4. Life, God, omnipotent Good, deny death, evil, sin,
disease--Disease, sin, evil, death, deny Good, omnipotent God,
Life.”
“What is termed disease does not exist.” “Matter has no being.”
“All is mind.” “Matter is but the subjective state of what is here
termed _mortal mind_.” “All disease is the result of education,
and can carry its ill-effects no farther than mortal mind maps
out the way.” “The fear of dissevered bodily members, or a belief
in such a possibility, is reflected on the body, in the shape
of headache, fractured bones, dislocated joints, and so on, as
directly as shame is seen rising to the cheek. This human error
about physical wounds and colics is part and parcel of the delusion
that matter can feel and see, having sensation and substance.”
“Insanity implies belief in a diseased brain, while physical
ailments (so-called) arise from belief that some other portions
of the body are deranged.... A bunion would produce insanity as
perceptible as that produced by congestion of the brain, were it
not that mortal mind calls the bunion an unconscious portion of
the body. Reverse this belief and the results would be different.”
“We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we
have small-pox because others have it; but mortal mind, not matter,
contains and carries the infection.” “A Christian Scientist never
gives medicine, never recommends hygiene, never manipulates.”
“Anatomy, Physiology, Treatises on Health, sustained by what is
termed material law, are the husbandmen of sickness and disease.”
“You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology that
he will take cold without his blanket.” “If exposure to a draught
of air while in a state of perspiration is followed by chills,
dry cough, influenza, congestive symptoms in the lungs, or hints
of inflammatory rheumatism, your Mind-remedy is safe and sure.
If you are a Christian Scientist, such symptoms will not follow
from the exposure; but if you believe in laws of matter and their
fatal effects when transgressed, you are not fit to conduct your
own case or to destroy the bad effects of belief. When the fear
subsides and the conviction abides that you have broken no law,
neither rheumatism, consumption nor any other disease will ever
result from exposure to the weather.” “Destroy fear and you end
the fever.” “To prevent disease or cure it mentally let spirit
destroy the dream of sense. If you wish to heal by argument,
find the type of the ailment, get its name and array your mental
plea against the physical. Argue with the patient (mentally, not
audibly) that he has no disease, and conform the argument to the
evidence. Mentally insist that health is the everlasting fact, and
sickness the temporal falsity. Then realize the presence of health
and the corporeal senses will respond, so be it.” “My publications
alone heal more sickness than an unconscientious student can begin
to reach.” “The quotient when numbers have been divided by a fixd
rule, are not more unquestionable than the scientific tests I have
made of the effects of truth upon the sick.” “I am never mistaken
in my scientific diagnosis of disease.” “Outside of Christian
Science all is vague and hypothetical, the opposite of Truth.”
“Outside Christian Science all is error.”
Surely this is a remarkable product of mortal mind! It would perhaps
be an interesting _tour de force_, though hardly so entertaining as
‘Alice in Wonderland,’ to construct a universe on the assertions and
hypotheses which Christian Science presents; but it would have less
resemblance to the world we know than has Alice’s Wonderland. For any
person for whom logic and evidence are something more real than ghosts
or myths, the feat must always be relegated to the airy realm of the
imagination and must not be brought in contact with earthly realities.
And yet the extravagance of Mrs. Eddy’s book, its superb disdain of
vulgar fact, its transcendental self-confidence, its solemn assumption
that reiteration and variation of assertion somehow spontaneously
generate proof or self-evidence, its shrewd assimilation of a
theological flavor, its occasional successes in producing a presentable
travesty of scientific truth--all these distinctions may be found in
many a dust-covered volume, that represents the intensity of conviction
of some equally enthusiastic and equally inspired occultist, but one
less successful in securing a chorus to echo his refrain.
