{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_19051/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_19051","id":"gutenberg_19051","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19051","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Christian Science","New Thought","Religion","Spiritual healing"],"text":"Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Graeme Mackreth and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\nModern Religious Cults and Movements\n\n\n\nWorks by\n\nGaius Glenn Atkins\n\n_Modern Religious Cults and Movements_\n\nDr. Atkins has written a noteworthy and valuable book dealing with the\nnew cults some of which have been much to the fore for a couple of\ndecades past, such as: Faith Healing; Christian Science; New Thought;\nTheosophy and Spiritualism, etc. $2.50\n\n_The Undiscovered Country_\n\nDr. Atkins' work, throughout, is marked by clarity of presentation,\npolished diction and forceful phrasing. A firm grasp of the elemental\ntruths of Christian belief together with an unusual ability to interpret\nmundane experiences in terms of spiritual reality. $1.50\n\n_Jerusalem: Past and Present_\n\n\"One of the books that will help to relieve us of the restless craving\nfor excitement, and to make clear that we can read history truly only as\nwe read it as 'His Story'--and that we attain our best only as the hope\nof the soul is realized by citizenship in 'the City of God.'\"--_Baptist\nWorld._ $1.25\n\n_Pilgrims of the Lonely Road_\n\n\"A very unusual group of studies of the great mystics, and shows real\ninsight into the deeper experience of the religious life.\"--_Christian\nWork._ $2.00\n\n_A Rendezvous with Life_\n\n\"Life is represented as a journey, with various 'inns' along the way\nsuch as Day's End, Week's End, Month's End, Year's End--all suggestive\nof certain experiences and duties.\" Paper, 25 cts.\n\n\n\n\nModern Religious Cults and Movements\n\nBy\n\nGAIUS GLENN ATKINS, D.D., L.H.D.\n\n_Minister of the First Congregational Church, Detroit, Mich.\n\nAuthor of \"Pilgrims of the Lonely Road,\" \"The Undiscovered Country,\"\netc._\n\nNew York Chicago\n\nFleming H. Revell Company\n\nLondon and Edinburgh\n\nCopyright, 1923, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY\n\nNew York: 158 Fifth Avenue\nChicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.\nLondon: 21 Paternoster Square\nEdinburgh: 75 Princes Street\n\n_To E.M.C._\n\n_Whose constant friendship through changing years has been like the fire\nupon his hearthstone, a glowing gift and a grateful memory_\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction\n\n\nThe last thirty years, though as dates go this is only an approximation,\nhave witnessed a marked development of religious cults and movements\nlargely outside the lines of historic Catholicism and Protestantism. One\nof these cults is strongly organized and has for twenty years grown more\nrapidly in proportion than most of the Christian communions. The\ninfluence of others, more loosely organized, is far reaching. Some of\nthem attempt to give a religious content to the present trend of science\nand philosophy, and, generally, they represent the free movement of what\none may call the creative religious consciousness of our time.\n\nThere is, of course, a great and constantly growing literature dealing\nwith particular cults, but there has been as yet apparently no attempt\nto inquire whether there may not be a few unexpectedly simple centers\naround which, in spite of their superficial differences, they really\norganize themselves.\n\nWhat follows is an endeavour in these directions. It is really a very\ngreat task and can at the best be only tentatively done. Whoever\nundertakes it may well begin by confessing his own limitations.\nContemporaneous appraisals of movements upon whose tides we ourselves\nare borne are subject to constant revision. One's own prejudices, no\nmatter how strongly one may deal with them, colour one's conclusions,\nparticularly in the region of religion. The really vast subject matter\nalso imposes its own limitations upon even the most sincere student\nunless he has specialized for a lifetime in his theme; even then he\nwould need to ask the charity of his readers.\n\nGround has been broken for such an endeavour in many different\ndirections. Broadly considered, William James' \"Varieties of Religious\nExperience\" was perhaps the pioneer work. Professor James' suggestive\nanalyses recognize the greatly divergent forms religious experience may\ntake and establish their right to be taken seriously as valid facts for\nthe investigator. The whole tendency of organized Christianity--and\nProtestantism more largely than Catholicism--has been to narrow\nreligious experience to accepted forms, but religion itself is impatient\nof forms. It has its border-lands, shadowy regions which lie between the\nacceptance of what Sabatier calls \"the religions of authority\" on the\none hand and the conventional types of piety or practical goodness on\nthe other. Those who find their religion in such regions--one might\nperhaps call them the border-land people--discover the authority for\ntheir faith in philosophies which, for the most part, have not the\nsanction of the schools and the demonstration of the reality of their\nfaith in personal experience for which there is very little proof except\ntheir own testimony--and their testimony itself is often confused\nenough.\n\nBut James made no attempt to relate his governing conceptions to\nparticular organizations and movements save in the most general way.\nHis fundamentals, the distinction he draws between the \"once-born\" and\nthe \"twice-born,\" between the religion of healthy-mindedness and the\nneed of the sick soul, the psychological bases which he supplies for\nconversation and the rarer religious experiences are immensely\nilluminating, but all this is only the nebulae out of which religions are\norganized into systems; the systems still remain to be considered.\n\nThere has been of late a new interest in Mysticism, itself a border-land\nword, strangely difficult of definition yet meaning generally the\npersuasion that through certain spiritual disciplines--commonly called\nthe mystic way--we may come into a first-hand knowledge of God and the\nspiritual order, in no sense dependent upon reason or sense testimony.\nSome modern movements are akin to mysticism but they cannot all be\nfairly included in any history of mysticism. Neither can they be\nincluded in any history of Christianity; some of them completely ignore\nthe Christian religion; some of them press less central aspects of it\nout of all proportion; one of them undertakes to recast Christianity in\nits own moulds but certainly gives it a quality in so dealing with it\nwhich cannot be supported by any critical examination of the Gospels or\nconsidered as the logical development of Christian dogma. Here are\nreally new adventures in religion with new gospels, new prophets and new\ncreeds. They need to be twice approached, once through an examination of\nthose things which are fundamental in religion itself, for they have\nbehind them the power of what one may call the religious urge, and they\nwill ultimately stand as they meet, with a measure of finality, those\nneeds of the soul of which religion has always been the expression, or\nfall as they fail to meet them. But since some limitation or other in\nthe types of Christianity which are dominant amongst us has given them\ntheir opportunity they must also be approached through some\nconsideration of the Christianity against which they have reacted.\nUnsatisfied needs of the inner life have unlocked the doors through\nwhich they have made their abundant entry. Since they also reflect, as\nreligion always reflects, contemporaneous movements in Philosophy,\nScience, Ethics and Social Relationship, they cannot be understood\nwithout some consideration of the forces under whose strong impact\ninherited faiths have, during the last half century, been slowly\nbreaking down, and in answer to whose suggestions faith has been taking\na new form.\n\nA rewarding approach, then, to Modern Religious Cults and Movements must\nnecessarily move along a wide front, and a certain amount of patience\nand faith is asked of the reader in the opening chapters of this book:\npatience enough to follow through the discussion of general principles,\nand faith enough to believe that such a discussion will in the end\ncontribute to the practical understanding of movements with which we are\nall more or less familiar, and by which we are all more or less\naffected.\n\nG.G.A.\n\n_Detroit, Michigan._\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n\nI. FORMS AND BACKGROUNDS OF INHERITED CHRISTIANITY                     13\n\nCertain Qualities Common to All Religions--Christianity\nHistorically Organized Around a\nTranscendent God and a Fallen Humanity--The\nIncarnation; the Cross the Supreme Symbol of\nWestern Theology--The Catholic Belief in\nthe Authority of an Inerrant Church--The\nProtestant Church Made Faith the Key to\nSalvation--Protestantism and an Infallibly Inspired\nBible--The Strength and Weakness of\nThis Position--Evangelical Protestantism the\nOutcome--Individual Experience of the Believer\nthe Keystone of Evangelical Protestantism--Readjustment\nof Both Catholic and\nProtestant Systems Inevitable.\n\nII. NEW FORCES AND OLD FAITHS                                          46\n\nThe Far-reaching Readjustments of Christian\nFaith in the Last Fifty Years--The Reaction of\nEvolution Upon Religion--The Reaction of\nBiblical Criticism Upon Faith--The Average\nMan Loses His Bearings--The New Psychology--The\nInfluence of Philosophy and the\nSocial Situation--An Age of Confusion--The\nLure of the Short Cut--Popular Education--The\nChurches Lose Authority--Efforts at Reconstruction--An\nAge of Doubt and a Twilight-Zone\nin History--The Hunger of the\nSoul and the Need for Faith--Modern Religious\nCults and Movements: Their Three\nCenters About Which They Have Organized\nThemselves.