# Faith-healing, Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena/"Christian Science" and "Mind Cure"

"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" AND "MIND CURE"
THIRTY years ago the phrases Christian Science and Mind Cure, in the sense now attached to them, were unknown; to-day in the press, in conversation, in literature, and especially in discussions relating to health and disease, and to the more occult phenomena of human nature, they frequently occur. To many they have no definite meaning, and long conversations are carried on concerning them in which the most diverse views are maintained, ending in confusion and contradiction, because those who converse have not a uniform conception of the signification of the terms. Some declare Christian Science and Mind Cure to be the same; others stoutly deny this, and seek to establish a radical distinction. Some represent Christian Science as a great advance upon ordinary Christianity; others denounce it as but refined Pantheism; while many more brand both Christian Science and Mind Cure as delusion, a reaction from the uncompromising materialism of the age.
Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy, President of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, claims to have been the first to use the phrase "Christian Science."
Mrs. Eddy further states that about the year 1862 her health was failing rapidly, and she "employed a distinguished mesmerist, Mr. P. P. Quimby—a sensible, elderly gentleman, with some advanced views about healing.... There were no Metaphysical Healers then. The Science of Mental Healing had not been discovered."
Whether or not Mrs. Eddy is indebted for her ideas to Mr. Quimby has since been the subject of heated discussion; for the short time which has elapsed since the "discovery" has been long enough for the development of several rival schools, which have engendered toward one another as much intensity of feeling as the odium theologicum and odium medicum combined. Speaking of her rivals, Mrs. Eddy modestly observes: "Some silly publications, whose only correct or salient points are borrowed, without credit, from 'Science and Health,' would set the world right on Metaphysical Healing, like children thrumming a piano and pretending to teach music or criticise Mozart."
The history of the discovery is of sufficient importance to be given. "The cowardly claim that I am not the originator of my own writings, but that one P. P. Quimby is, has been legally met and punished.... Mr. Quimby died in 1865, and my first knowledge of Christian Science, or Metaphysical Healing, was gained in 1866.... When he doctored me I was ignorant of the nature of mesmerism, but subsequent knowledge has convinced me that he practiced it." Mrs. Eddy says that after having been for many years a sufferer from chronic diseases, she met with an ​accident which produced, according to physicians, a fatal injury. They gave her up to die, and declared that she would not live till noon. She replied that she would be well at that time. Her pastor called after service and found her busy about the house. One of her assistants says that "while she knew that she was healed by the direct and gracious exercise of the divine power, she was indisposed to make an old-time miracle of it."
After three years' meditation she concluded that her recovery was in accordance with general spiritual laws, capable of being known and clearly stated. She then began to teach and write; though prior to the expiration of the three years, namely, in 1867, she taught a purely metaphysical system of healing to, as she says, "the very first student who was ever so instructed since the days of the Apostles and the primitive Church." Her essays were circulated among her students privately. In 1870 she copyrighted her first pamphlet, but did not publish it till six years afterward.
In 1876 she organized the Christian Scientist Association, and in 1879, at a meeting of that association, she organized a Church, "a Mind Healing Church, without creeds, called the Church of Christ." To the pastorate of this she accepted a call, and was ordained in Boston, 1881. The college flourishes, the church has an assistant pastor, and Mrs. Eddy receives so much patronage as a teacher as to compel the publication of the following:
Practitioners, who of course are not obliged to waste much time upon such sordid things as ​anatomy, physiology, or materia medica, are prepared with, unusual rapidity. The primary class in Christian Science Mind Healing includes twelve lessons. In the first week six of these are given. The term continues only about three weeks, and the charge for tuition is $300. The normal class requires six lectures. Graduates from the primary class are advised to practise at least one year before entering this class, and for these six lectures they must pay $200. There is also a class of Metaphysical Obstetrics which requires only six lectures, for which $100 must be paid. In addition to these there is a class in Theology, including six lectures on the Scriptures, for which $200 must be paid. The largest discount to an indigent student is $100 on the first course. Husbands and wives, if they enter together the primary class, may pay $300; but, entering at different times, must pay the regular price, and must do that for all other courses, payment being made strictly in advance. It is obvious therefore, that the benefits of the Mind Cure cannot be applied to commercial transactions; and that 800 material dollars, exclusive of board, are required to master the Science of Metaphysical Healing,—unless one were to say that national bank notes are merely material symbols of an immaterial and impalpable essence.
Considering the short time that has elapsed since the "discovery," the number of practitioners, as advertised in one of their magazines, is very large. Sixty-six are women, and twenty-nine men; and all but five of the men appear to be associated with their wives in the practice of the profession. There are also Christian Science institutes and colleges advertised: two in New York, four in Chicago, one in Milwaukee, one in Brooklyn, and one in Colorado. The other institutions do not charge so large a sum ​as Mrs. Eddy. Some of them agree to give sufficient instruction for $25 to justify the would-be practitioner in beginning. Others communicate all they know, with the privilege of meeting for conversation once a month for a year, on payment of $100. They give diplomas, valued according to the standing of the respective schools. Impostors have arisen, so that Mrs. Eddy has notified the public that all persons claiming to have been her pupils, who cannot show diplomas legally certifying to that effect, are preferring false claims.
THEORY
By a careful examination of the works of those who have written upon this subject, including Evans, Grimké, Stuart, Arens, Taylor, Baldwin, Hazzard, Nichols, Marston, etc., and by conversation with Mental Healers, Christian Scientists, and their patients, I have ascertained that most of them concur with Mrs. Eddy in the fundamental principles of the system, and that where they diverge it is upon minor points.