I cannot dismiss ‘Eddyism’ without illustrating the peculiar structures
under which, in an effort to be consistent, it is forced to take
shelter. Since disease is always of purely mental origin, it follows
that disease and its symptoms cannot ensue without the conscious
coöperation of the patient; since “Christian Science divests material
drugs of their imaginary power,” it follows that the labels on the
bottles that stand on the druggist’s shelves are correspondingly
meaningless. And it becomes an interesting problem to inquire how
the consensus of mortal mind came about that associates one set of
symptoms with prussic acid, and another with alcohol, and another
with quinine. Inhaling oxygen or common air would prepare one for the
surgeon’s knife, and prussic acid or alcohol have no more effect than
water, if only a congress of nations would pronounce the former to be
anæsthetic and promulgate a decree that the latter shall be harmless.
Christian Science does not flinch from this position. “If a dose of
poison is swallowed through mistake and the patient dies, even though
physician and patient are expecting favorable results, does belief,
you ask, cause this death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison
had been intentionally taken. In such cases a few persons believe the
potion swallowed by the patient to be harmless; but the vast majority
of mankind, though they know nothing of this particular case and this
special person, believe the arsenic, the strychnine, or whatever the
drug used, to be poisonous, for it has been set down as a poison by
mortal mind. The consequence is that the result is controlled by
the majority of opinions outside, not by the infinitesimal minority
of opinions in the sick chamber.” But why should the opinions of οἳ
πολλοι {hoi polloi} be of influence in such a case, and the enlightened
minorities be sufficient to effect the marvellous cures in all the
other cases? Christian Scientists do not take cold in draughts in
spite of the contrary opinions or illusions of misguided majorities.
The logical Christian Scientist need not eat, “for the truth is food
does not affect the life of man,” and should not renounce his faith
by adding, “but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present
understanding, foolish to stop eating, until we gain more goodness
and a clearer comprehension of the living God.” And if he is a mental
physician he must be a mental surgeon, too, and not plead that, “Until
the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of mind, it is
better to leave the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the
fingers of surgeons.” But it is unprofitable to consider the weakness
of any occult system in its encounters with actual science and actual
fact. It is simply as a real and prominent menace to rationality that
these doctrines naturally attract consideration. As illustrations of
present-day occult beliefs we are naturally tempted to inquire what
measure of (perverted) truth they may contain; but the more worthy
question is, How do such perversions come to find so large a company of
‘supporting listeners’? For to any one who can read and be convinced
by the sequence of words of this system, ordinary logic has no power,
and to him the world of reality brings no message. No form of the
modern occult antagonizes the foundations of science so brusquely as
this one. The possibility of science rests on the thorough and absolute
distinction between the subjective and the objective. In what measure a
man loses the power to draw this distinction clearly and as other men
do, in that measure he becomes irrational and insane. The objective
exists; and no amount of thinking it away, or thinking it differently,
will change it. That is what is understood by ultimate scientific
truth; something that will endure unmodified by passing ways of viewing
it, open to every one’s verification who can come equipped with the
proper means to verify--a permanent objective to be ascertained by
careful logical inquiry, not to be determined by subjective opinion.
Logic is the language of science; Christian Science and what sane men
call science can never communicate because they do not speak the same
language.