\n\nIII. FAITH HEALING IN GENERAL                                          82\n\nThe Bases of Faith and Mental Healing--Cannon's\nStudy of Emotional Reactions--The\nTwo Doors--The Challenge of Hypnotism--Changed\nAttention Affects Physical States--The\nPower of Faith to Change Mental Attitudes--Demon\nPossession--The Beginnings of\nScientific Medicine--The Attitude of the Early\nand Medieval Church--Saints and Shrines--Magic,\nCharms, and the King's Touch: The\nRise of the Faith Healer.\n\nIV. THE APPROACH TO CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND MARY BAKER EDDY             108\n\nMesmerism--The Scientific Investigation of\nMesmerism--Mesmerism in America; Phineas\nQuimby an Important Link in a Long Chain--Quimby\nis Led to Define Sickness as Wrong\nBelief--Quimby Develops His Theories--Mary\nBaker Eddy Comes Under His Influence--Outstanding\nEvents of Her Life: Her\nEarly Girlhood--Her Education: Shaping Influences--Her\nUnhappy Fortunes. She is\nCured by Quimby--An Unacknowledged Debt--She\nDevelops Quimby's Teachings--Begins\nto Teach and to Heal--Early Phases of\nChristian Science--She Writes \"Science and\nHealth\" and Completes the Organization of\nHer Church.\n\nV. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A PHILOSOPHY                                  136\n\nChristian Science a Philosophy, a Theology, a\nReligion and a System of Healing--The\nPhilosophic Bases of Christian Science--It\nUndertakes to Solve the Problem of Evil--Contrasted\nSolutions--The Divine Mind and\nMortal Mind--The Essential Limitations of\nMrs. Eddy's System--Experience and Life--Sense-Testimony--The\nInescapable Reality of Shadowed Experience.\n\nVI. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A THEOLOGY                                   163\n\nScience and Health Offered as a Key to the\nScriptures--It Ignores All Recognized Canons\nof Biblical Interpretation--Its Conception of\nGod--Mrs. Eddy's Interpretation of Jesus\nChrist--Christian Science His Second Coming--Christian\nScience, the Incarnation and the\nAtonement--Sin an Error of Mortal Mind--The\nSacraments Disappear--The Real Power\nof Christian Science.\n\nVII. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A SYSTEM OF HEALING AND A RELIGION          185\n\nChristian Science the Application of Philosophy\nand Theology to Bodily Healing--Looseness\nof Christian Science Diagnosis--The\nPower of Mental Environment--Christian\nScience Definition of Disease--Has a Rich\nField to Work--A Strongly-Drawn System\nof Psycho-therapy--A System of Suggestion--Affected\nby Our Growing Understanding\nof the Range of Suggestion--Strongest in\nTeaching That God Has Meaning for the\nWhole of Life--Exalts the Power of Mind;\nthe Processes--Is Not Big Enough for the\nWhole of Experience.\n\nVIII. NEW THOUGHT                                                     210\n\nNew Thought Difficult to Define--\"The Rediscovery\nof the Inner Life\"--Spinoza's Quest--Kant\nReaffirms the Creative Power of Mind--Utilitarianism,\nDeism and Individualism--The\nReactions Against Them--New England\nTranscendentalism--New Thought Takes\nForm--Its Creeds--The Range of the Movement--The\nKey-Words of New Thought--Its\nField of Real Usefulness--Its Gospel of Getting\nOn--The Limitations and Dangers of Its\nPositions--Tends to Become a Universal and\nLoosely-Defined Religion.\n\nIX. THE RETURN OF THE EAST UPON WEST.\nTHEOSOPHY AND KINDRED CULTS                                           245\n\nHistoric Forces Carried Early Christianity\nWest and Not East--The West Rediscovers\nthe East; the East Returns Upon the West--Chesterton's\nTwo Saints--Why the West\nQuestions the East--Pantheism and Its Problems--How\nthe One Becomes the Many--Evolution\nand Involution--Theosophy Undertakes\nto Offer Deliverance--But Becomes\nDeeply Entangled Itself--The West Looks to\nPersonal Immortality--The East Balances the\nAccounts of Life in a Series of Reincarnations--Theosophy\nProduces a Distinct Type of Character--A \"Tour de Force\"\nof the Imagination--A Bridge of Clouds--The Difficulties\nof Reincarnation--Immortality Nobler, Juster and\nSimpler--Pantheism at Its Best--and Its Worst.\n\nX. SPIRITUALISM                                                       284\n\nThe Genesis of Modern Spiritualism--It\nCrosses to Europe--The Beginnings of Trance-Mediumship--The\nSociety for Psychical Research Begins Its Work--Confronts\nDifficulties--William James Enters the Field--The\nLimitations of Psychical Investigation--The Society\nfor Psychical Research Gives Intellectual Standing to\nSpiritism--The Very Small Number of Dependable\nMediums--Spiritism a Question of Testimony and\nInterpretation--Possible Explanations of Spiritistic\nPhenomena--Myers' Theory of Mediumship--Telepathy--Controls--The\nDilemma of Spiritism--The Influence of Spiritism--The Real\nAlternative to Spiritism--The Investigations of Emile\nBoirac--Geley's Conclusions--The Meaning of Spiritism for\nFaith.\n\nXI. MINOR CULTS: THE MEANING OF THE CULTS FOR THE CHURCH              326\n\nBorder-land Cults--Bahaism--The Bab and\nHis Successors--The Temple of Unity--General\nConclusions--The Cults Are Aspects of\nthe Creative Religious Consciousness of the\nAge--Their Parallels in the Past--The Healing\nCults Likely to be Adversely Influenced by\nthe Scientific Organization of Psycho-therapy--New\nThought Will Become Old Thought--Possible\nAbsorption of the Cults by a Widening\nHistoric Christianity--Christianity Influenced\nby the Cults--Medical Science and the\nHealing Cults--A Neglected Force--Time and\nthe Corrections of Truth.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE FORMS AND BACKGROUNDS OF INHERITED CHRISTIANITY\n\n\nChronologically the point of departure for such a study as this is the\ndecade from 1880 to 1890. This is only an approximation but it will do.\nIt was a particularly decorous decade. There was no fighting save on the\noutposts of colonial empires, the little wars of Soldiers Three and\nBarrack Room Ballads--too far away for their guns to be heard in the\nstreets of capital cities, but lending a touch of colour to newspaper\nhead-lines and supplying new material for rising young writers. It was\nthe decade of triumphant Democracy and triumphant Science and triumphant\nIndustrialism and, among the more open-minded, of triumphant Evolution.\nWestern Civilization was sure of its forces, sure of its formulae, sure\nof its future; there were here and there clouds no bigger than a man's\nhand against particularly luminous horizons, but there was everywhere a\ngeneral agreement that they would be dissolved by the force of benign\ndevelopment. The world seemed particularly well in hand.\n\nThe churches generally shared this confidence. Catholicism and\nProtestantism had reached a tacit working agreement as to their spheres\nof influence and were even beginning to fraternize a little. The\ndivisive force of Protestantism seemed to have spent itself. Since\nAlexander Campbell--dead now for a decade and a half--no Protestant sect\nof any importance had been established. The older denominations had\nachieved a distinctive finality in organization and doctrine. Evolution\nand Biblical criticism were generally the storm centers of controversy\nand though these controversies were severe enough they produced no\nschisms in the churches themselves. A few religious leaders were urging\na more thoroughgoing social interpretation and application of the\nteachings of Jesus; such as these were really looked upon with more\nsuspicion than the propagandists of a liberal theology.\n\nWe see now with almost tragic clearness that, beneath the surface of the\nwhole interrelated order of that tranquil afternoon of the Victorian\nepoch, there were forces in action working toward such a challenge of\nthe accepted and inherited as cultures and civilizations are asked to\nmeet only in the great crises of history and bound to issue, as they\nhave issued in far-flung battle lines, in the overthrow of ancient\norders and new alignments along every front of human interest. It will\nbe the task of the historians of the future who will have the necessary\nmaterial in hand to follow these immense reactions in their various\nfields and they will find their real point of departure not in dates but\nin the human attitudes and outlooks which then made a specious show of\nbeing final--and were not final at all.\n\nJust there also is the real point of departure for a study like this. We\nmay date the rise of modern religious cults and movements from the last\ndecades of the nineteenth century, but they are really reactions not\nagainst a time but a temper, an understanding of religion and a group of\nreligious validations which had been built up through an immense labour\nof travailing generations and which toward the end of the last century\nwere in the way of being more seriously challenged than for a thousand\nyears (and if this seems too strong a statement the reader is asked to\nwait for at least the attempted proof of it). We shall have to begin,\nthen, with a state of mind which for want of a better name I venture to\ncall the representative orthodox religious consciousness of the end of\nthe nineteenth century. That this consciousness is Christian is of\ncourse assumed. It is Protestant rather than Catholic, for Protestantism\nhas supplied the larger number of followers to the newer religious\nmovements.\n\nTo begin with, this representative religious consciousness was by no\nmeans simple. Professor James Harvey Robinson tells us that the modern\nmind is really a complex, that it contains and continues the whole of\nour inheritances and can be understood only through the analysis of all\nthe contributive elements which have combined to make it what it is and\nthat the inherited elements in it far outweigh more recent\ncontributions. The religious mind is an equally complex and deep-rooted\ninheritance and can best be approached by a consideration of the bases\nof religion.\n\n\n_Certain Qualities Common to All Religions_\n\nWe are but pilgrims down roads which space and time supply; we cannot\naccount for ourselves in terms of what we know to be less than\nourselves, nor can we face the shadow which falls deeply across the end\nof our way without dreaming, at least, of that which lies beyond.