically personal being, like unto man; and that the five physical senses are so many witnesses to the physical personality of mind, and the real existence of matter; but I learned that these material senses testify falsely, that matter neither sees, hears, nor feels Spirit, and is therefore inadequate to form any proper conception of the infinite Mind. “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” (John v. 31.)
These discoveries took me far out to sea. The dry land, the material human concept, disappeared, and I floated into more spiritual latitudes, and purer realms of thought.
From that hour physical personality became much less to me than it is to people who misuse it, I endeavored to lift thought above physical personality, or selfhood in matter, to man's spiritual individuality in Good, God, — to the true Mind, where sensible evil is lost in supersensible Good.
The result of this instruction is a gradual detachment from physical personality, or evil, and consequent attachment to man's spiritual individuality, the image and likeness of God.
A mind imbued with this Spirit and Word of Christian Science gravitates Scientifically toward the state of the Teacher who has thus elevated it.
When such minds meet, it is on the platform of Science,—spiritual Love. This affection, so far from being personal worship, fulfils the law of Love which Paul enjoined upon the Galatians. This is “the Mind which was also in Christ Jesus,” and knows no material limitations. It is the unity of Good and bond of perfectness. This just affection serves to constitute the Mind-healer a wonder-worker, — as of old, on the Pentecost Day, when the disciples were “of one accord.”
He who gains the God-crowned summit of Christian Science, never abuses personality. He thinks of every one in his true character, whether it be good or evil, and also sees him in his impersonal light, the light of stars. He discerns error quickly, and is at peace only with Truth. This Scientist loves Good involuntarily, loves whatever leads his affections higher, into purer joy and spiritual power. He has part in the resurrection from flesh to Spirit. He is being born of Good, and will perfect God’s praise. Before him the mental assassin falls back.
FOUNDATIONS OF SCHOOL, JOURNAL, AND CHURCH.
In 1867 I introduced the first purely metaphysical system of healing since the apostolic days. I begun by teaching one student Christian Science Mind-healing. From this seed grew my present institution, the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in Boston, chartered in 1881. It is the only Christian Science institution that is legally a college. No charter was granted for similar purposes after 1883. My college was the only institution for teaching the pathology of metaphysics, or Christian Science, up to that date.
Loyal students speak with delight of their pupilage, and of what it has done for them, — and, for others, through them. By loyalty in students I mean this, allegiance to God, subordination of the human to the divine, human justice and adherence to divine Truth, instead of personal worship.
The first Christian Scientist Association was organized by myself and six of my students, in 1876, on the Centennial Day of our nation’s freedom. At a meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, on April 19, 1879, it was voted to organize a church to commemorate the words and works of our Master, a Mind-healing church, without a creed, to be called the Church of Christ (Scientist), the first such church ever organized. The charter for this church was obtained in June, 1879, and during the same month the members, twenty-six in number, extended a call to me to become their pastor. I accepted the call, and was ordained in 1881, though I had preached five years before being ordained.
The first official organ of the Christian Scientist Association was called Journal of Christian Science. I started it, April, 1883, as editor and publisher. To meet the broader wants of humanity and provide folds for the sheep that were without shepherds, I suggested to my students, in 1886, the propriety of forming a National Christian Scientist Association. This was immediately done, and delegations from the Christian Scientist Association of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and from branch associations in other States, met in general convention at New York City, February 11, 1886.
For the last twenty-two years I have endeavored to find new ways and means for the promotion and expansion of Christian Science Mind-healing. I have sought to broaden its channels, and, if possible, to build a hedge round about it that should shelter its pure perfections from the contaminating influences of those who have a portion of its letter, and less of its Spirit. At the same time I have worked to provide a home for every true seeker and honest worker in this vineyard of Truth.
As pioneer I stood alone in this conflict, endeavoring to smite error with the falchion of Truth. The rare bequests of Science are costly. Christian Science has won fields of battle, from which its dainty borrowers would have timorously fled. Ceaseless toil, self-renunciation, and love, have cleared the pathway for Christian Science.
The motive of my earliest labors has never changed. It was to relieve the sufferings of humanity, by a sanitary system that should include all moral and religious reform.
FUNDAMENTAL SCIENTIFIC STATEMENT.