* * * * *
It would be unfortunate if in emphasizing the popular preëminence
of Christian Science, one were to overlook the significance of the
many other forms of ‘drugless healing’ which bid for public favor by
appeal to ignorance and to occult and superstitious instincts. Some
are allied to Christian Science and like it assimilate their cult to a
religious movement; others are unmistakably the attempts of charlatans
to lure the credulous by noisy advertisements of newly discovered and
scientifically indorsed systems of ‘psychic force,’ or some personal
‘ism.’ For many purposes it would be unjust to group together such
various systems, which in the nature of things must include sinner
and saint, the misguided sincere, the half-believers who think ‘there
may be something in it,’ or ‘that it is worth a trial,’ along with
scheming quacks and adepts in commercial fraud. They illustrate the
many and various roads traveled in the search for health by pilgrims
who are dissatisfied with the highways over which medical science goes
its steady, though it may be, uncertain gait. Among them there is both
plausible exaggeration and ignorant perversion and dishonest libel
of the relations that bind together body and mind. Among the several
schisms from the Mother Church of Christian Science there is one that
claims to be the ‘rational phase of the mental healing doctrine,’ that
acknowledges the reality of disease and the incurability of serious
organic disorders and resents any connection with the “half-fanatical
personality worship” [of Mrs. Eddy] as quite as foreign to its tenets
as would be the views of the ‘Free Religious Association’ to the
‘Pope of Rome.’ ‘Divine Healing’ exhibits its success in one notable
instance, in the establishment of a school and college, a bank, a land
and investment association, a printing and publishing office and sundry
Divine Healing Homes; and this prosperity is now to be extended by the
foundation of a city or colony of converts who shall be united by the
common bond of faith in divine healing as transmitted in the personal
power of their leader. The official organ of this movement announces
that the personification of their faith “makes her religion a business
and conducts herself upon sound business principles.” With emphatic
protest on the part of each that he alone holds the key to salvation,
and that his system is quite original and unlike any other, comes the
procession of Metaphysical Healer and Mind-Curist and Viticulturist
and Magnetic Healer and Astrological Health Guide and Phrenopathist
and Medical Clairvoyant and Psychic Scientist and Mesmerist and
Occultist. Some use or abuse the manipulations of Hypnotism; others
claim the power to concentrate the magnetism of the air and to excite
the vital fluids by arousing the proper mental vibrations, or by some
equally lucid and demonstrable procedure; some advertise magnetic cups
and positive and negative powders and absent treatment by outputs
of ‘psychic force’ and countless other imposing devices. In truth,
they form a motley crew, and with their ‘Colleges of Fine Forces’ and
‘Psychic Research Companies,’ offering diplomas and degrees for a three
weeks’ course of study or the reading of a book, represent the slums
of the occult. An account of their methods is likely to be of as much
interest to the student of fraud as to the student of opinion.
There can be no doubt that many of these systems have been stimulated
into life or into renewed vigor by the success of ‘Christian Science’;
this is particularly noticeable in the introduction of absent
treatment as a plank in their diverse platforms. This ingenious method
of restoring the health of their patients and their own exchequers
appealed to all the band of healing occultists from Spiritualist to
Vibrationist, as easily adaptable to their several systems. In much the
same way Mesmer, more than a hundred years ago, administered to the
practice which had exhausted the capacity of his personal attention by
magnetizing trees and selling magnetized water. The absent treatment
represents the occult ‘extension movement’; and unencumbered by the
hampering restrictions of physical forces, superior even to wireless
telegraphy, carries its influence into the remotest homes. From ocean
to ocean and from North to South these absent healers set apart some
hour of the day when they mentally convey their healing word to the
scattered members of their flock. On the payment of a small fee you
are made acquainted with the ‘soul-communion time-table’ for your
longitude and may know when to meet the healing vibrations as they pass
by. Others disdain any such temporal details and assure a cure merely
on payment of the fee; the healer will know sympathetically when and
how to transmit the curative impulses. Poverty and bad habits as well
as disease readily succumb to the magic of the absent treatment. Here
is the hysterical edict of one of them: ‘Join the Success Circle.’ ...
“The Centre of that Circle is my omnipotent WORD. Daily I speak it. Its
vibrations radiate more and more powerfully day by day.... As the sun
sends out vibrations ... so my WORD radiates Success to 10,000 lives as
easily as to one.”