\nWhence? Whither? and Why? are insurgent questions; they are voices out\nof the depths. A very great development of intelligence was demanded\nbefore such questions really took definite shape, but they are implicit\nin even the most rudimentary forms of religion, nor do we outgrow them\nthrough any achievement of Science or development of Philosophy. They\nbecome thereby, if anything, more insistent. Our widening horizons of\nknowledge are always swept by a vaster circumference of mystery into\nwhich faith must write a meaning and beyond which faith must discern a\ndestiny.\n\nReligion begins, therefore, in our need so to interpret the power\nmanifest in the universe[1] as to come into some satisfying relationship\ntherewith. It goes on to supply an answer to the dominant\nquestions--Whence? Whither? Why? It fulfills itself in worship and\ncommunion with what is worshipped. Such worship has addressed itself to\nvast ranges of objects, fulfilled itself in an almost unbelievable\nvariety of rites. And yet in every kind of worship there has been some\naspiration toward an ideal excellence and some endeavour, moreover, of\nthose who worship to come into a real relation with what is worshipped.\nIt would need a detailed treatment, here impossible, to back up so\ngeneral a statement with the facts which prove it, but the facts are\nbeyond dispute. It would be equally difficult to analyze the elements in\nhuman nature which lead us to seek such communion. The essential\nloneliness of the soul, our sense of divided and warring powers and the\ngeneral emotional instability of personality without fitting objects of\nfaith and devotion, all contribute to the incurable religiosity of human\nnature.\n\n[Footnote 1: I have taken as a working definition of Religion a phrase\nquoted by Ward Fowler in the introduction to his Gifford Lectures on\n\"The Religious Experience of the Roman People.\" \"Religion is the\neffective desire to be in right relationship to the power manifesting\nitself in the Universe.\" This is only a formula but it lends itself to\nvital interpretations and is a better approach to modern cults, many of\nwhich are just that endeavour, than those definitions of religion just\nnow current which define it as a system of values or a process of\nevaluation.]\n\nThe value which religion has for those who hold it is perhaps as largely\ntested by its power to give them a real sense of communion with God as\nby any other single thing, but this by no means exhausts the value of\nreligion for life. All religions must, in one way or another, meet the\nneed of the will for guidance and the need of the ethical sense for\nright standards. Religion has always had an ethical content, simple\nenough to begin with as religion itself was simple. Certain things were\npermitted, certain things prohibited as part of a cult. These\npermissions and prohibitions are often strangely capricious, but we may\ntrace behind taboo and caste and the ceremonially clean and unclean an\nalways emerging standard of right and wrong and a fundamental\nrelationship between religion and ethics. Religion from the very first\nfelt itself to be the more august force and through its superior\nauthority gave direction and quality to the conduct of its devotees. It\nwas long enough before all this grew into Decalogues and the Sermon on\nthe Mount and the latter chapters of Paul's great letters to his\nchurches and our present system of Christian ethics, but we discover the\nbeginning of the lordship of religion over conduct even in the most\nprimitive cults.\n\nWe shall find as we go on that this particular aspect of religion is\nless marked in modern religious cults and movements than either the\nquest for a new understanding of God or new answers to the three great\nquestions, or the longing for a more satisfying communion with God. They\naccept, for the most part, the generally held standards of Christian\nconduct, but even so, they are beginning to develop their own ethical\nstandards and to react upon the conduct of those who hold them.\n\nAs has been intimated, however, the appeal of religion goes far deeper\nthan all this. If it did no more than seek to define for us the \"power\nnot ourselves\" everywhere made manifest, if it did no more than answer\nthe haunting questions: Whence? and Whither? and Why?, if it did no more\nthan offer the emotional life a satisfying object of worship and\ncommunion with the Divine, supplying at the same time ethical standards\nand guiding and strengthening the will in its endeavour after goodness,\nit would have done us an immense service. But one may well wonder\nwhether if religion did no more than this it would have maintained\nitself as it has and renew through the changing generations its\ncompelling appeal. More strong than any purely intellectual curiosity\nas to a first cause or controlling power, more haunting than any wonder\nas to the source and destiny of life, more persistent than any\nloneliness of the questing soul is our dissatisfaction with ourselves,\nour consciousness of tragic moral fault, our need of forgiveness and\ndeliverance. This longing for deliverance has taken many forms.\n\nHenry Osborn Taylor in a fine passage has shown us how manifold are the\nroads men have travelled in their quest for salvation.[2] \"For one man\nshall find his peace in action, another in the rejection of action, even\nin the seeming destruction of desire; another shall have peace and\nfreedom through intellectual inquiry, while another must obey his God or\nlove his God and may stand in very conscious need of divine salvation.\nThe adjustment sought by Confucius was very different from that which\ndrew the mind of Plato or led Augustine to the City of God. Often quite\ndifferent motives may inspire the reasonings which incidentally bring\nmen to like conclusions.... The life adjustment of the early Greek\nphilosophers had to do with scientific curiosity.... They were not like\nGotama seeking relief from the tedious impermanence of personal\nexperience any more than they were seeking to insure their own eternal\nwelfare in and through the love of God, the motive around which surged\nthe Christian yearning for salvation. Evidently every religion is a\nmeans of adjustment or deliverance.\"\n\n[Footnote 2: \"Deliverance,\" pp. 4 and 5.]\n\nProfessor James in his chapter on The Sick Souls deals most suggestively\nwith these driving longings and all the later analyses of the psychology\nof conversion begin with the stress of the divided self. The deeper\nteaching of the New Testament roots itself in this soil. The literature\nof confession is rich in classic illustrations of all this, told as only\nSt. Augustine more than a thousand years ago or Tolstoy yesterday can\ntell it. No need to quote them here; they are easily accessible for\nthose who would find for their own longings immortal voices and be\ntaught with what searching self-analysis those who have come out of\ndarkness into light have dealt with their own sick souls.\n\nEvery religion has in some fashion or other offered deliverance to its\ndevotees through sacrifice or spiritual discipline, or the assurance\nthat their sins were atoned for and their deliverance assured through\nthe sufferings of others. All this, needless to say, involves not only\nthe sense of sin but the whole reach of life's shadowed experiences. We\nhave great need to be delivered not only from our divided selves but\nfrom the burdens and perplexities of life. Religion must offer some\nexplanation of the general problem of sorrow and evil; it must, above\nall, justify the ways of God with men.\n\nGenerally speaking, religion is very greatly dependent upon its power so\nto interpret the hard things of life to those who bear them that they\nmay still believe in the Divine love and justice. The generality of\ndoubt is not philosophical but practical. We break with God more often\nthan for any other reason because we believe that He has not kept faith\nwith us. Some of the more strongly held modern cults have found their\nopportunity in the evident deficiency of the traditional explanation of\npain and sorrow. Religion has really a strong hold on the average life\nonly as it meets the more shadowed side of experience with the\naffirmation of an all-conquering love and justice in which we may rest.\n\nBroadly considered, then, the elements common to all religions are such\nas these: a satisfying interpretation of the power manifest in the\nuniverse, the need of the mind for an answer to the questions Whence?\nand Whither? and Why?, the need of the emotional life for such peace as\nmay come from the consciousness of being in right relationship and\nsatisfying communion with God, the need of the will and ethical sense\nfor guidance, and a need including all this and something beside for\nspiritual deliverance. The representative religious consciousness of the\nend of the nineteenth century in which we find our point of departure\nfor the religious reactions of the last generation naturally included\nall this, but implicitly rather than explicitly. The intellectually\ncurious were more concerned with science and political economies than\nthe nature or genesis of religion, while the truly devout, who are not\ngenerally given to the critical analysis of their faith, accepted it as\na Divine revelation needing no accounting for outside their Bible.\nMoreover such things as these were not then and never can be held\nabstractly. They were articulate in creeds and organized in churches\nand invested with the august sanction of authority, and mediated through\nold, old processes of religious development.