Her hypothesis is that "the only realities are the Divine Mind and its ideas.... That erring mortal views, misnamed mind, produce all the organic and animal action of the mortal body.... Rightly understood, instead of possessing sentient matter, we have sensationless bodies.... Whence came to me this conviction in antagonism to the testimony of the human senses? From the self-evident fact that matter has no sensation; from the common human experience of the falsity of all material things; from the obvious fact that mortal mind is what suffers, feels, sees; since matter cannot suffer."
​The method of Mrs. Eddy's reasoning may be seen in the following extracts:
Having adopted a theory, she does not shrink from its logical sequences:
Her most frequently repeated assertions are such as these:
As these doctrines are unquestionably in substance such as have been held by certain metaphysicians in past ages, Mrs. Eddy feels called upon to answer those who make that charge:
Sickness, then, is a dream of falsity, to be antagonized by the metaphysical healer, mentally, and audibly when it may be necessary.
Mrs. Eddy's theories are her religion, and her Science—so called—is based upon the religious principles which she holds.
One of Mrs. Eddy's former students, named Arens, for whom she entertains a strong spiritual antipathy, has published a volume called "Old Theology in its Application to the Healing of the Sick." In the introduction he writes:
The mental difficulty in understanding him arises from his incompetency as a writer. His reflection upon the poverty of the English language is another form of confessing his ignorance of it; and his disregard of the rules of grammar and rhetoric does not result from his difficulty in giving shades of thought, but from his lack of knowledge of the language. Mrs. Eddy thus described him in 1883:
That his earlier work consists largely of passages taken from Mrs. Eddy's writings, and that it is as a whole in every respect inferior to them, is the simple statement of a fact. He has, however, acquired considerable reputation, and has a constituency. Before advancing the fundamental principles of his system, he attempts to show the inconsistencies of medical science in the following passage:
Here is an example of his style:
From this profound (?) reasoning he concludes:
Mrs. Eddy sued this Dr. Arens for infringing her copyright, and obtained judgment against him, so that he was compelled to destroy a large edition of one of his pamphlets.
Dr. Arens established a university in the city of Boston, incorporated five or six years, called the "University of the Science of Spirit." It confers the following degrees: "F. D.," Defender of the Faith, and "S. S. D.," Doctor of the Science of Spirit. The charge for instruction in the general course is one hundred dollars. These courses are somewhat ​pretentious. The first treats the "Scientific Basis of Theology," "the Difference between God and the Universe," etc., and, proceeding through twenty-one theological points, concludes by setting forth "the First Step in Immortality," and "How to Destroy Sickness." The second course discusses "Theos, Chaos, and Cosmos"; gives a theory of the creation of the universe down to the creation of the "first material human body," which it treats under "its outline and quality; the necessity for respiration; the first consciousness of existence; the separation of male and female; the origin of self-will and its results." And finally, "the beginning of sickness and trouble."
Dr. Marston treats "God, Man, Matter, Disease, Sin, and Death, Healing, Treatment, and Universal Truth." In his book he states that "the mental healer does not care by what medical name the distress is known; it maybe nervousness, dyspepsia, asthma, fever,—words all alike to him, since the effects they denote are simply reflections or registers of wrong thinking." In illustrating this he says:
​His cure is reduced to its simplest form as follows: "The senses say matter can suffer pain; God says matter is insensible. The senses declare a man sick; God says the real man knows nothing of disease." Under the head of Sin and Death he says: "Scientific Christianity does not recognize the definition of theology, but holds that, strictly speaking, there is no sin." He finally describes the cure thus: "A mental cure is the discovery made by a sick person that he is well."
W. F. Evans, a voluminous writer, formerly an evangelical minister, then a Swedenborgian, and lately a mental healer, remarks:
Mrs. Grimké, author of "Personified Unthinkables," says:
There are those who in their own opinion have reached a greater elevation than either the Christian Scientists or the Mind Curers, "and profess to heal by the transfer of psychic energy." The chief practitioner in this sphere informed me that the relative rank of these sciences is, 1. The lower grade—the mere physical system. 2. What is called animal magnetism. 3. The mind cure. 4. The spirits (when they are good spirits). 5. Including all that is good in the others, he places in the supernal. He claimed that there has been in all ages an order called the Inspirati, who practised this method, and offered to make me a Knight of that order.
This will suffice until it fails to attract patients, when, no doubt, a sixth order, that of the Empyrean, will be devised.
Some of the Christian Scientists have attempted to construct a technical language, which, when translated, shows that they attach as much importance to learned terms as does any form of the material science that they denounce. "Gnosis.—The 'Spiritual Understanding,' the 'Immediate Intuition.' Vir.—The God in Man. Harmatia.—Off-the-trackness. Homo.—The Creature of God. Ego.—The Homo as he is. Nemo.—The Homo as he sees himself. Entheasm.—Direct Communication with God. Nihiloid.—Like unto nothing, the proper name of disease, disorder, discomfort. Yoga.—Concentration of Thought. Dama.—Subjugation of Sense. Karma.—Law of ​Cause and Effect. Maya.—Illusion, 'Mortal Mind,' False Beliefs.—Chaos, The Habitat of Humbug."
Most of these terms appear to have had an oriental origin, and are as valuable in affecting the ordinary mind as chloride of sodium for salt, capsicum for pepper, and H$_2$O for water. They serve also to make it appear that the Science is difficult, and that large fees for instruction are reasonable.
They make use of certain forms of expression which savor more strongly of cant than any phrases that have ever been used by religious sects. They use the word "belief" in speaking of a disease, or even of a defect of character. A lady, talking with a practitioner of this school of a mutual acquaintance, said she thought her selfish. "Yes," replied the Christian Scientist, "I believe she has a strong belief in selfishness."