It is impossible to appreciate fully the extravagances of these occult
healers unless one makes a sufficient sacrifice of time and patience
to read over a considerable sample of the periodical publications with
which American occultism is abundantly provided. And when one has
accomplished this task he is still at sea to account for the readers
and believers who support these various systems so undreamt of in our
philosophy. It would really seem that there is no combination of ideas
too absurd to fail entirely of a following. Carlyle without special
provocation concluded that there were about forty million persons in
England, mostly fools; what would have been his comment in the face
of this vast array of human folly! If it be urged in rejoinder that
beneath all this rubbish heap a true jewel lies buried, that the
wonderful cures and the practical success of these various systems
indicate their dependence upon an essential and valuable factor in
the cure of disease and the formation of habits, it is possible with
reservation to assent and with emphasis to demur. Such success, in
so far as it is rightly reported, exemplifies the truly remarkable
function of the mental factor in the control of normal as of disordered
physiological functions. This truth has been recognized and utilized
in unobtrusive ways for many generations, and within recent years has
received substantial elaboration from carefully conducted experiments
and observations. Specifically the therapeutic action of suggestion,
both in its more usual forms and as hypnotic suggestion, has shown
to what unexpected extent such action may proceed in susceptible
individuals. The well-informed and capable physician requires no
instruction on this point; his medical education furnishes him with
the means of determining the symptoms of true organic disorder, of
functional derangement and of the modifications of these under the more
or less unconscious interference of an unfortunate nervous system. It
is quite as human for the physician as for other mortals to err, and
there is doubtless as wide a range among them as among other pursuits,
of ability, tact and insight. ‘But when all is said and done’ the
fundamental fact remains that the utilization of the mental factor in
the alleviation of disease will be best administered by those who are
specifically trained in the knowledge of bodily and mental symptoms of
disease. Such application of an established scientific principle may
prove to be a jewel of worth in the hands of him who knows how to cut
and set it. The difference between truth and error, between science
and superstition, between what is beneficent to mankind and what is
pernicious, frequently lies in the interpretation and the spirit as
much as or more than in the fact. The utilization of mental influences
in health and disease becomes the one or the other according to the
wisdom and the truth and the insight into the real relations of things
that guide its application. As far removed as chemistry from alchemy,
as astronomy from astrology, as the doctrine of the localization of
function in the brain from phrenology, as ‘animal magnetism’ from
hypnotic suggestion, are the crude and perverse notions of Christian
Scientist or Metaphysical Healer removed from the rational application
of the influence of the mind over the body.
The growth and development of the occult forms an interesting problem
in the psychology of belief. The motives that induce the will to
believe in the several doctrines that have been passed in review are
certainly not more easy to detect and to describe than would be the
case in reference to the many other general problems--philosophical,
scientific, religious, social, political or educational--on which the
right to an opinion seems to be regarded as an inalienable heritage
of humanity or at least of democracy. Professor James tells us that
often “our faith is faith in some one else’s faith, and in the greatest
matters this is most the case.” Certainly the waves of popularity of
one cult and another reflect the potent influence of contagion in the
formation of opinion and the direction of conduct. When we look upon
the popular delusions of the past through the achromatic glasses which
historical remoteness from present conditions enables us to adjust to
our eyes, we marvel that humanity could have been so grossly misled,
that obvious relations and fallacies could have been so stupidly
overlooked, that worthless and prejudiced evidence could have been
accepted as sound and significant. But the opinions to which we incline
are all colored o’er with the deep tinge of emotional reality, which
is the living expression of our interest in them or our inclination
toward them. What they require is a more vigorous infusion of the pale
cast of thought; for the problem of the occult and the temptations to
belief which it holds out are such as can be met only by a vigorous
and critical application of a scientific logic. As logical acumen
predominates over superficial plausibility, as belief comes to be
formed and evidence estimated according to its intrinsic value rather
than according to its emotional acceptability, the propagandum of the
occult will meet with greater resistance and aversion.
The fixation of belief proceeds under the influence of both general and
special forces; the formation of a belief is at once a personal and a
social reaction--a reaction to the evidence which recorded and personal
experience presents and to the beliefs current in our environment, and
this reaction is further modified by the temperament of the reagent.