\n\n\n_Christianity Historically Organized Around the Conception of a\nTranscendent God and a Fallen Humanity_\n\nFor in its historic development religion has naturally taken distinctly\ndivergent forms, conditioned by race, environment, the action and\nreaction of massed experience and by the temper and insight of a few\nsupremely great religious leaders. But centrally, the whole development\nof any religion has been controlled by its conception of God and, in the\nmain, three different conceptions of God give colour and character to\nthe outstanding historic religions. Pantheistic religions have thought\nof God as just the whole of all that is; they widen the universe to the\nmeasure of the Divine, or narrow the Divine to the operations of the\nuniverse. Pantheism saturates its whole vague content with a mystical\nquality of thought, and colours what it sees with its own emotions. The\nreligions of the Divine Immanence conceive God as pervading and\nsustaining all that is and revealing Himself thereby, though not\nnecessarily confined therein. The religions of the Divine Transcendence\nhave believed in a God who is apart from all that is, who neither begins\nnor ends in His universe, and from whom we are profoundly separated not\nonly by our littlenesses but by our sin.\n\nAll this is a bare statement of what is almost infinitely richer as it\nhas been felt and proclaimed by the devout and we shall see as we go on\nhow the newer religious movements take also their colour and character\nfrom a new emphasis upon the nature of God, or else a return to\nunderstandings of Him and feelings about Him which have been lost out in\nthe development of Christianity.\n\nHistorically Christian theology, particularly in the West, has centered\naround the conception of a Transcendent God. As far as doctrine goes\nChristianity took over a great inheritance from the Jew, for arrestingly\nenough the Jew, though he belongs to the East, had never anything in\ncommon with Eastern Pantheism. On the contrary we find his prophets and\nlawgivers battling with all their force against such aspects of\nPantheism as they found about them. The God of the Old Testament is\nalways immeasurably above those who worshipped Him in righteousness and\npower; He is their God and they are His chosen people, but there is\nnever any identification of their will with His except in the rare\nmoments of their perfect obedience.\n\nTrue enough, through the insight of the prophets and particularly the\nexperience of psalmists, this conception of the Apart-God became\nincreasingly rich in the persuasion of His unfailing care for His\nchildren. None the less, the Hebrew God is a Transcendent God and\nChristianity inherits from that. Christianity took over what Judaism\nrefused--Jesus Christ and His Gospel. But out of the immeasurable wealth\nof His teaching apostolic thinking naturally appropriated and made most\nof what was nearest in line with the prophets and the lawgivers of their\nrace. Judaism refused Christ but the Twelve Apostles were Jews and the\ngreatest of the group--St. Paul--was a Jewish Rabbi before he became a\nChristian teacher. He had been nurtured and matured in the schools of\nhis people and though he was reborn, in renunciations and obediences\ndistinctly Christian, there were in his very soul inherited rigidities\nof form in conformity to which he recast his faith.\n\nMore distinctly than he himself could ever have known, he particularized\nthe Gospel of Jesus Christ. Doubtless his own experience was the deeper\ndirecting force in all this. Theologies always, to begin with, are the\nmolten outpouring of some transforming experience and they are always,\nto begin with, fluid and glowing.\n\nSuch glowing experiences as these are hard to communicate; they, too,\nsoon harden down and we inherit, as cold and rigid form, what was to\nbegin with the flaming outcome of experience. St. Paul's own struggle\nand the bitterness of a divided self which issued in his conversion\nnaturally gave content to all his after teaching. He worked out his\nsystem strangely apart from the other group of disciples; he had\nprobably never heard a word of Christ's teaching directly from Christ's\nlips; he naturally fell back, therefore, upon his Jewish inheritance and\nwidened that system of sacrifices and atonements until he found therein\nnot only a place for the Cross but the necessity for it. He made much,\ntherefore, of the sense of alienation from God, of sin and human\nhelplessness, of the need and possibility of redemption.\n\n\n_The Incarnation as the Bridge Between God and Man; the Cross as the\nInstrument of Man's Redemption. The Cross the Supreme Symbol of Western\nTheology_\n\nHere, then, are the two speculative backgrounds of historic\nChristianity,--God's apartness from man in an inconceivable immensity of\nlonely goodness, man's alienation from God in a helpless fallen estate.\nFor the bridging of the gulf between God and His world Christianity\noffers the incarnation; for the saving of man from his lost estate\nChristianity offers the Cross. The incarnation is the reentry of God\ninto a world from which, indeed, according to the Christian way of\nthinking, He has never been entirely separate, but from which He has,\nnone the less, been so remote that if ever it were to be rescued from\nits ruined condition there was needed a new revelation of God in\nhumanity; and the Atonement is just the saving operation of God thus\nincarnated.\n\nEastern Christianity has made most of the incarnation. The great Greek\ntheologies were built around that. They exhausted the resources of a\nlanguage particularly fitted for subtle definition in their endeavour to\nexplain the mystery of it, and, after more than a century of bitter\ndebate about the nature and person of Christ, contented themselves with\naffirming the reality both of the human and divine in His nature,\nneither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance, nor indeed\nmaking clear in any truly comprehensible way the truth which they so\nsought to define, or the faith to which they so passionately held. But\nthough their keen dialectic broke down under the burden they laid upon\nit, they did, nevertheless, keep alive just that confidence in God as\none come into human life and sharing it and using it, without which\nthere would have been in all the faith and thinking of the West for more\nthan a thousand years an unbridged and unbridgeable gulf between God and\nman.\n\nIndeed, when we turn back again to the great Greek symbols with that\nconception of the immanence of God which the truer insights of our own\ntime have done so much to supply, we find these old forms and phrases\nunexpectedly hospitable to our own interpretations. If the Western\nChurch had been more strongly influenced by the philosophical insight of\nthe early Eastern Church, Western Christendom might have been saved from\na good deal of that theological hardness from which great numbers are\njust now reacting.\n\nBut Western Christendom took the Cross for the central symbol of its\nfaith. What would have happened to Western Christendom without Augustine\nwe do not know, and it is idle to try to guess, but Europe in its\nreligious thinking followed for a thousand years the direction he gave\nit. His theology is only the travail of his soul, glowing and molten.\nHis Confessions reveal to us more clearly than any other record we have\nPaganism becoming Christian. In the travail of his spirit we see\nsomething vaster than his own conversion, we see the formulation of new\nspiritual experiences, the birth of new spiritual relationships, the\ngrowth of new moral orders and consecrations. He bridges for us the\npassages between Paganism and Christianity. He reveals what rebirth\nmeant for men to whom it was no convention but an agonizing recasting of\nboth the inner and outer life. He shows us what it meant to put aside\nthe inheritances and relationships of an immemorial order and to stand\nas a little child untaught, undisciplined and unperfect in the presence\nof the new. The spiritual attitude which Augustine attained was to be\nfor long the dominant spiritual attitude of Europe, was to govern\nmedieval conceptions, inspire medieval actions, colour with its flame\nthe mystic brooding of the medieval mind.\n\nIn the end the sovereignty of God became for Augustine supreme and over\nagainst this he set with strong finality man's hopeless fallen state. He\nwas doubtless in debt to St. Paul for these governing conceptions but\nthey took new character as they passed through the alembic of his own\nexperience. \"The one pervading thought of the Greek fathers concerning\nthe redemptive work of Christ is that men are thereby brought into unity\nwith God. They do not hesitate to designate this unity to be as a\ndeification ... they dwell on the idea that we become partakers of the\nDivine nature.\"[3] The emphasis here is not so much upon sin to be\natoned for or punishment to be avoided, as reconciliation to be\nachieved.\n\n[Footnote 3: Fisher, \"History of Christian Doctrine,\" p. 162.]\n\nAfter Augustine the interpretations of the Cross take a new direction.\nNow men are thereby not so much to be made partakers of the divine\nnature as to be saved from hell. The explanations of the way in which\nthis salvation is really achieved change with the changing centuries but\nthrough shifting theologies there is one constant. All men are lost and\nforedoomed to an eternal punishment from which they are saved only in\nthat Christ suffered for them and they, through their faith and\nobedience, have availed themselves of His vicarious death. The varying\ntheological interpretations are themselves greatly significant as if\nhere were something whose meanings no single explanation could exalt,\nsomething to be felt rather than understood. The Cross so seen is the\nsymbol at once of love and need, of moral defeat and moral discipline,\nof suffering helplessness and overcoming goodness. We cannot overstate\nthe influence of this faith upon the better part of Western\ncivilization.