THE USES AND ABUSES OF MIND-CURE
Within the past few years the country has been flooded by a host of
books, pamphlets, and periodicals dealing with "psychotherapy" and
mind-cure in general. In some ways it would be impossible to exaggerate
the good which this has done. It has cheered-up many desponding souls;
it has brightened many a life; it has stimulated activities and lines of
thought which otherwise would have remained dormant; it has added real
zest to life and made it worth living. Undoubtedly, too, real cures have
been effected by means of these modern mental methods, and any one who
denies this must surely be ignorant of the vast amount of steadily
accumulating evidence in their favour. The many advantages of the system
are doubtless pointed out with acuteness and insisted upon with vigour
in the books which defend it, and need not be re-stated here. And yet,
while I acknowledge all this; while I am forced to admit the many
wonderful cures and much mental relief on account of these newer methods
of healing, I still believe that a vast amount of harm is also brought
about by the incautious application of the doctrines taught; by
over-enthusiasm for the ideals which are ever before us, luring us on
and on. In the present chapter, therefore, I propose to show in what
these pitfalls consist; to illustrate some of the errors into which
over-enthusiastic "mental-curists" are apt to fall.
First of all, however, a confession of faith! For a number of years I
believed as implicitly as it was possible for any one to believe in the
great power of mind to cure disease. I read nearly every book of
importance that had been published on this theme--including Mrs. Eddy's
books, all the standard works on hypnotism, mind-cure, faith-cure, new
thought, etc. I was deeply imbued with the truths they contained. I
became greatly opposed to the so-called "materialism" of medical
science. The rationality and philosophical truth of the mind-cure
systems appeared to me irrefutable.
The fundamentals of the system are indeed well laid. We know of the
tremendous effects of the emotions upon the body--its functions,
secretions, etc. Cheering faith and optimism are assuredly great
incentives to health; more than that, they are actual physiological
health-stimulators. We know that we can make ourselves ill by morbid and
unwholesome thoughts; and, as Feuchtersleben says: "If the imagination
can make man sick, can it not make him well?" By opening up the great
"sluice-gates" of the organism we somehow allow a great influx of
spiritual energy to pervade us, and the disease vanishes. It is a very
fascinating doctrine, and, for many diseases, doubtless a true one.
In spite of all this, however, I believe the present tendency to treat
all diseases--or next to all--by purely mental methods is a great
mistake. It leaves many persons ill and crippled for life; it allows
many hundreds of others to sink and fall into premature graves.
And the first objection I would make to mind and faith-curing, and all
kindred systems, is this: that _they tend to suppress symptoms rather
than remove causes_. This is a very grave objection indeed. If one
suffers constantly from constipation or dyspepsia, the natural habit of
the mind would be to worry about them more or less and take steps to
prevent their continued progress. But the faith and mind-curists say:
"No, it is not at all important; imagine yourself whole and well, and
whole and well you will be!" Many persons have done this and their
troubles have, apparently, lessened and disappeared. They may have and
they may not. It is easy to ignore troubles of this kind; but this sort
of ostrich-philosophy, which buries its head in the sand and refuses to
look at what is before its eyes, is not natural or by any means the best
for the bodily organism. Ignoring symptoms does not cure them. What such
persons fail to take into account is this: that any unpleasant symptom
which may have arisen must be due to _some cause_--sickness and disease
do not arise _de novo_ and without just cause. This is not the order of
a good and kind nature. It must be due to _something_, and generally
that "something" is the condition of the body at the time; and that
condition depends, in turn, upon the previous habits and modes of life.
These have engendered the diseased condition we see before us; and the
only effective and rational way to stop the effects--the symptoms--is to
stop the causes, to change the habits of life which have led to such
results; and not to tinker with the effects. Even pain may be ignored to
some extent; but pain is due to a certain pathological state which
requires treatment. It is simply an indication of an existing bodily
condition. What is the good of ignoring that state, when it exists?
Symptoms may be ignored, but the causes of those symptoms run on in the
body, nevertheless, and in the end work havoc and breed sickness and
decay.