And although individual beliefs, however complex, are neither matters
of chance nor are their causes altogether past finding out, yet some of
their contributing factors are so vague and so inaccessible that they
are most profitably considered as particular results of more or less
clearly discerned general principles; and in many respects there is
more valid interest in the general principles than in the particular
results. It is interesting and it may be profitable to investigate why
this area is wooded with oak and that with maple, but it is somewhat
idle to speculate why this particular tree happens to be a maple
rather than an oak, even if it chances to stand on our property, and
to have an interest to us beyond all other trees. It is this false
concentration of the attention to the personal and individual result
that is responsible for much unwarranted belief in the occult. It
is likely that no single influence is more potent in this direction
than this unfortunate over-interest in one’s own personality and
the consequent demand for a precise explanation of one’s individual
experiences. This habit seems to me a positive vice, and I am glad to
find support in Professor James: “The chronic belief of mankind that
events may happen for the sake of their personal significance is an
abomination.” Carried over to the field of subjective experiences, this
habit sees in coincidences peculiarly significant omens and portents,
not definitely and superstitiously, it may be, but sufficiently to
obscure the consideration of the experience in any other than a
personal light. The victim of this habit will remain logically unfit
to survive the struggle against the occult. Only when the general
problem is recognized as more significant for the guidance of belief
than the attempted explicit personal explanations will these problems
stand out in their true relations. It is interesting to note that
the partaking of mince-pie at evening may induce bad dreams, but it
is hardly profitable to speculate deeply why my dream took the form
of a leering demon with the impolite habit of squatting on my chest.
The stuff that dreams are made of is not susceptible of that type of
analysis. The most generous allowance must be made for coincidences
and irrelevancies, and it must be constantly remembered that the
obscure phenomena of psychology, and, indeed, the phenomena of more
thoroughly established and intrinsically more definite sciences, cannot
be expected to pass the test of detailed and concrete combinations
of circumstances. In other classes of knowledge the temptation to
demand such explicit explanations of observations and experiences is
not so strong because of the absence of an equally strong personal
interest; but that clearly does not affect the logical status of the
problem. The reply to this argument I can readily anticipate; and I
confess that my admiration of Hamlet is somewhat dulled by reason of
that ill-advised remark to Horatio about there being more things in
heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. The occultist
always seizes upon that citation to refute the scientist. He prints
it as his motto on his books and journals, and regards it as a slow
poison that will in time effect the destruction of the rabble of
scientists and reveal the truth of his own Psycho-Harmonic Science
or Heliocentric Astrology. It is one thing to be open-minded and to
realize the incompleteness of scientific knowledge and to appreciate
how often what was ignored by one generation has become the science
of the next; and it is a very different thing to be impressed with
coincidences and dreams and premonitions, and to regard them as giving
the keynote to the conceptions of nature and reality, and to look
upon science as a misdirected effort. Such differences of attitude
depend frequently upon a difference of temperament as well as upon
intellectual discernment; the man or the woman who flies to the things
not dreamt of in our philosophy quite commonly does not understand the
things which our philosophy very creditably accounts for. The two types
of mind are different, and (I am again citing Professor James) “the
scientific-academic mind and the feminine-mystical mind shy from each
other’s facts just as they fly from each other’s temper and spirit.”
Certain special influences combine with these fundamental differences
of attitude to favor the spread of belief in the occult; and of these
the character of the beliefs as of the believers furnish some evidence.
At various stages of the discussion I have referred to the deceptive
nature of the argument by analogy; to the dominating sympathy with
a conclusion and the resulting assimilation and overestimation of
apparent evidence in its favor; to the frequent failure to understand
that the formation of valid opinion and the interpretation of evidence
in any field of inquiry require somewhat of expert training and special
aptitude, obviously so in technical matters, but only moderately
less so in matters misleadingly regarded as general; to bias and
superstition, to the weakness that bends easily to the influences of
contagion, to unfortunate educational limitations and perversions and,
not the least, to a defective grounding in the nature of scientific
fact and proof. The mystery attaching to the behavior of the magnet
led Mesmer to call his curative influence ‘animal magnetism’--a
conception that still prevails among latter-day occultists. The
principle of sympathetic vibration, in obedience to which a tuning-fork
takes up the vibrations of another in unison with it, is violently
transferred to imaginary brain vibrations and to still more imaginary
telepathic currents. The X-ray and wireless telegraphy are certain
to be utilized in corroboration of unproven modes of mental action,
and will be regarded as the key to clairvoyance and rapport, just as
well-known electrical phenomena have given rise to the notions of
positive and negative temperaments and mediumistic polar attraction and
repulsion. All this results from the absurd application of analogies;
for analogies even when appropriate are little more than suggestive
or at least corroborative of relations or conceptions which owe their
main support to other and more sturdy evidence. Analogy under careful
supervision may make a useful apprentice, but endless havoc results
when the servant plays the part of the master.