To a patient who had every symptom of a torpid liver another healer of the school said, "It is unfortunate that you have such a belief in bile." To which the astonished patient, new to the Science, replied that he thought any one would have the same belief who had the same kind of liver.
PRACTICE
The manner in which Christian Science antagonizes dreams of falsity is interesting, whether the theories be accepted or not.
First.—Both the patient and the metaphysical healer must be taught that
Second.—Diet is a matter of no importance.
We are told that the simple food our forefathers ate assisted to make them healthy; but that is a mistake. Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this period. With rules of health in the head, and the most digestible food in the stomach, there would still be dyspeptics.
Third.—Exercise is of no importance.
Because the muscles of the blacksmith's arm are strongly developed, it does not follow that exercise did it, or that an arm less used must be fragile. If matter were the cause of action, and muscles, without the coöperation of mortal mind, could lift the hammer and smite the nail, it might be thought true that hammering enlarges the muscles. But the trip-hammer is not increased in size by exercise. Why not, since muscles are as material as wood and iron.
Fourth.—A proper view of Mrs. Eddy's publications is, however, of great importance.
My publications alone heal more sickness than an unconscientious student can begin to reach. If patients seem the worse for reading my book, this change may either arise from the frightened mind of the physician, or mark the crisis of the disease. Perseverance in its perusal would heal them completely.
Fifth.
Never tell the sick they have more courage than strength. Tell them rather that their strength is in proportion to their courage.... Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims; but that, if they only know how, they can resist ​disease and ward it off, just as positively as they can a temptation to sin.
Sixth.—In preparing to treat patients, the healer must strengthen and steady his own mind.
Seventh.—You are fortunate if your patient knows little or nothing, for "a patient thoroughly booked in medical theories has less sense of the divine power, and is more difficult to heal through Mind, than an aboriginal Indian who never bowed the knee to the Baal of civilization."
Eighth.—See that the "minds which surround your patient do not act against your influence by continually expressing such opinions as may alarm or discourage.... You should seek to be alone with the sick while treating them."
Ninth.—Bathing and rubbing are of no use.
Tenth.—What if the patient grow worse?
Eleventh.—Subtle mental practices are recommended.
This is further modified:
Twelfth.—Some of the things that are not to be done.
The foregoing rules for practice are taken from Mrs. Eddy's different works.
The difference between the views of Mrs. Eddy and those who diverge from her is superficial, though neither she nor they will admit it. Miss Kate ​Taylor, in "Selfhood Lost in Godhood," referring to Mrs. Eddy's large work, says: "It can be read with profit by any who are seeking truth with sincerity, and with no tendency to become biased." She also says that she was formerly a member of the Christian Science Association, and "learned that limitations are not conducive to growth, and that, as Emerson truly says, 'God always disappoints monopolies,'" and frankly gives her opinion of those denounced by her former preceptor.
The chief point of departure in Miss Taylor's theories from those of Mrs. Eddy is in the value attached to a knowledge of the preceding life of the patient.
She gives this advice to the sick:
Also Mrs. Stuart teaches the importance of a knowledge of the previous life:
SPECIMEN TREATMENTS
Mental treatment is that which the metaphysical healer is supposed to be giving the patient when she sits silently before him for a period longer or shorter according to her judgment of the necessities of the case. Some of the practitioners have revealed the thoughts which constitute a mental treatment, so that if truth is an element of their system, we can speak confidently upon this part of it.
To this treatment I shall refer in elucidating the causes of the phenomena.
Dr. Evans controverts some of Mrs. Eddy's theories:
He repudiates Mrs. Eddy's ideas about the personality of God, and says:
He also flatly denies Miss Taylor's theories, saying, "The selfhood is not lost in Godhood." "It is not necessary to tell a man dying of consumption that he is not sick, for that is not true." He says that one may or may not use the imposition of hands in healing the sick.
As an example of Christian Science superstition exceeding anything attempted by the most ignorant advocates of patent Faith Healing, read the following, taken verbatim, italics, small caps, etc., from a text-book on Mind Cure, issued by the President of the "New York School of Primitive and Practical Christian Science," who states that his school will be free from "eccentricity, pretension, and fanaticism"!
PRAYER FOR A DYSPEPTIC.
It is claimed by all the Christian Science and Mind Cure practitioners that they can operate upon patients at a distance.
One of them says:
This surpasses the love-powders that are sold among the colored people and the ignorant, as it is necessary to purchase and administer them, which is sometimes considerable trouble.
The practical directions to attain this power are as follows:
The rules for absent treatment are:
MIND CURERS versus FAITH HEALERS, MESMERISTS, ETC.
Mrs. Eddy speaks of Mesmerism in this way:
Of Spiritualism:
And of Clairvoyance specifically:
Of Faith Cure:
Marston, speaking of change in the inverted thought of the sick person, says:
Another remarks:
TESTS OF THE THEORY
First Test. If their principles be true, food should not be necessary. Mrs. Eddy affirms this:
Then, finding herself unable to silence the testimony of the senses, she endeavors to circumvent it thus:
​When they dispense with food because "mortal mind" is under the influence of an illusion concerning it,—absurdly supposing "that food supports life,"—and continue to live with the accidents of the human body sustained entirely by the divine "substance" of which they speak, they will furnish a demonstration which will utterly destroy every remaining illusion of mortal mind. But so long as they eat, they are either voluntarily perpetuating an illusion, or demonstrating that they are wrong in their notions. If they are in such a low stage as to be compelled to eat when it would not be necessary if they were in a higher plane, they may, for the same reason, be compelled to use drugs.
Second Test. They deny that drugs, per se, as taken into the human system, have any power.