I am aware of the fact that the Christian Scientists, e.g., would reply
to this that the bodily state (there is no body, according to them, but
we let that pass, for the moment) _is_ cured at the same time; that, by
the mere affirmation that the body is whole, we thereby make it whole;
we do not suppress symptoms, we remove causes as well. This I deny, at
least in many cases. I have seen too many of such "cures" _and relapses_
not to know whereof I speak. A patient goes to a "healer" and becomes
"cured." A few weeks or months later his trouble returns; or, if not the
same trouble, another and perhaps a worse one. This is "cured" in turn,
and so on.
Now it is a well-known fact that a disease suppressed in one place or
one direction has a tendency to break out in another. It has been
gathering in force all the time within the body, and finally bursts
forth again worse than before. "And the last state of that man was worse
than the first." The _causes_ have run on. Similar causes can produce
opposite effects--just as opposite causes can produce similar effects.
Although no tangible connection between the first and the second illness
can be traced, it is there nevertheless; and both have been produced by
a common cause. We cannot ignore causes; we must treat them; and if we
do not, they will, in the majority of cases, repay us a thousandfold for
our past neglect.
When a person is diseased the majority of mental-scientists would at
least admit that certain unphysiological conditions were present and
needed to be overcome. If this be so, I ask: Why should we allow the
body to become diseased at all and thus necessitate its cure by mental
or any other means? Would it not be much simpler to prevent such a
diseased condition, in the first place, by proper physiological habits
of life; and so render any cure by mental or other means unnecessary? It
seems to me that, by thus allowing the body to become diseased, and then
"curing" it by mental control (even granting that this is the case), we
burn the candle at both ends--for the reason that we devitalize the body
by allowing it to become diseased and then waste more energy in the
mental effort to get well again! Would it not be more simple and more
philosophical so to regulate the life that such diseased states and such
cures are unnecessary?
The fundamentals of Mrs. Eddy's doctrine are well known. God is all in
all; God is good; hence all is good. Sin and sickness are delusions of
poor mortal mind. They do not really exist. And this, they say, may
easily be proved--on the one hand by the cures which take place; and on
the other by the doctrine of idealism, which philosophers and scientists
alike are accepting more and more as a satisfactory interpretation of
the universe. The whole system is very delightful--and very illusory!
In the first place, as to the cures. I must contend that because some
remarkable cures have been effected, that, therefore, the _doctrines_ of
Christian Science are not thereby established. We know similar cures
have been effected at Lourdes; over the bones of saints (which did not
really exist under the sacred cloth); over (fraudulent) "chips of the
Cross"; by means of hypnotism, and in a hundred ways. The whole root of
the matter lies in auto-suggestion; in the patient's faith in himself,
and in the degree of faith he places in the curing object or dogma. The
dogma may be quite false, but the cures are effected just the same.
Because cures are effected by Christian Science methods, therefore, it
is no proof whatever that the Christian Science theology or philosophy
is right. It may be one huge error, but the cures would be effected just
the same--provided the faith, the emotions, the imagination and spirit
of the patient be touched in an appropriate manner.
True it is that science and philosophy tend towards idealism; and the
belief that there is, strictly speaking, "no matter." But this belief
need not make us any the more believers in Christian Science and its
methods. There is a subtle error here which is unperceived by the
majority. When first the truth reaches the mind that there is "no
matter" that matter cannot feel, etc., it bursts like a flood of light
upon the unfettered mind and appears a fact so overwhelmingly great, so
vast and so true, that to gainsay it would be to acknowledge ignorance
of its teaching; to admit intellectual shortsightedness. (This is
perhaps the reason for the supercilious superiority of many Christian
Scientists; they imagine that no one perceives this truth but
themselves.) And once grasped, is it not self-evident, and does not all
else follow in consequence? At first sight it would indeed appear so!