No better illustrations could be desired of the effects of mental
prepossession and the resulting distortion of evidence and of logical
insight, than those afforded by Spiritualism and Christian Science. In
both these movements the assimilation of a religious trend has been of
inestimable importance to their dissemination. Surely it is not merely
or mainly the evidences obtainable in the séance chamber, nor the
irresistible accumulation of cures by argument and thought-healings,
that account for the organized gatherings of Spiritualists and the
costly temples and thriving congregations of Christ Scientist. It is
the presentation of a practical doctrine of immortality and of the
spiritual nature of disease in conjunction with an accepted religious
system, that is responsible for these vast results. The ‘Key to the
Scriptures’ has immeasurably reinforced the ‘Science and Health,’
and brought believers to a new form of Christianity who never would
have been converted to a new system of medicine presented on purely
intellectual grounds. Rationality is doubtless a characteristic
tendency of humanity, but logicality is an acquired possession and one
by no means firmly established in the race at large. So long as we are
reproved by the discipline of nature and that rather promptly, we tend
to act in accordance with the established relations of things; and that
is rationality. But the more remote connections between antecedent and
consequent and the development of habits of thought which shall lead to
reliable conclusions in complex situations; and again, the ability to
distinguish between the plausible and the true, the firmness to support
principle in the face of paradox and seeming non-conformity, to think
clearly and consistently in the absence of the practical reproof of
nature--that is logicality. It is only as the result of a prolonged and
conscientious training aided by an extensive experience and a knowledge
of the historical experience of the race, that the inherent rational
tendencies develop into established logical habits and principles of
belief. For many this development remains stunted or arrested; and
they continue as children of a larger growth, leaning much on others,
rarely venturing abroad alone and wisely confining their excursions
to familiar ground. When they unfortunately become possessed with the
desire to travel, their lack of appreciation of the sights which their
journeys bring before them gives to their reports the same degree of
reliability and value as attaches to the much ridiculed comments of the
philistine _nouveaux riches_.
For these sufficient reasons it is Utopian to look forward to the day
when the occult shall have disappeared, and the lion and the lamb shall
feed and grow strong on the same nourishment. Doubtless new forms and
phases of the occult will arise to take the place of the old as their
popularity declines; and the world will be the more interesting and
more characteristically a human dwelling-place for containing all
sorts and conditions of minds. None the less it is the plain duty and
privilege of each generation to utilize every opportunity to dispel
error and superstition, and to oppose the dissemination of irrational
beliefs. It is particularly the obligation of the torch-bearers of
science to illuminate the path of progress and to transmit the light
to their successors with undiminished power and brilliancy; this flame
must burn both as a beacon-light to guide the wayfarer along the
highways of advance and as a warning against the will-of-the-wisps
that shine seductively in the bye-ways. The safest and most efficient
antidote to the spread of the pernicious tendencies inherent in the
occult lies in the cultivation of a wholesome and whole-souled interest
in the genuine and profitable problems of nature and of life, and
in the cultivation with it of a steadfast adherence to common sense
and to a true logical perspective of the significance and value of
things. These qualities, fortunately for our forefathers, are not the
prerogative of the modern; and, fortunately for posterity, are likely
to remain characteristic of the scientific and antagonistic to the
occult.