\n\nIt has kept us greatly humble, purged us of our pride and thrown us back\nin a helplessness which is, after all, the true secret of our strength,\nupon the saving mercy of God. The story of it, simply told, has moved\nthe hard or bitter or the careless as nothing else can do. Its\nassurances of deliverance have given new hope to the hopeless and a\npower not their own to the powerless. It has exalted as the very message\nof God the patient enduring of unmerited suffering; it has taught us how\nthere is no deliverance save as the good suffer for the bad and the\nstrong put their strength at the service of the weak; it has taught us\nthat the greatest sin is the sin against love and the really enduring\nvictories for any better cause are won only as through the appeal of a\nmuch enduring unselfishness new tempers are created and new forces are\nreleased. Nor is there any sign yet that its empire has begun to come to\nan end.\n\n\n_The Catholic Church Offered Deliverance in Obedience to the Authority\nof an Inerrant Church_\n\nNevertheless the preaching of the Cross has not commonly taken such\nforms as these; it has been rather the appeal of the Church to the\nindividual to escape his sinful and hopeless estate either through an\nobedient self-identification with the Church's discipline and an\nunquestioning acceptance of the Church's authority, or else through an\nintellectual acceptance of the scheme of redemption and a moral\nsurrender to it. Here are really the two lines of approach through the\none or the other of which Christianity has been made real to the\nindividual from the time of St. Paul till our own time. During the early\nformative period of the Church it was a matter between the individual\nand his God. So much we read in and between the lines of the Pauline\nEpistles. As far as any later time can accurately recast the thought and\nmethod of a far earlier time evangelical Protestant theology fairly\ninterprets St. Paul. Faith--a big enough word, standing for both\nintellectual acceptance and a kind of mystic receptivity to the love and\ngoodness and justice of God revealed in the Cross of Christ--is the key\nto salvation and the condition of Christian character. It is also that\nthrough which religion becomes real to the individual. But since all\nthis lays upon the individual a burden hard enough to be borne (as we\nshall see when we come back to Protestantism itself) the Church, as her\norganization became more definite and her authority more strongly\nestablished, took the responsibility of the whole matter upon herself.\nShe herself would become responsible for the outcome if only they were\nteachable and obedient.\n\nThe Catholic Church offered to its communicants an assured security, the\nproof of which was not in the fluctuating states of their own souls but\nin the august authority of the Church to which they belonged. As long,\ntherefore, as they remained in obedient communion with their Church\ntheir souls were secure. The Church offered them its confessional for\ntheir unburdening and its absolutions for their assurance, its\nsacraments for their strengthening and its penances for their discipline\nand restoration. It took from them in spiritual regions and maybe in\nother regions too, the responsibility for the conduct of their own lives\nand asked of the faithful only that they believe and obey. The Church,\nas it were, \"stepped down\" religion to humanity. It did all this with a\nmarvellous understanding of human nature and in answer to necessities\nwhich were, to begin with, essential to the discipline of childlike\npeoples who would otherwise have been brought face to face with truths\ntoo great for them, or dismissed to a freedom for which they were not\nready.\n\nIt was and is a marvellous system; there has never been anything like it\nand if it should wholly fail from amongst us there will never be\nanything like it again. And yet we see that all this vast spiritual\nedifice, like the arches of its own great cathedrals, locks up upon a\nsingle keystone. The keystone of the arch of Catholic certainty is the\nacceptance of the authority of the Church conditioned by belief in the\ndivine character of that authority. If anything should shake the\nCatholic's belief in the authority of his Church and the efficacy of her\nsacraments then he is left strangely unsheltered. Strongly articulated\nas this system is, it has not been untouched by time and change. To\ncontinue our figure, one great wing of the medieval structure fell away\nin the Protestant Reformation and what was left, though extensive and\nsolid enough, is still like its great cathedrals--yielding to time and\nchange. The impressive force and unity of contemporaneous Catholicism\nmay lead us perhaps to underestimate the number of those in the Catholic\nline who, having for one reason or another lost faith in their Church,\nare now open to the appeal of the newer movements. For example, the\nlargest non-Catholic religious group of Poles in Detroit are\nRussellites. There are on good authority between three and four thousand\nof them.\n\n\n_The Protestant Church Made Faith the Key to Salvation with Conversion\nthe Test for the Individual of the Reality of His Religious Experience_\n\nIf religion has been made real to the Catholic through the mediation of\nhis Church, Protestantism, seeking to recreate the apostolic Church, has\nmade the reality of religion a matter between the individual and his\nGod. And yet Protestantism has never dared commit itself to so simple a\nphrasing of religion as this, nor to go on without authorities of its\nown. Protestantism generally has substituted for the inclusive authority\nof the Catholic Church the authority of its own creeds and fundamentally\nthe authority of the Bible. As far as creeds go Protestantism carried\nover the content of Latin Christianity more largely than we have\ngenerally recognized. Luther was in direct line with Augustine as\nAugustine was in direct line with St. Paul, and Luther's fundamental\ndoctrine--justification by faith--was not so much a rewriting of ancient\ncreeds as a new way of validating their meaning for the individual.\nFaith, in our common use of the term, has hardened down into an\nintellectual acceptance of Protestant theologies, but certainly for St.\nPaul and probably for Luther it was far more vital than this and far\nmore simple. It was rather a resting upon a delivering power, the\nassurance of whose desire and willingness to deliver was found in the\nNew Testament. It was an end to struggle, a spiritual victory won\nthrough surrender.\n\nThe Latin Catholic system had come to impose upon such tempers as\nLuther's an unendurable amount of strain; it was too complex, too\ndemanding, and it failed to carry with it necessary elements of mental\nand spiritual consent. (St. Paul had the same experience with his own\nJudaism.) What Luther sought was a peace-bringing rightness with God. He\nwas typically and creatively one of William James' \"divided souls\" and\nhe found the solution for his fears, his struggles and his doubts in\nsimply taking for granted that a fight which he was not able to win for\nhimself had been won for him in the transaction on the Cross. He had\nnothing, therefore, to do but to accept the peace thus made possible and\nthereafter to be spiritually at rest.\n\nNow since the whole of the meaning of the Cross for Christianity from\nSt. Paul until our own time is involved in this bare statement and since\nour theologies have never been able to explain this whole great matter\nin any doctrinal form which has secured universal consent, we must\nsimply fall back upon the statement of the fact and recognize that here\nis something to be defined in terms of experience and not of doctrine.\nThe validating experience has come generally to be known as conversion,\nand conversion has played a great part in evangelical Protestantism ever\nsince the Reformation. It has become, indeed, the one way in which\nreligion has been made real to most members of evangelical churches. So\nsweeping a statement must be somewhat qualified, for conversion is far\nolder than Luther;[4] it is not confined to Protestantism and the\nProtestant churches themselves have not agreed in their emphasis upon\nit. Yet we are probably on safe ground in saying that religion has\nbecome real to the average member of the average Protestant Church more\ndistinctly through conversion than anything else.\n\n[Footnote 4: But rather in the discipline of the Mystic as an enrichment\nof the spiritual life than as a door to the Communion of the Church.]\n\nConversion has of late come up for a pretty thoroughgoing examination by\nthe psychologists, and their conclusions are so generally familiar as\nto need no restatement here. William James, in a rather informal\nparagraph quoted from one of his letters, states the psychologist's\npoint of view more simply and vividly than either he or his disciples\nhave defined their position in their more formal works. \"In the case of\nconversion I am quite willing to believe that a new truth may be\nsupernaturally revealed to a subject when he really asks, but I am sure\nthat in many cases of conversion it is less a new truth than a new power\ngained over life by a truth always known. It is a case of the conflict\nof two self-systems in a personality up to that time heterogeneously\ndivided, but in which, after the conversion crisis, the higher loves and\npowers come definitely to gain the upper hand and expel the forces which\nup to that time had kept them down to the position of mere grumblers and\nprotesters and agents of remorse and discontent. This broader view will\ncover an enormous number of cases psychologically and leaves all the\nreligious importance to the result which it has on any other theory.\"[5]\n\n[Footnote 5: Letters of William James, Vol. II, p. 57.]