Surely the mind needs healing that could invent the following absurdity:
It is true that in many cases the effect of a medicine is to be attributed entirely to the imagination, or to the belief that it will have such and such effects; but the statement of such extreme positions as these shows the irrationality of the theories upon which they are based. According to the above, if it were generally believed that alcohol were unintoxicating, nourishing, and bland as milk, it would be an excellent article with which to nourish infants; and, on the other hand, if it were generally believed that milk were intoxicating, all the influences of alcohol would be produced upon those who drank it. If the public could only be educated to believe alcohol to be nourishing, the entire mammalian genus might be nursing their offspring upon alcohol with equally good results. No insane asylum can furnish a more transparent delusion.
That drugs produce effects upon animals has been demonstrated beyond the possibility of contradiction, and that, when the animals did not know that they were taking drugs; and small doses have produced not the slightest effect, while large doses—the animals in each case not knowing that they were ​taking medicines—have produced great effect, and do so with uniformity. Also the effect of medicines upon idiots and unconscious infants is capable of exact demonstration.
Allied to the effect of drugs is that of poisons, almost every drug having the effect of a poison if taken in excess. Some poisons, however, are of such nature that the smallest possible dose may be attended with fatal results. In the case of animals, poisons introduced into the system without the knowledge of the animals do their work effectually. Strychnine carefully introduced into a piece of meat so small that a cat will swallow it whole, will in a very short time show its effects. The instinct of the animal will cause its rejection if there be the slightest possibility of perceiving it; but if sufficient means be taken to keep the animal from knowing that it is taking anything except meat, it will swallow the meat, and the poison will do its work.
These facts are admitted by the advocates of Christian Science and Mind Cure, and the absolute lunacy of their theories is seen in the manner in which they attempt to account for the effects.
Third Test. Extraordinary accidents to the body. Whatever may be said of the power of thought in the production of ordinary disease, the effects of accidents to persons who are entirely unconscious when ​they occur, as the sleeping victims of railroad disasters, are facts which, if they do not terminate human life at once, require the aid of surgery.
Mrs. Eddy says:
It is confessed, however, that very little progress has been made in this department:
But records, to be well authenticated, require more than an assertion. And the records may be authentic, and what they contain may never have been thoroughly tested. As they affirm that "bones have only the substance of thought, they are only an appearance to mortal mind"; if their theories be true at all, they should be able to rectify every result of accident to the body as readily and speedily as diseases originating within the system.
Fourth Test. Insanity. It is a well-established fact that blows upon the head produce insanity. It is equally well established that surgery in many cases is able to remove the difficulty by an obviously physical readjustment, where the surgeon himself cannot be positive what the effect will be until after the experiment, and the victim has no knowledge whatever ​upon the subject. During the late war, a negro was wounded in the head by the explosion of a shell. He wandered about for several years, to all appearance a driveling idiot, when certain surgeons took an interest in his case, and concluded that the removal of a piece of the skull which had been driven in and pressed upon the brain, might restore his reason. Knowing that no damage could be done to his mind by the operation, they performed it, and were almost appalled when, after the lapse of so many years, as they lifted the piece of skull and removed the pressure upon the brain, the light of intelligence returned to the eye of the man, who said, "We were at Manassas yesterday; where are we to-day?" A similar case, where there had been delirium alternating with coma for a week, occurred in March last.
The transient effect of stimulants upon persons who have been in a state of dementia apparently for a long time, is also well known.
Mrs. Eddy upon this subject directs practitioners to tell the moderately sick man,
It may be readily admitted that if a man believed his mind was in his foot, and believed it was out of order, he might be crazy. But in selecting the bunion for an illustration, Mrs. Eddy was not so wide of the mark as she might have been. More than twenty years ago, while listening to the lectures of Dr. C. E. ​Brown-Séquard, before the physicians of Brooklyn, I heard him give the following case: A youth (fourteen years old) went to bed perfectly sane, nor had he ever had a symptom of insanity. The next morning when he arose and stepped upon the floor he became a maniac. With great difficulty he was replaced upon the bed, and the moment he touched it he was sane. During the morning he made several attempts to rise, always with the same result. A physician was called, who in his account of the case says: "When sitting up in his bed he drew on his stockings; but on putting his feet on the floor and standing up, his countenance instantly changed, the jaw became violently convulsed, etc. He was pushed back on the bed, was at once calm, looked surprised, and asked what was the matter. Inquiry showed that he had been fishing the preceding day, but had met with no accident. His legs were examined minutely, but nothing unusual was seen; but, says the physician, "On holding up the right great toe with my finger and thumb to examine the sole of that foot, the leg was drawn up and the muscles of the jaws were suddenly convulsed, and on releasing the toe these effects instantly ceased." After further experiment, an irritated point, so small as to be scarcely visible, was taken away by the cutting of a piece of skin, and "the strange sensation was gone and never returned."
​Post-mortem examinations which exhibit the degeneration of the brain structure are of no importance in the eyes of these professors of dreams.
Fifth Test. The perpetuation of youth and the abolition of death should also be within the range of these magicians.
Baldwin, of Chicago, says:
Mrs. Eddy meets this matter in the style of Jules Verne:
That the above should be adduced as proof of anything would be wonderful if the person adducing it had not previously adopted a theory which supersedes the necessity of demonstration. It is important to notice that if the belief had anything to do ​with it, this amazing result grew from a belief in a falsehood. She did not live in the same hour that parted her from her lover; she believed that she did, and, according to Mrs. Eddy, this belief of a falsehood counteracted all the ordinary consequences of the flight of time.