The following ideas of Deity, antagonized by finite theories, doctrines, and hypotheses, I found to be demonstrable rules in Christian Science, and that we must abide by them.
Whatever diverges from the One Divine Mind, or God, — or divides Mind into minds, Spirit into spirits, Soul into souls, and Mind into matter, — is a broken link in the chain of Divine Science, which interrupts the meaning of the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of Spirit, and is of human instead of divine origin.
I learned that war is waged between the evidences of Spirit and the evidences of the five physical senses; and that this contest must go on until peace be declared by the final triumph of Spirit in immutable harmony. Divine Science wars against sin, sickness, and death, on the basis of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, or Good.
All consciousness is Mind, and Mind is God. Hence there is but one Mind; and that one is the infinite Good, supplying all Mind by the reflection, not the subdivision, of God. The sun sends forth light, but not suns; so God reflects Himself, or Mind, but does not subdivide Mind, or Good, into minds good and evil. Divine Science demands mighty wrestlings with mortal beliefs, as we sail into the eternal haven over the unfathomable sea of possibilities.
Neither ancient nor modern philosophy furnishes a Scientific basis for Christian Science, or Metaphysical Healing. Plato believed his soul must be doctored in order to heal his body. This would be like correcting the Principle of music for the purpose of destroying discord. Principle is right; it is practice that is wrong. Soul is right; it is the flesh that is evil. If Soul is not right, the body can not be. Soul is the synonym of Spirit, God; hence there is but one Soul, and that one is infinite. Man shines by borrowed light; he reflects God as his Mind, and this reflection is Substance, — the Substance of Good. Matter is substance in error, Spirit is Substance in Truth. Evil, or error,is not Mind; but infinite Mind is sufficient to supply all manifestations of Intelligence. The notion of more than one Mind, or Life, is as unsatisfying as it is unscientific. All must be of God, and not our own, apart from Him.
Christian Science reveals the grand verity, that to believe man has a finite and erring mind, and consequently a mortal mind and soul and life, is error. Scientific terms have no contradictory significations. In Science, Life is not temporal, but eternal, without beginning or ending. The word Life never means that which is the source of death, and of good and evil. Such an inference is unscientific. It is like saying that addition means subtraction in one instance, and addition in another, and then applying this rule to a demonstration of the science of numbers; even as mortals apply finite terms to God, in demonstration of Infinity. Life is a term used to indicate Deity; and every other name for the Supreme Being, if properly employed, has the signification of Life. Whatever errs is mortal, and is a departure from Life, or God, from health and holiness, both in idea and demonstration.
Human systems of philosophy and religion are departures from Christian Science. Mistaking Principle for person; ingrafting upon one First Cause such opposite effects as good and evil, health and sickness, life and death; making matter the status and rule of Spirit, — such methods can never reach the perfection or demonstration of Metaphysical, or Christian Science. Stating the Divine Principle, omnipotence (omenis potens), and then departing from this statement, and taking the rule of finite matter, with which to work out the problem of infinity, or Spirit — employing hygiene, drugs, animal magnetism, in contradiction to divine power — all this is like trying to compensate for the absence of omnipotence, by a physical, false, and finite substitute.
Science reveals Mind, God, and all that is made by Him, as harmonious, immortal, and spiritual: the five material senses define Mind and matter as distinct, but mutually dependent, each on the other, for intelligence and life. Science defines Man as immortal, as coexistent and coeternal with God, as made in His own image and likeness; material sense defines life as something apart from God, beginning and ending, and man as very far from the divine likeness. Science reveals Life as a complete sphere, as eternal self-existent Mind; material sense defines life as a broken sphere, as organized matter, and mind as something separate from God. Science reveals Spirit as all, averring that there is nothing beside God; material sense says that matter, His antipodes, is something besides God. Material sense adds that the divine Spirit created matter, and that matter and evil are as real as Spirit and Good.
Science reveals God and His idea as the all and only. Science declares that evil is the absence of Good, and therefore that evil is unreal, and Good is all that is real. Science saith to the wave and storm, “Be still,” and there is a great calm. Material sense asks, in its ignorance of Science, “When will their raging cease?” Science saith to all manner of disease: “Know that God is all-power and all-presence, and there is nothing beside Him,” and the sick are healed. Material sense saith: “Oh, when will my sufferings cease? Where is God? There is something beside Him, and He can not, or does not, heal.”