\n\nIn Luther, Augustine and St. Paul, and a great fellowship beside, this\nstress of the divided self was both immediate and intense. Such as these\nthrough the consciousness of very real fault--and this is true of\nAugustine and St. Paul--or through a rare spiritual sensitiveness and an\nunusual force of aspiration--and this is true of many others--did not\nneed any conviction of sin urged upon them from the outside. They had\nconviction enough of their own. But all these have been men and women\napart, intensely devout by nature, committed by temperament to great\ntravail of soul and concerned, above all, for their own spiritual\ndeliverance. But their spiritual sensitiveness is by no means universal,\ntheir sense of struggle not a normal experience for another type of\npersonality. The demand, therefore, that all religious experience be\ncast in their particular mould, and that religion be made real to every\none through the same travail of soul in which it was made real to them,\ncarries with it two very great dangers: first, that some semblance of\nstruggle should be created which does not come vitally out of\nexperience; and second, that the resultant peace should be artificial\nrather than true, and therefore, should not only quickly lose its force\nbut really result in reactions which would leave the soul of the one so\nmisled, or better perhaps, so mishandled, emptier of any real sense of\nthe reality of religion than to begin with.\n\n\n_Protestantism Found Its Authority in an Infallibly Inspired Bible_\n\nNow this is too largely what has happened in evangelical Protestantism.\nThe \"twice-born\" have been set up as the standard for us all; they have\ndemanded of their disciples the same experience as those through which\nthey themselves have passed. Since this type of religious experience has\nalways been the more ardent and vivid, since the churches in which least\nhas been made of it have generally tended to fall away into routine and\nsome want of real power, we have had, particularly since Jonathan\nEdwards in America and the Wesleys in England, a recurrent insistence\nupon it as the orthodox type of religious experience. Partly through\ninheritance and partly in answer to its own genius Protestantism has\nbuilt up a system of theology tending to reproduce the sequence of\nconviction of sin, aspiration, repentance, and conversion by doctrinal\npressure from the outside. The foundations of it all are in the New\nTestament and somewhat in the Old, but what has been built upon these\nfoundations has been either too extended or too one-sided. In order to\ninclude in one general sense of condemnation strong enough to create an\nadequate desire for salvation, all sorts and conditions of people,\ntheology has not only charged us up with our own sins which are always a\nsad enough account, but it has charged us up with ancestral and imputed\nsins.\n\nThis line of theology has been far too rigid, far too insistent upon\nwhat one may call the facts of theology, and far too blind to the facts\nof life. It has made much of sin in the abstract and sometimes far too\nlittle of concrete sin; it has made more of human depravity than social\njustice; it has failed to make allowance for varieties of temper and\ncondition; it is partly responsible for the widespread reaction of the\ncults and movements of our own time.\n\nSince so strongly an articulate system as this needed something to\nsustain it, Protestantism has constantly supported itself in the\nauthority of the Old and New Testaments. It displaced one authority by\nanother, the authority of the Church by the authority of the Book, and\nin order to secure for this authority an ultimate and unquestioned power\nit affirmed as the beginning and the end of its use of the Scriptures\ntheir infallibility. The growth of Protestant teaching about the Bible\nhas necessarily been complicated but we must recognize that Protestant\ntheology and Protestant tradition have given the Bible what one may call\nread-in values.\n\nAt any rate after affirming the infallibility of the text Protestantism\nhas turned back to the text for the proof of its teaching and so built\nup its really very great interrelated system in which, as has already\nbeen said, the power of religion over the life of its followers and the\nreality of religion in the experiences of its followers locked up on\njust such things as these: First, the experiences of conversions;\nsecond, conversion secured through the processes of Protestant\nindoctrination, backed up by the fervent appeal of the Protestant\nministry and the pressure of Protestant Church life; and third, all this\nsupported by an appeal to the authority of the Bible with a proof-text\nfor every statement.\n\nAll this is, of course, to deal coldly and analytically with something\nwhich, as it has worked out in religious life, has been neither cold nor\nanalytical. Underneath it all have been great necessities of the soul\nand issuing out of it all have been aspirations and devoutnesses and\nspiritual victories and new understandings of God and a wealth of love\nand goodness which are a part of the imperishable treasures of humanity\nfor three centuries. This faith and experience have voiced themselves\nin moving hymns, built themselves into rare and continuing fellowships,\ngone abroad in missionary passion, spent themselves for a better world\nand looked unafraid even into the face of death, sure of life and peace\nbeyond. But behind the great realities of our inherited religious life\none may discover assumptions and processes less sure.\n\n\n_The Strength and Weakness of This Position_\n\nOnce more, this inherited faith in the Bible and the systems which have\ngrown out of it have been conditioned by scientific and philosophic\nunderstandings. The Protestant doctrine of the infallibility of the\nBible assumed its authority not only in the region of religion but in\nscience and history as well. The inherited theologies really went out of\ntheir way to give the incidental the same value as the essential. There\nwas no place in them for growth, correction, further revelation. This\nstatement may be challenged, it certainly needs to be qualified, for\nwhen the time for adjustment and the need of adjustment really did come\nthe process of adjustment began to be carried through, but only at very\ngreat cost and only really by slowly building new foundations under the\nold. In fact the new is not in many ways the old at all, though this is\nto anticipate.\n\nIt is directly to the point here that the whole scheme of religion as it\nhas come down to us on the Protestant side till within the last fifty\nyears was at once compactly interwrought, strongly supported and\nunexpectedly vulnerable. The integrity of any one part of its line\ndepended upon the integrity of every other part; its gospel went back\nto the Fall of Man and depended, therefore, upon the Biblical theory of\nthe Creation and subsequent human history. If anything should challenge\nthe scientific or historical accuracy of the book of Genesis, the\ndoctrine of original sin would have either to be discarded or recast. If\nthe doctrine of original sin were discarded or recast, the accepted\ninterpretations of the Atonement went with it. With these changed or\nweakened the evangelical appeal must either be given new character or\nlose force. A system which began with the Fall on one side went on to\nheaven and hell on the other and even heaven and hell were more\ndependent upon ancient conceptions of the physical structure of the\nworld and the skies above it than the Church was willing to recognize.\nThe doctrine of eternal punishment particularly was open to ethical\nchallenge.\n\n\n_Evangelical Protestantism the Outcome of the Whole Process_\n\nOf course all this is rather an extreme statement of the situation fifty\nyears ago. The churches did not all agree in insisting upon a\nconversion; some evangelic churches were beginning to place their\nemphasis upon Christian nurture; they sought what is secured for the\nemotionally twice-born through guided growth and a larger dependence\nupon normal spiritual conditions, though they were at least one with\ntheir brethren in believing that those who come into Christian\ndiscipleship must in the end be greatly changed and conscious of the\nchange; they too must possess as an assurance of the reality of their\nreligious life a sense of peace and spiritual well-being.\n\nThe high Anglican Church approached the Latin Catholic Church in its\ninsistence upon sacramental regeneration. This wing of the Church\nbelieved and believes still that baptism truly administered and the Holy\nCommunion also administered in proper form and accepted in due obedience\nby priests belonging to some true succession, possess a mystic saving\npower. Just why all this should be so they are perhaps not able to\nexplain to the satisfaction of any one save those who, for one reason or\nanother, believe it already. But those who cannot understand\nsacramentarianism may dismiss it far too easily, for though there be\nhere danger of a mechanical formulism, the sacraments themselves may\nbecome part of a spiritual discipline through which the lives of men and\nwomen are so profoundly changed as in the most clear case of conversion,\nmanifesting often a spiritual beauty not to be found in any other\nconception of Christian discipleship. Our differences here are not so\ngreat as we suppose them.\n\nThere have always been liberal reactions within the Church herself,\ntending either toward relaxation of discipline or the more rational and\nsimple statements of doctrine. What has been so far said would not be\ntrue of Unitarianism and Universalism in the last century. But these\nmovements have been somehow wanting in driving power, and so, when all\nthese qualifications are made, evangelical Protestantism has resulted in\na pretty clearly recognizable type. The representative members of the\nrepresentative evangelical churches all had a religious experience; some\nof them had been converted after much waiting at the anxious seat, or\nlong kneeling at the altar rail; others of them had been brought through\nChristian teaching to the confession of their faith, but all of them\nwere thereby reborn. They were the product of a theology which taught\nthem their lost estate, offered them for their acceptance a mediatorial\nand atoning Christ, assured them that through their faith their\nsalvation would be assured, and counselled them to look to their own\ninner lives for the issue of all this in a distinct sense of spiritual\npeace and well-being. If they doubted or questioned they were answered\nwith proof-texts; for their spiritual sustenance they were given the\nservices of their churches where preaching was generally central, and\nexhorted to grow in grace and knowledge through prayer and much reading\nof their Bible.