But the delusion among the insane that they are young, that they are independent of time and of this world, is very common; and the most painfully paradoxical sights that I have ever witnessed have been men and women, toothless, denuded of hair, and with all the signs of age,—sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,—some of them declaring that they were young girls and engaged to be married to presidents and kings, and even to divine beings. These delusions in some instances have been fixed for many years. Having had an official connection with an insane asylum for five years, I have had more opportunities than were desired for conversing with persons of this class.
Granting the case adduced by Mrs. Eddy to be true, and admitting that the state of the mind may have had some effect, it is of no scientific importance; for the number who show no signs of age until fifty, sixty, or even seventy years have passed, is by no means small in the aggregate; we meet them everywhere. One of the most astute observers of human nature, himself a physician, solemnly warned a gentleman that if he continued to take only four hours' sleep in twenty-four, he would die before he was fifty years of age. "What do you suppose my age to be now?" said the gentleman. "Thirty," said the physician. "I am sixty-nine," was the reply, which proved to be the fact.
Mrs. Eddy, not content with this case, continues: "I have seen age regain two of the elements it had ​lost, sight and teeth. A lady of eighty-five whom I knew had a return of sight. Another lady at ninety had new teeth,—incisors, cuspids, bicuspids, and one molar." Such instances as these are not uncommon, but are generally a great surprise to the persons themselves, and unconnected with any delusion as to flight of time. They are simply freaks of nature.
There is a flattening of the eye which comes on with advancing years, and necessitates the use of glasses. Many persons who have few signs of age, retain the color of the cheek, have lost no teeth, and whose natural force is not abated, find their eyes dim. According to these metaphysical healers this is not necessary, but I have observed that a number of them say nothing about being themselves compelled to use glasses.
Much is made of one case of a metaphysical healer, who, after using glasses fifteen years, threw them away, and can now read even in the railroad cars without them. Such cases of second sight have occurred at intervals always, and under all systems, and sometimes when the progress of old age had been so great that the persons had suffered many infirmities, and had but a few months left in which to "see as well as ever they did in their lives."
Some famous actors and actresses, without the use of pigments, dyes, or paints, notwithstanding the irregular hours and other accidents of their professional life, have maintained an astonishing youthfulness of appearance down to nearly threescore years and ten.
John Wesley at seventy-five, according to testimony indubitable and from a variety of sources, not only presented the appearance of a man not yet past the prime of life, but, what is more remarkable, had the undiminished energy, vivacity, melody and strength ​of voice which accompany youth. Nor at eighty-five had he exhibited much change. In the city of Chicago there died recently a professional man nearly seventy-five years of age, whose teeth, complexion, color, hair, voice, and mind showed no signs of his being over forty-five years of age. Henry Ward Beecher, the January before his death, could write to his oldest brother that he had no rheumatism, neuralgia, sleeplessness, or deafness, was not bald, and did not need spectacles.
Meanwhile it is impossible not to suppose that the case as described by Mrs. Eddy has been greatly exaggerated. That some Americans who saw her at the age of seventy-four supposed her to be under twenty, is to be taken "cum grano salis."
As for death, if the theories of these romantic philosophers be true, it should give way; if not in every case, at least in some. It is said that there are hundreds of persons in Boston who believe that Mrs. Eddy will never die. Joanna Southcott, who arose in England in 1792, made many disciples, by some estimated at one hundred thousand, who believed that she would never die; but unfortunately for their credulity she succumbed to the inevitable decree.
Sixth Test. If these theories are true, clothing, so far as sustaining warmth and life is concerned, is superfluous, and fire unnecessary. This conclusion reduces the whole scheme to an absurdity.
EXPLANATION OF THEIR ALLEGED SUCCESS
In endeavoring to ascertain the causes of recoveries which undoubtedly occur when the patient is under the supervision of Christian Scientists and Mind Curers, it would be a blunder to omit the testimony of Mrs. Eddy as to her experiments with ​homeopathy. She says that she has attenuated common table salt until there was not a single saline property left; and yet with one drop of that in a goblet of water, and a teaspoonful administered every three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in the last stage of typhoid fever. Describing a case of dropsy given up by the faculty, she says that after giving some medicines of high attenuation, she gave the patient unmedicated pellets for a while, and found that she continued to improve. Finally she induced the patient to give up her medicine for one day, and risk the effects. After trying this, she informed Mrs. Eddy that she could get along two days without the globules; but on the third day had to take them. She went on in this way, taking unmedicated pellets, with occasional visits from Mrs. Eddy, and employing no other means was cured. Thus Mrs. Eddy says she discovered that mind was potent over matter and that drugs have no power.
It is not to be inferred from the above that homeopathic remedies, which have been modified by the discoveries made and the experience attained since the time of Hahnemann, are generally powerless. That question is not essential to this inquiry. But the confession of Mrs. Eddy that her experiments were the means of teaching her that mind and not matter effects the cure, will be regarded by all who do not accept her theories as containing the principal key to the problem. She made the common error of generalizing from a few particulars, and ever since has endeavored to test facts by theory instead of making facts the test. Because she found a supposed mental cause adequate to a cure in a few cases, she leaped to the wild conclusion that all causes are mental. Notwithstanding these numerous absurdities and the radical error, it would be unwise to lose sight of the ​specific elements in the practice of Christian Science and the various forms of Mind Cure as a profession.
The patients who are treated by these practitioners have, to begin with, the vis medicatrix naturæ, which is the final element in every cure, recognized to be such by the leaders of the medical profession for a long period of time. Sir John Forbes, M. D., one of the most eminent regular physicians of England, remarks of the practice of his own School in his famous article on homeopathy:
Sydenham long ago said, "I often think more could be left to Nature than we are in the habit of leaving to her; to imagine that she always wants the help of art is an error, and an unlearned error too."