Science is the only sure basis of harmony. Material sense contradicts Science, for matter takes no cognizance of the spiritual facts of the universe, or of man and God. Science declares that there is but one Truth, Life, Love, but one Spirit, Mind, Soul. Any attempt to divide these arises from the fallibility of sense, from mortal man’s ignorance, from his hatred of God and Divine Science.
Sickness is a belief, a latent fear, made manifest on the body in different forms of fear, or disease. This fear is formed unconsciously in the silent thought, as when you waken from sleep and feel ill, experiencing the effect of a fear whose existence you do not realize; but if you fall asleep, actually conscious of the Truth of Science, — namely, that man’s harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe, — you can not awake in fear or suffering of any sort.
Science saith to Fear: “You are the cause of all sickness; but you area self-constituted falsity, — you are darkness, nothingness. You are without hope and without God in the world.’ You do not exist, and have no right to, for ‘perfect Love casteth out fear.’” God is everywhere. “There is no speech nor language where His voice is not heard”; and this voice is Truth that destroys error, and Love that casts out fear.
Science reveals the fact that if suffering exists it is in the mortal mind only, for matter has no sensation and can not suffer. If you rule out every sense of disease and suffering from mortal mind, it can not be found in the body.
I advise my pupils not to read unscientific works, which advocate a materialistic treatment of disease, because they becloud the pure sense of Metaphysical Science.
Who would deny to the mathematician the right to decide whether an example is wrought correctly or incorrectly, or to the musician, who gives the keynote, the ability to detect the discord?
The Principle and rule of Mind-healing are wholly Christly and spiritual. To adopt any material method or subterfuge in its demonstration is a departure from Science. Fleeing to drugs, hygiene, manipulation, alcohol, tobacco, hiding from God in any way, or leaning on anything but the divine Mind, to make or keep man well and happy, are so many conspiracies against human health and happiness, and against an honest Metaphysical practice. Hereby you can discern the mental malpractitioners and malteachers of the present day.
Test the Science of Mind-healing on society, and you will find that the views here set forth, as to the unreality of sin, sickness, and death, bring forth better fruits of health, righteousness, and Life, than a belief in their reality has ever done. A demonstration of the unreality of evil destroys evil.
Why do you say God and His idea are the only realities, and then insist on the need of healing sickness and sin? Because Science heals sin as it heals sickness, by establishing the recognition that God is all, and there is none beside Him, that all is good, and there is in reality no evil, neither sickness nor sin. You attack the sinner’s belief in the reality of sin, which makes him a sinner, in order to destroy this belief and save him from sin; and you attack the belief of the sick in the reality of sickness, in order to heal them. When you deny the existence of sin, you begin to sap it; for this denunciation must precede its destruction. God is good, hence goodness is the Life of man. Its opposite, nothing, named evil, is a conspiracy against man’s Life and goodness. Do you not feel bound to expose this conspiracy. and so to save man from it? Whosoever covers iniquity becomes accessory to it. Sin, as a claim, is more dangerous than sickness, more subtle, more difficult to heal.
Saint Augustine once said, “The Devil is but the ape of God.” Sin is less Scientific than sickness; but recollect that it encourages sin to say “There is no sin,” and leave the subject there. Since there is in belief an illusion termed sin, which must be met and mastered, we classify sin, sickness, and death as illusions. They are supposititious claims of error; and error, being a false claim, they are no claims at all. Our duty is to abide in conscious harmony, even health-giving, deathless Truth and Love. To do this, mortals must open their eyes to the subtlety of error, that they may destroy it.
FAITH-CURE.
It is asked: Why are faith-cures sometimes more speedy than some of the cures wrought through Christian Scientists? Because faith is belief, and not understanding; and it is easier to believe than to understand spiritual Truth. It demands less cross-bearing, self-renunciation, and Divine Science, to admit the claims of the personal senses, and appeal for relief to a humanized God, than to deny those claims, and learn the divine way, drinking Jesus’ cup, being baptized with his baptism, gaining the end through persecution and purity. Millions are believing in God, or Good, without bearing the fruits of goodness, not having reached its Science. Belief is virtually blindness, when it admits Truth without understanding it. Blind belief can not say with the apostle, “I know in whom I have believed.” There is danger in this mental state called belief, for if Truth is admitted, but not understood, it may be lost, and error may enter through this same channel of ignorant belief. The Faith-cure has devout followers, whose Christian practice is far in advance of their theory.
ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
For all error there is but one statement: namely, that error is a false belief, and the generic term for belief is Animal Magnetism. Al forms of this belief are illusion, a false sense of life, substance, and intelligence as existing in and of matter, opposed to spiritual Life, Truth, and Love. This delusion must be met in all its subtleties, — in its so-called pleasures and pains of sense, passion, appetite, lust, pride, hatred, envy, malice.
Phenomenally all error is Animal Magnetism. Webster defines Animal Magnetism to be “a supposed agency of a peculiar and mysterious nature, said to have a powerful influence on the patient when acted upon by, or brought into contact with, the will of the . operator.” This definition applies also to Mesmerism. In common usage the term Mesmerism, or Hypnotism, falls short of its entire meaning, which should include those phenomena of Animal Magnetism by which the victim is affected involuntarily and without contact or consent. This incomplete definition fails also to define self-magnetism, by which animal life is said to be carried on, and which brain and nerves communicate through a vital fluid.
I have seen a person, when under the effect of Animal Magnetism, obey the will of one who was neither present, nor known to be attempting any such influence over him. I doubted whether this effect could be produced without the consent of the person to be affected; but this doubt was removed when I witnessed with horror, a superinduced state of involuntary mesmerism.
The methods of Animal Magnetism, especially its secret work, should be exposed. This alone can protect the people from a future Reign of Terror, far surpassing any terrorism of the Dark Ages. One has nothing to fear from this evil if he is conscious of its presence and, on the basis of Christian Science, understands its impotence.
Animal Magnetism is the opposite of Christian Science. Its effect on the senses — in pleasure and pain, passion and appetite, in pride, envy, malice, hate — is readily removed by the latter, if the cause of this effect is understood.
Doubters of the existence or the evil of Animal Magnetism, sneerers at the probability of its methods, will at no distant day have their eyes sharply opened. I have been too charitable towards this evil, through sheer ignorance. He who is guilty of mental malpractice scoffs at its possibilities. He who bears witness to them is the friend of humanity.
Let us follow the example of Jesus, the Master Metaphysician, and gain sufficient knowledge of error to destroy it with Truth. Evil is not resisted by evil; it can only be overcome with Good. This brings out the nothingness of evil; and eternal Somethingness vindicates Principle, and improves our present personality. We must accept the responsibility of acting rightly and uncovering iniquity.
The loyal Christian Scientist is incapable alike of abusing the practice of Mind-healing, or of healing on a material basis. Animal Magnetism has no basis. It is illusion; it is mortal mind, while Mind is immortal; it is whatever is destructive to health and morals. Our Master was led to Calvary’s cross by evil influences, and it is the function of Christian Science to uncover and cast out kindred evils.
There is no curative power in Animal Magnetism. It is a caricature of Mind. It is but the transference of thought from one erring mind to another erring mind, and mocks the divine afflatus.
If an honest Christian Scientist can be deceived into believing that only chance is at work, instead of malicious mental influence, he must rid himself of this delusion before he can heal; for it is a Delilah who would lead him into the toils of the enemy, where Cerberus (the apt symbol of Animal Magnetism) waits to devour the self-deceived and “the very elect.”
Perhaps temporarily the mental healer relieves his patients, and rejoices in the hope of freedom which he afterwards finds to be a bondage worse than disease and death.
FALSE PRACTITIONERS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
What is abnormal in the conduct of some of my students, especially the injustice toward their Teacher, is charitably ascribed to certain idiosyncracies, which render them highly susceptible to the influence of Animal Magnetism, and to dishonest natures, which the mental malpractitioners could press into their service. Some of these students struggled at first against this baneful influence; but in the end they conciliated their foes by breaking from the ranks of loyal Christian Scientists, and taking their field against them. Those who were ignorant of the influence brought to bear upon them almost invariably succumbed to it. Others, who were sensible of its effects on themselves, were so contaminated by it that they denied the fact, and retracted their own words, which exposed and condemned this crime, and fell willingly into the jaws of this monster.