The great error, however, lies here. Because this fact is
_theoretically_ true, it is not _practically_ true also. We may admit
the one; we cannot accept the other. The fallacy has been clearly
pointed out by Sir Oliver Lodge (_Hibbert Journal_, January, 1905), and
I cannot do better than to quote his words in this connection. He says:
"We cannot be permanently satisfied with dualism, but it is
possible to be over-hasty and also too precisely insistent. There
are those who seem to think that a monistic view of existence
precludes the legitimacy of speaking of soul and body, or of God
and spiritual things, or of guidance and management, at all; that
is to say, they seem to think that because these things can be
_ultimately_ unified, therefore they are unified proximately and
for practical purposes. We might as well urge that it is incorrect
to speak of the chemical elements, or of the various materials with
which, in daily life, we have to deal, or of the structures in
which we live, or which we see and handle, as separate and real
things, because in the last resort we believe that they may all be
reduced to a segregation of corpuscles, or to some other mode of
unity.... The language of dualism or of multiplism is not incorrect
or inappropriable or superseded because we catch ideal glimpses of
an ultimate unity; nor would it be any the less appropriable if the
underlying unity could be more clearly or completely grasped. The
material world may be an aspect of the spiritual world, or _vice
versa_ perhaps; or both may be aspects of something else; but both
are realities, just the same, and there need be no hesitation in
speaking of them clearly and distinctly as, for practical purposes,
separate entities."
This, it seems to me, disposes of the argument for Christian Science
drawn from idealism. No matter whether the material world exists or not,
we always have to live _as if_ it existed. If we close our eyes and walk
across the room, we shall be rudely stopped by the brick wall at the
opposite end when we come to it. No matter how strongly we believe that
such a wall does not exist, it does, nevertheless, stop us; we have to
live _as if_ it existed. And, just so, it seems to me; no matter how
strongly we may believe that the body does not exist, we always have to
live and act _as if_ it existed--so long, at least, as we live in and
inhabit the body at all.
Christian Science says that hygiene, diet, etc., are unimportant factors
in the cure of disease. They "do not count." Apart from the immediate,
practical disproof which cases of blood-poisoning, etc., would offer to
such a theory, it may also be disproved theoretically. For if it be
unnecessary, e.g., to fast during illness--if food is a negligible
quantity and can be left out of account--why do Christian Scientists
ever eat at all? If food is unimportant in one case, it must be in the
other case also. And if it be replied to this, as it is, that the only
reason for food is because the Christian Scientists are not yet
sufficiently "advanced" and have not yet sufficient "enlightenment" to
do without it; then, I reply, by the same logic they are not as yet
sufficiently advanced, and have not as yet sufficient knowledge to treat
all cases of accident and disease, which, in point of fact, they do
treat. If the limitation be acknowledged in one direction, it must be
acknowledged in the other direction also. Christian Scientists cannot
yet live without food because they have not yet sufficiently "perfected"
themselves. So, in like manner, they should not treat many cases of
disease they do treat because they have not yet sufficiently "perfected"
themselves.
I might advance arguments such as the above to fill many pages. But I do
not think it necessary. As a cure for certain functional diseases, for
nervous disorders, and for many of the affections of the mind, mental
methods of treatment must be acknowledged to be a great and a most
important factor. But when an organic lesion is present, in grave states
demanding immediate attention, I think it little short of criminal that
such states should meet with almost total neglect because of the
perverted ideas of physiology and a sickly sentimentalism illogically
extended from the philosophical doctrine of idealism. As a metaphysical
doctrine, it may be correct; as a basis for medical practice, it is
certainly incorrect. Let us once more set our feet to earth and
determine to live a good and a useful life in the material world of
which we undoubtedly form a part. We are _in_ a material world, and I
believe we should be _of_ it. I, for one, raise my voice in protest
against the tide of intellectual asceticism which is inclined to accept
without question the modern doctrine and methods of "psychotherapy" and
mind-cure in place of the more rational and certain measures of hygiene
and medicine. The further a pendulum swings in one direction, the
further will it swing in the other, when released. And I believe that
the modern extreme acceptance of faith and mind-cure in all its forms
is but the moral and intellectual and spiritual reaction against the
materialism of the past generation. Hail the day when it again swings
back to its mid-position; and when mental methods of cure and bodily
hygiene shall together march hand in hand to the joint attack against
disease! They each have their mission to fulfil, their cases to cure.
Tolerance, tolerance! Let them each recognize the rights of the other!