Sir John Marshall, F. R. S., in opening the session of the London University Medical School in 1865, said,
Under the Mind Cure this force of nature is still at work, and in the great number of self-limited diseases which tend to recovery, it is left free from all error of practitioners. If it loses any advantages ​which the introduction of the proper drugs might give, it is saved from the consequences of the administration of the wrong ones.
The number of instances in which the prescriptions interfere with nature is so great that Dr. Paris wrote, many years ago, "The file of every apothecary would furnish a volume of instances where the ingredients of the prescription were fighting together in the dark. This is especially true of diseases of children. The late Dr. Marshall Hall said, "Of the whole number of fatal cases of diseases in infancy, a great proportion occur from the inappropriate or undue application of exhausting remedies."
Farther, those who are treated by the Mind Curers in many cases derive benefit from the freedom of diet, air, and exercise allowed. They are told to pay no attention to symptoms, think nothing whatever about their diseases, and not talk about them; to eat, sleep, drink, and act as nearly as possible as if they were well; and in a large majority of chronic diseases, this is all that is needed to produce a return to health.
They have also the benefits of faith and fancy; as they are taught to imagine healthy, vigorous organs, and their whole bodies in the condition of health, and with such mental pictures to drive away all consciousness of symptoms, they summon to their aid that most potent of all influences, a calm and fearless mind. The presence of the practitioner and her methods greatly contribute to this calming influence.
A point of difference between Faith Healers and Mind Carers is worthy of observation. Faith Healers eequire the patient to have faith; Mind Curers make a boast of the fact that faith is not necessary. A close analysis, however, shows that this boast is vain. Before they are sent for there is usually some faith, and often much, combined with a distrust of other systems. This was, as some of their authorities affirm, the case when they began. Sufficient time has elapsed to develop a constituency who employ no other methods. If there is no faith, there must be a distrust of other forms of practice, or there would be no reason for turning to the new. Where there is no faith on the part of the patient, usually his friends believe, and have induced him to make the experiment. Thus he is surrounded by an atmosphere of faith which is so important that all the writers attach great weight to it.
Some even go so far as to say that they should be, if possible, removed from the society of those who do not believe.
​But a favorable atmosphere exists to some extent among those who have induced an unbelieving invalid to send for a mental healer. Assuming that the healer has arrived, it is easy to see how faith is engendered. She takes her seat, and after a few unimportant questions becomes silent. The thoughts that wander through the mind of the invalid, as told me by a patient of thorough intelligence, an alumnus of one of the first universities of this country, were such as these: "Can there be anything in this? I don't believe there is, and yet a great many people are believing in it, and some most wonderful cures have taken place. There is Mrs. —— I know that she was given up to die by our best physicians, and I know that she is well." Then the eye will turn to the face of the metaphysician, who seems looking at far-off things and wrestling with some problem not yet solved, but of the certainty of the solution of which she has no doubt. Sometimes the practitioners cover their eyes, and this would add to the effect in many temperaments. The fifteen minutes pass and leave the unbeliever passive; as a quotation elsewhere describes it, "less cantankerous."
The encouraging words of the healer on departing are not without effect, differing as they do from the uncertain or preternaturally solemn forthgivings, or ill-concealed misgivings, of many ordinary physicians. There are no medicines to take, no symptoms to watch, and only the certainty of recovery to be dwelt upon. Whatever the appetite calls for is to be eaten without anxiety as to the consequences, and if there be no appetite there is to be no eating and no anxiety as to the result of abstinence.
The effect of the treatment having been pleasant, the patient rather longs than otherwise for the next day to come, and for the next. If the disease be one ​that under ordinary circumstances would require an operation, the dreadful image of the surgeon's knife no longer appals the patient's mind. The invalid discovers that he does not die, that he sleeps a little better; certainly he is not aroused to take medicine, and there is no fear that he will take cold; he feels decidedly better at the next visit, and now faith is not only born but turned into sight. His friends assure him that he is better, and he tells them that he is so.
Perhaps the most potent cause in awakening faith is the sublime audacity displayed by the practitioner who dares to dispense with drugs, manipulation, hygiene, prayer, and religious ceremony. That spectacle would infallibly produce either such opposition and contempt as would result in the termination of the experiment, or faith. It is impossible to be in a negative position in its presence, where the responsibilities of life and death are assumed.
As for "absent treatments," these are based on the theory that to think of another entirely and abstractedly occasions a spiritual presence of that other. "Distance is annihilated, and his living image and inner personality seem to stand before us, and what we say to it we say to him."
These persons catch up and incorporate with their theories the yet immature investigations of the Society for Psychical Research, in which it is claimed that a sensitive subject can form in the mind a distinct mental picture or idea of words and letters which had been in the mind of an agent. Healers endeavor to extend those phenomena so as to make them annihilate space; and, according to them, "it is as easy to affect a person in the interior of Africa by a mental influence, as in the same room." Here they affiliate with the whole mass of superstitions ​which accumulated in the early history of the human race, and reappear in certain temperaments in each generation. Whether such a thing as thought-transference exists, there is not space here to inquire; nor is it necessary, for the effects of the "absent treatment," so called, can all be accounted for without any such assumption.
Patients thus treated know or they do not know that they are being treated. When they know, there is nothing to explain, for it is the same as if patient and practitioner were in each other's presence. All the mental operations, as well as the original force of nature, proceed under the conviction that they are being treated by a mental healer. If they do not know the entire field of coincidence and the vis medicatrix naturæ remain inviolate; and to determine that there is any connection between the alleged treatment and the change in the condition of the patient would require a vast number of cases and detailed coincidence of time and symptom, for which these practitioners do not display ability, and for which, on their own testimony, they have had no opportunity. Indeed, their theories are such as to make all investigation superfluous and tedious.