The silent arguments of those who themselves turn away, and would turn away others, from the Spirit of Christian Science, — these arguments exert a mode and power similar to that blessed, silent, mental argument which heals the sick and sinful. This silent subversion of mental power is the most hidden form, the highest attenuation, yet the most powerful mode of error, which can be employed to harm mankind; whereas the opposite work of healing, in the Science of Metaphysics, is the most sacred and salutary power which can be wielded. My loyal students, impressed with the true sense of the great work before them, enter this strait and narrow path rejoicingly, work conscientiously, and love their Teacher.
The Nineteenth Century, like the first, has its Judases who betray Truth for thirty pieces of silver,— dividing its raiment; “and for its vesture they cast lots.” Posterity demands that Christian Science be stated and demonstrated in its godliness and grandeur, — that however little be taught or learned, that little shall be right. Let there be milk for babes, but let not the milk be adulterated. Unless this method be pursued, the Science of Christian Healing will again be lost, and human suffering will increase.
This century, blessed with the advent of Metaphysical Healing, of Christian Science, is also cursed, as all others have been,, with false notions, and with false teachers and healers, who are wilfully ignorant of the whole subject, or who claim to understand and demonstrate that of which they apprehend but a fraction, — who multiply words without knowledge, and support matter, instead of subduing the earth as the Scripture demands. They know enough to render their error and ignorance more plausible; but it is not therefore less dangerous.
Quack teachers, healers, and authors are flooding the community with their mental mixtures and mistakes, brazenly calling them Metaphysics and Christian Science. Unscientific theory and wrong mental practice are more fatal to sanitary reform, sound morals, health, and longevity than aught else can be,— even more so than the old-fashioned empirical treatment, by blood-letting, poisonous drugs, and the other multifarious modes of frightening people to death.
If so-called Evangelical churches refuse fellowship with the Church of Christ, or Christian Science, they must rest their opinions of Truth and Love on the evidences of the senses, rather than on the works of the Spirit. Ritualism and dogma lead to self-righteousness and bigotry, which freeze out the spiritual element. Pharisaism killeth; Spirit giveth Life. The odors of persecution, tobacco, and alcchol are not the sweet-smelling savor of Truth and Love. Feasting the senses, gratification of appetite and passion, have no warrant in the Gospel or the Decalogue. Mortals must take up the cross if they would follow Christ, and “they who worship the Father must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.”
The Jewish religion was not spiritual; hence Jesus denounced it. If the religion of today is constituted of such elements as of old ruled Christ out of the synagogues, it will avoid whatever follows the example of our Lord, and prefers Christ to creed. Christian Science is the most Evangelic religion on earth, according to the Spirit and tenor of Christianity, and the power of Christ as taught in the four gospels. Truth, casting out evils and healing the sick; Love, fulfilling the law, and keeping man unspotted from the world, — these practical manifestations of religion constitute the only Evangelical Christianity, and they need no creed.
As well expect to determine, without a telescope, the magnitude and distance of the stars, as to expect to obtain health, harmony, and holiness through an unspiritual and unhealing religion. Christianity reveals God as ever-present Truth and Love, to be utilized in healing the sick, in casting out error, in raising the dead.
Christianity gives Life to religion, which is no longer buried in materiality. Christianity raises men from a material sense, into the spiritual understanding and Scientific demonstration of God.
HISTORICAL SKETCH
OF
Christian Science Mind-Healing.
BY
MARY BAKER G. EDDY,
PRESIDENT OF MASSACHUSETTS METAPHYSICAL COLLEGE.
THIRD EDITION , REVISED.
Boston, 385 Commonwealth Avenue.
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.
1888.
Copyright, 1888,
By Mary Baker G. Eddy.
Press of L. Barta & Co., 54 Pearl St., Boston.
SCIENCE AND HEALTH,
WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES.
IN ONE VOLUME.
By MARY BAKER G. EDDY.
Price, $3.00. By mail, 17 cts. extra.
The only known work containing a correct and complete statement of the
Science of Metaphysical Healing, its principle and practice.
FOR SALE AT
386 COMMONWEALTH AVENUE, BOSTON.
JOURNAL OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
An independent Family Magazine, designed to promote health and good morals, and to show the practical workings of Mental Healing. All invalids should have it.
ADDRESS,
571 COLUMBUS AVENUE, BOSTON.
HISTORICAL SKETCH
OF
Christian Science Mind-Healing.