\n\n\n_The Individual Experience of the Believer the Keystone of Evangelical\nProtestantism. Its Openness to Disturbing Forces_\n\nNow fine and good as all this was it was, as the event proved, not big\nenough to answer all the needs of the soul, nor strong enough to meet\nthe challenge of forces which were a half century ago shaping themselves\ntoward the almost entire recasting of great regions of human thought. It\nwas, to begin with, unexpectedly weak in itself. Evangelical\nProtestantism, as has been noted, throws upon the members of Protestant\nchurches a larger burden of individual responsibility than does the\nCatholic Church. The typical evangelical Protestant has had little to\nsustain him in his religious life save his sense of reconciliation with\nGod, from whom possibly he never vitally thought himself to have been\nestranged, and a consequent spiritual peace.\n\nHis church promises him nothing except teaching, inspiration,\ncomradeship, an occasion for the confession of his faith and some\nopportunity for service. His ministers are only such as he; they may\nexhort but they dare not absolve. He is greatly dependent, then, for his\nsense of the reality of religion upon his own spiritual states. If he is\nspiritually sensitive and not too much troubled by doubt, if he\npossesses a considerable capacity for religious understanding, if his\nBible is still for him the authoritative word of God, if his church\nmeets his normal religious needs with a reasonable degree of adequacy,\nif he is resolute in purpose and if he has no excessively trying\nexperiences in the face of which his faith breaks down, and if the cares\nof this world, the deceitfulness of riches, or the strain of poverty do\nnot too much distract him (and this is a long and formidable list of\nifs) then he is faithful in his church relationships and personally\ndevout. He grows in grace and knowledge and the outcome of it all is a\nreligious character admirable in manifold ways, steadfast and truthful\nin good works.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe fact that in spite of all hindrances the Protestant churches do go\non, registering from decade to decade a varying statistical growth with\na strongly organized life and a great body of communicants who find in\nthe religious life thus secured to them the true secret of interior\npeace and their true source of power, is itself a testimony to the\nmassive reality of the whole system. And yet the keystone of the great\nstructure is just the individual experience of the individual believer,\nconditioned upon his longing for deliverance and his personal assurance\nthat he has found, through his faith in his church's gospel, what he\nseeks.\n\nIf anything should shake the Protestant's confidence in his creed or his\nBible, or if his own inner experiences should somehow fail in their\nsense of sustaining reality, then all the structure of his religion\nbegins to weaken.\n\nIf one may use and press a suggestive figure, here is a religious\nstructure very much like Gothic architecture; its converging arches of\nfaith and knowledge lock up upon their keystones and the thrust of the\nwhole great structure has been met and conquered by flying buttresses.\nIn other words, sustaining forces of accredited beliefs about science,\nhistory and human nature have been a necessary part of the entire system\nand the temple of faith thus sustained may be weakened either through\nsome failure in the keystone of it which is inner experience, or the\nflying buttresses of it which are these accepted systems of science,\nhistory, philosophy and psychology.\n\n\n_Readjustment of Both Catholic and Protestant Systems Inevitable_\n\nOut of such elements as these, then, through such inheritances and\ndisciplines the representative religious consciousness of American\nProtestantism of the end of the nineteenth century had been created. It\nrooted itself in elements common to all religion, it inherited\npractically the whole content of the Old Testament, it invested Hebraic\nsystems of sacrifice with typical meanings and Jewish prophecy with a\nmystic authority. It was in debt to St. Paul and Augustine for its\ntheology. Its cosmogony was 4,000 years old and practically uninfluenced\nby modern science, or else at odds with it. It was uncritical in its\nacceptance of the supernatural and trained on the whole to find its main\nline of evidence for the reality of religion in the supernatural. It\nmade more of the scheme of deliverance which St. Paul found in the\nCrucifixion of Jesus than the ethics of the Gospels. It was mystic in\nits emphasis upon an inner testimony to the realities it offered. For\nthe Protestant it locked up unexpectedly upon the infallible authority\nof the Bible and for the Catholic upon the inerrancy of the Church. It\nwas out of the current of the modern temper in science and philosophy\ngenerally. Its conceptions of the probable fate of the world were Jewish\nand of the future life were medieval, and perhaps the strangest thing in\nit all was the general unconsciousness of its dependence upon\nassumptions open to challenge at almost every point and the process of\nprofound readjustment upon the threshold of which it stood.\n\nIt is almost impossible to disentangle the action of the two sets of\nstrain which have within the last half century been brought to bear upon\nit. Each has reacted upon the other. Perhaps the best thing to do is to\nconsider the forces which for the last two generations have been\nchallenging and reshaping inherited faiths, and then to consider the\noutcome of it all in the outstanding religious attitudes of our own\ntime.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nNEW FORCES AND OLD FAITHS\n\n\nWithin the last fifty years particularly the fundamentals of the\nChristian faith have not only come up for reexamination but have been\ncompelled to adapt themselves to facts and forces which have gone\nfarther toward recasting them than anything for a millennium and a half\nbefore. The Reformation went deep but it did not go to the bottom. There\nare differences enough in all reason between Protestantism and\nCatholicism, but their identities are deeper still. The world of Martin\nLuther and John Calvin was not essentially different in its outlook upon\nlife from the world of Augustine and Athanasius. The world of Jonathan\nEdwards was much the same as the world of John Calvin and the world of\n1850 apparently much the same as the world of Jonathan Edwards. There\nwas, of course, an immense difference in the mechanism with which men\nwere working but an unexpectedly small difference in their ruling ideas.\n\n\n_The Readjustments of Christian Faith More Far-reaching in the Last\nFifty Years Than for a Thousand Years Before; Science Releases the\nChallenging Forces_\n\nWe should not, of course, underestimate the contribution of the\nReformation to the breaking up of the old order. It left the theologies\nmore substantially unchanged than Protestantism has usually supposed,\nbut it did mark the rise of changed attitudes toward authority. The\nreformers themselves did not accept without protest the spirit they\nreleased. They imposed new authorities and obediences upon their\nchurches; they distrusted individual initiative in spiritual things and\nthe more democratic forms of church organization. John Calvin sought in\nhis Institutes to vindicate the law-abiding character of his new gospel;\nLuther turned bitterly against the German peasants in their demand for a\nmost moderate measure of social justice; the Anglican leaders exiled the\nPilgrims; the Puritan drove the Quaker out of Boston through an\ninstinctive distrust of inward illumination as a safe guide for faith\nand religious enthusiasm as a sound basis for a new commonwealth. But\nthe spirit was out of the bottle and could not be put back.\n\nThe right of the individual to make his own religious inquiries and\nreach his own religious conclusions was little in evidence for almost\ntwo hundred years after the Reformation, partly because the reactions of\nthe post-Reformation period made the faithful generally content to rest\nin what had already been secured, partly because traditional authority\nwas still strong, and very greatly because there was neither in history,\nphilosophy nor science new material upon which the mind might exercise\nitself. We may take 1859, almost exactly two hundred years after the\nfinal readjustments of the Reformation period, as the point of departure\nfor the forces which have so greatly modified our outlook upon our\nworld and our understanding of ourselves; not that the date is\nclean-cut, for we see now how many things had already begun to change\nbefore Darwin and the Origin of Species.\n\nDarwin's great achievement is to have suggested the formula in which\nscience and history have alike been restated. He had no thought at all\nthat what he was doing would reach so far or change so much. He simply\nsupposed himself, through patient and exhaustive study, to have\naccounted for the rich variety of life without the supposition of a\nspecial creation for each form. But the time was ripe and longing for\nwhat he supplied and his hypothesis was quickly taken and applied in\nalmost every field of thought. Nor does it greatly matter that Darwinism\nhas been and may be still greatly modified. We have come under the spell\nof evolution. Our universe is no longer a static thing; it is growing\nand changing. Our imaginations are impressed by long sequences of\nchange, each one of them minute in itself but in the mass capable of\naccounting for immense transformations. Darwin's initiative released the\nscientific temper which has been the outstanding characteristic of our\nown age. The physicist, the chemist and the biologist re-related their\ndiscoveries in the light of his governing principle and supplied an\nimmense body of fact for further consideration. Geology was reborn, the\nrecords of the rocks came to have a new meaning, every broken fossil\nform became a word, maybe a paragraph, for the retelling of the past of\nthe earth.