The case upon which Mrs. Eddy appears to rely is described thus: "The day you received my husband's letter I became conscious for the first time in forty-eight hours." What can this prove? What evidence is there that she would not have become conscious if the letter had never been written? If she were ever to come out of an unconscious state and recover, it must be at some time. The coincidence of Mrs. Eddy's receiving a letter from the husband does not show any connection between the two facts, for such letters have been sent and the patients have died. To my personal knowledge her treatments have failed, and ​her predictions have not been fulfilled, the patient dying in excruciating agony. Instances which have occurred, and can be reproduced at any time, of the attempted absent treatment of persons who never existed, are numerous; for there is not one of this class of healers that cannot be so imposed upon. This is sufficient to raise a powerful presumption that the spiritual presence which they evoke, and to which they speak, is "such stuff as dreams are made of."
It is not to be denied that they make more cures than any bungler or extremist of a school using drugs would expect. But their failures are numerous, and, like faith healers, they never publish these. Compelled, however, to admit this, the chancellor of the University of the Science of Spirit says:
They are rather more successful than faith healers for this reason: with the faith healers it is generally either an instantaneous cure, or none at all. And an instantaneous cure cannot be made to apply to a great many cases, and what is supposed to be such is very frequently a delusion followed by a complete relapse. The Christian Scientists, however, and their congeners make many visits and give nature a much better opportunity without the destruction of the patient's faith in them by a failure at a critical juncture; thus ​it happens that the proportion of recoveries is more numerous.
The principal practical element has been more or less recognized and employed by the greatest physicians of every school through the whole history of medical practice, as well as by quacks and superstitious pagan priests. "The History of Medical Economy during the Middle Ages," by George F. Fort, contains numerous illustrations of this subject, though adduced for another purpose, and, unlike many other treatises, giving the authorities with most painstaking accuracy.
Dr. Rush, of whom Dr. Tuke affirms that few physicians have had more practical experience of disease, says:
The "British and Foreign Medical Review" for January, 1846, whose editor then was Sir John Forbes, contained an article written by himself which encourages "the administration of simple, feeble, and altogether powerless, non-perturbing medicines, in all cases in which drugs are prescribed pro forma, for the satisfaction of the patient's mind, and not with the view of producing any direct remedial effect."
"Physic and Physicians," published in 1839, speaking of the celebrated and extraordinarily successful Dr. Radcliffe, who was the founder of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford University, and died in 1714, says that he paid particular attention to the mind of the patient under his care, and had been heard to say that he attributed much of his success and eminence ​to this circumstance. There is a very good anecdote illustrating his views upon this subject:
This principle has also been employed by certain priests and clergymen of every sect. A young woman, a teacher, was, as she believed and as her friends supposed, at the point of death. Her physician was not quite certain that she was as ill as she seemed, and requested the pastor to assist him in breaking up her delusion that she must die. He attempted it, but she refused to hear him, and intrusted him with messages for her friends, especially for her class in the Sunday School. When about to bid her farewell, he informed her that he would return in the afternoon; she replied that she would like him to pray with her, but that it was useless to ask for her recovery. Having in view her hearing what he had to say, he prayed in such a way as to break the spell and cause her to believe that she would recover; as he did this, the morbid symptoms of approaching death gave way, and she is still living.
Another case was still more remarkable. A woman, ill and bedridden, conceived a high regard for the ​piety and intelligence of her pastor. He entered her room and in a loud and solemn voice said, "I command you to arise!" Involuntarily she arose and resumed the duties of housekeeping, which after the lapse of ten years she still performs.
A Roman Catholic priest, of high position in his church, told the writer that he thought he had saved scores of lives by refusing to administer the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, which led the patients to say "Father —— does not think I am going to die."
In 1832, when the cholera raged in Norfolk, Virginia, Dr. Buzzell, a physician of great local celebrity, lived there. He was driving night and day, and on one occasion was summoned to see a stalwart negro who was apparently in the state of collapse. Instead of beginning at once to treat him, he accused him of shamming, denounced and derided him in every possible way for calling him when he was at work night and day, driven almost to death. Then, assuming the appearance of intense excitement, he procured a switch and began to thrash the negro very severely. The more he groaned, and the more he said he was dying, the more Dr. Buzzell thrashed him, and with his threatenings and beatings brought on such a tremendous reaction that the man recovered.
In a visit to a branch of the Oneida Community at Wallingford, in 1856, I asked Mrs. Miller, the sister of John H. Noyes, the founder of the community, what they did if any of the inmates became ill, as they repudiated medicines. She said they had very little sickness. "But, have I not heard of an epidemic of diphtheria among you?" She said there had been, but by their treatment they saved every case. "What was that treatment?" "It was treatment by criticism." "How was it applied?" "So soon as a person was taken ill, a committee was appointed who went into ​the room and sat down, paying no attention to the patient; they began at once to speak about him or her, criticizing the patient's peculiarities, bringing every defect to the surface, and unsparingly condemning it." Mrs. Miller added that no one could endure this more than an hour. The mental and moral irritation was so great that they began to perspire and invariably recovered. The universal efficacy of this method may well be doubted, for many persons live in such an atmosphere that if that treatment would save them, they would never die; while others are so callous to all criticism that the remedy would be without effect.
In a certain lunatic asylum was a patient, a very attractive young lady, whose delusion took the form that she was specially called of God to do some great work which had not yet been indicated to her. With this were connected several pernicious practices, such as fasting, excessive prayer, and others of similar character. The asylum physicians were very much interested in her, but the months passed away and she did not improve.
At last one of the assistant physicians, especially interested in the influence of the mind upon the body, determined upon a plan to effect her cure by a powerful mental operation. Accordingly, he introduced a tube into her room, without her knowledge, and also prepared a calcium light so that, at a certain time, he could flood the room with rays of intense brilliancy.
The young woman had not walked a step for many months. At the appointed hour, with all the physicians standing in the hall, and the wife of the physician in chief—a thoroughly Christian woman, intensely sympathetic with the patient—also with them, the physician spoke through the tube in the name of the Lord, ​informing the girl that He had heard her prayers, that she should soon be sent upon her mission, and that she should go forth from the place to her own home to testify to His glory. At the same instant that the voice was heard, the room was flooded with a light much brighter than the sun at noonday.
Her face, with the utmost simplicity of faith, was lighted up with a joy that seemed too great for mortal; and those who were situated where they could see it, declared that hardly ever in their lives had they seen such an expression of seraphic bliss.
Of course, great interest centered in the conduct of the young woman the next morning. She said not a word to a human being upon her vision, but in the morning rose and walked the entire length of the hall, and continued to improve in physical and mental health till discharged from the asylum as practically cured.
Our informant, an official of the institution, of entire credibility, has not heard from her for some time; but, up to a recent period, she remained in good health.
This is an instance of cure effected by the operation of the mind upon the body, as extraordinary as any instance of cure which can be adduced by Faith Healers or Christian Scientists.
The nervous "temperament" or condition of the healer appears to be of no special importance; that is, it is of importance only in the same sense that it is to salesmen, public speakers, school-teachers, lawyers, sea-captains, detectives, military leaders, physicians, and all who impress themselves upon others. I have seen successful healers thin and tall; others short and fat; some pale, others florid; some intelligent, others unintelligent; some intellectual, more only intelligent; some in good health, others diseased; one of ​the best was so feeble as to seem on the verge of death.
The specimen mental treatment given on page 257 shows how the practitioner worked herself up to the point; and it is easy to fancy how forcibly she spoke when a surge of conviction that seemed to act on all the blood-vessels of her body and made her tingle all over, went through her; and it is equally easy to imagine the effect upon the patient.
The relation of the Mind Cure movement to ordinary medical practice is important. It emphasizes what the most philosophical physicians of all schools have always deemed of the first importance, though many have neglected it. It teaches that medicine is but occasionally necessary. It hastens the time when patients of discrimination will rather pay more for advice how to live, and for frank declarations that they do not need medicine, than for drugs. It promotes general reliance upon those processes which go on equally in health and disease.
But these ethereal practitioners have no new force to offer; there is no causal connection between their cures and their theories.
What they believe has practically nothing to do with their success. If a new school were to arise ​claiming to heal diseases without drugs or hygiene, or prayer, by the hypothetical odylic force invented by Baron Reichenbach, the effects would be the same, if the practice were the same.
Recoveries as remarkable have been occurring through all the ages, as the results of mental states and nature's own powers.
They will not be able to displace either the skilled surgeon or the educated physician; for their arrogant and exclusive pretensions are of the nature of a "craze." Most sensible persons will prefer a physician who understands both the mind and the body; who can be a "father confessor" to the sick man, relieving him of the responsibility of treating himself, quieting his mind, strengthening him by hope, and stimulating him by his personal presence; one who, understanding the mineral, plant, and animal substances included in the materia medica, can assist nature, interfering only when absolutely necessary and certainly safe; too learned and honest, when not knowing what to do, ever to do he knows not what.
They will also prefer a physician who can relieve their pains when incurable, smooth their pathway to the inevitable end, or, when he has the happiness to see them convalescent, will be able to give them such hygienic hints as may prevent a recurrence of the malady, or save them from something worse.
The verdict of mankind, excepting minds prone to vagaries on the borderland of insanity, will be that pronounced by Ecclesiasticus more than two thousand years ago:
"The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them. My son, in thy sickness be not negligent; but pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. Leave off from sin, and order thy hands ​aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let hlm not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success. For they shall also pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that which they give for ease and to prolong life."
* ↑ Mrs. Stuart in the foregoing passage is only a little more absurd than Mrs. Eddy. "The preference of mortal mind for any method creates a demand for it, and the body seems to require it. You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology that he will take cold without his blanket; whereas the wild animal, left to his instincts, sniffs the wind with delight." The connection of this quotation with what goes before shows that the horse does not take cold, in the opinion of Mrs. Eddy, because, having been accustomed to the blanket, his system is so weakened that he will take cold without it; but because the training of the said horse has been such that he is led to believe that if the blanket is not on he will take cold!
* ↑ This case can be found (No. 44) in "Lectures on the Physiology and Pathology of the Central Nervous System," by Brown-Séquard; published, 1860, in Philadelphia. Also in Holmes's "Annals of Surgery," vol. 3, p. 330.  A similar account can be found of insanity produced four years after a boy trod on a piece of glass, which was entirely relieved by removing from a point near the ball of the big toe a trifling piece of glass. What is called the nervous temperament or condition is of importance.
* ↑ In practice it seems to be more difficult to successfully treat one's self than to treat another person. The reason for this is that, when personally under the influence of supposed disease, the appeal of the senses is more forcible than when the deception shows itself in another. But that one can couquer the results of his own inverted thinking, there is not the slightest occasion to doubt.... We must not, however, make the mistake of supposing that he who would attempt to bring healing to others must first be sound himself.... The effect of a treatment depends not on its length, but on the condition of the healer who exercises it, and the dynamic power of the thought exerted.—Marston.