\n\nAstronomy supplied cosmic backgrounds for terrestrial evolution and\nPhysics became a kind of court of appeal for both. The physicist\nproclaimed the conservation of energy, reduced seeming solidities to\nunderlying force and resolved force itself into ultimate and tenuous\nunities. The processes thus discovered and related seemed to be\nself-sufficient. No need to bring in anything from the outside; unbroken\nlaw, unfailing sequence were everywhere in evidence. Where knowledge\nfailed speculation bridged the gap. One might begin with a nebula and go\non in unbroken sequence to Plato or Shakespeare without asking for\neither material, law or force which was not in the nebula to begin with.\nMan himself took his own place in the majestic procession; he, too, was\nsimply the culmination of a long ascent, with the roots of his being\nmore deeply in the dust than he had ever dreamed and compelled to\nconfess himself akin to what he had aforetime scorned.\n\n\n_The Reaction of Evolution Upon Religion_\n\nAll our old chronologies became incidental in a range of time before\nwhich even imagination grew dizzy. We found fragments of the skulls of\nour ancestors in ancient glacial drifts and the traditional 6,000 years\nsince creation hardly showed on the dial upon which Geology recorded its\nconclusions. There is no need to follow in detail how all this reacted\nupon religion. The accepted religious scheme of things was an\nintricately interlocking system irresistible in its logic as long as the\nsystem remained unchallenged in its crucial points. If these should\nbegin to be doubted then the Christian appeal would have lost, for the\ntime at least, a most considerable measure of its force. The inner peace\nwhich we have already seen to be the keystone of the Protestant arch\ngrew in part out of the sense of a universal condemnation from which the\nbeliever was happily saved; this in turn was conditioned by the\nunquestioned acceptance of the Genesis narrative. We can see clearly\nenough now that Christianity, and Protestant Christianity especially,\nreally depended upon something deeper than all this. Still for the time\nbeing all these things were locked up together and once the accepted\nfoundations of theology began to be questioned far-reaching adjustments\nwere inevitable and the time of readjustment was bound to be marked by\ngreat restlessness and confusion.\n\nThe evolutionary hypothesis profoundly affected man's thought about\nhimself. It challenged even more sharply his thought about God. Atheism,\nmaterialism and agnosticism are an old, old trinity, but they had up to\nour own time been at the mercy of more positive attitudes through their\ninability to really answer those insurgent questions: Whence? Whither?\nand Why? Creation had plainly enough demanded a creator. When Napoleon\nstilled a group of debating officers in Egypt by pointing with a\nNapoleonic gesture to the stars and saying, \"Gentlemen, who made all\nthese?\" his answer had been final. Paley's old-fashioned turnip-faced\nwatch with its analogies in the mechanism of creation had supplied an\nirresistible argument for a creation according to design and a designing\ncreator. But now all this was changed. If Napoleon could have ridden\nout from his august tomb, reassembled his officers from the dust of\ntheir battlefields and resumed the old debate, the officers would have\nbeen apparently in the position to answer--\"Sire, they made themselves.\"\nOur universe seemed to be sufficient unto itself.\n\nWe have reacted against all this and rediscovered God, if indeed we had\never lost Him, but this ought not to blind those who have accomplished\nthe great transition to the confusion of faith which followed the\npopularization of the great scientific generalizations, nor ought it to\nblind us to the fact that much of this confusion still persists.\nChristian theism was more sharply challenged by materialism and\nagnosticism than by a frankly confessed atheism. Materialism was the\nmore aggressive; it built up its own great system, posited matter and\nforce as the ultimate realities, and then showed to its own satisfaction\nhow everything that is is just the result of their action and\ninteraction. Nor did materialism pause upon the threshold of the soul\nitself. Consciousness, so conceived, was a by-product of the higher\norganization of matter, and we ourselves a spray flung up out of the\ninfinite ocean of being to sparkle for a moment in the light and then\nfall back again into the depths out of which we had been borne.\n\nThose who so defined us made us bond-servants of matter and force from\nbirth to death though they drew back a little from the consequences of\ntheir own creeds and sought to save a place for moral freedom and\nresponsibility and a defensible altruism. It is doubtful if they\nsucceeded. Materialism affected greatly the practical conduct of life.\nIt offered its own characteristic values; possession and pleasure became\ninevitably enough the end of action, and action itself, directed toward\nsuch ends, became the main business of life. Science offered so\nfascinating a field for thought as to absorb the general intellectual\nenergy of the generation under the spell of it; the practical\napplication of science to mechanism and industry with the consequent\nincrease in luxury and convenience, absorbed the force of practical men.\n\nIt naturally went hard with religion in a world so preoccupied. Its\nfoundations were assailed, its premises questioned, its conclusions\ndenied, its interests challenged. The fact that religion came through it\nat all is a testimony both to the unconquerable force of faith and the\nunquenchable need of the soul for something greater than the scientific\ngospel revealed or the achievements of science supplied.\n\n\n_The Reaction of Biblical Criticism Upon Faith_\n\nThe first front along which the older faith met the impact of new forces\nwas scientific; the second drive was at a more narrow but, as far as\nreligion goes, an even more strategic front. The Bible had to submit to\nthose processes of inquiry and criticism which had so greatly altered\nthe scientific outlook. The Old and New Testaments, as has been said,\nsupplied really the basal authority for the whole Protestant order, and\nspeaking merely as a historian one is well within the facts when one\nsays that even before the enlightenment of the last two generations the\ntraditional way of thinking about the Bible had not proved satisfactory.\nThe more free-minded were conscious of its contradictions; they could\nnot reconcile its earlier and later moral idealisms; they found in it as\nmuch to perplex as to help them. Some of them, therefore, disowned it\naltogether and because it was tied up in one bundle with religion, as\nthey knew religion, they disowned religion at the same time. Others who\naccepted its authority but were unsatisfied with current interpretations\nof it sought escape in allegorical uses of it. (We shall find this to be\none of the distinct elements in Christian Science.) But after all it did\nanswer the insistent questions, Whence? and Whither? and Why? as nothing\nelse answered them. Therefore, in spite of challenge and derelict faith\nand capricious interpretations and forced harmonies it still held its\nown. Directly science began to offer its own answers to Whence? and\nWhither? and Why? curiosity found an alternative. Science had its own\nbook of genesis, its own hypothesis as to the creation of man, its own\nconclusions as to his ascent. These had a marvellously emancipating and\nstimulating power; they opened, as has been said, vast horizons; they\naffected philosophy; they gave a new content to poetry, for the poet\nheard in the silences of the night:\n\n          \"AEonian music measuring out\n            The steps of Time--the shocks of Chance--\n          The blows of Death.\"\n\nThe challenge of science to the book of Genesis specifically and to the\nmiraculous narratives with which both the Old and the New Testaments are\nveined more generally, doubtless stimulated Biblical criticism, but the\ntime was ripe for that also. The beginnings of it antedate the\nscientific Renaissance, but the freer spirit of the period offered\ncriticism its opportunity, the scientific temper supplied the method and\nthe work began.\n\nInherited faith has been more directly affected by Biblical criticism\nthan by the result of scientific investigation and the generalizations\nbased thereon. The Bible had been the average man's authority in science\nand history as well as faith. That statement naturally needs some\nqualification, for before evolution took the field it was possible not\nonly to reconcile a fair knowledge of the natural sciences with the\nBible, but even, as in the argument for design, to make them\ncontributory to Bible teaching. But evolution changed all that and it\nwas really through the impact of the more sweeping scientific\nconclusions upon his Bible that the average man felt their shock upon\nhis faith. If he had been asked merely to harmonize the genesis of the\nnew science with the genesis of the Old Testament he would have had\nenough to occupy his attention, though perhaps he might have managed it.\nThe massive mind of Gladstone accomplished just that to its own entire\nsatisfaction.\n\nBut the matter went deeper. A wealth of slowly accumulated knowledge was\nbrought to bear upon the Scriptures and a critical acumen began to\nfollow these old narratives to their sources. There is no need here to\nfollow through the results in detail. They[6] were seen to have been\ndrawn from many sources, in some cases so put together that the joints\nand seams were plainly discernible. One wonders how they had so long\nescaped observation. The Bible was seen to contain contributory elements\nfrom general ancient cultures; its cosmogony the generally accepted\ncosmogony of the time and the region; its codes akin to other and older\ncodes. It contained fragments of old songs and the old lore of the\ncommon folk. It was seen to record indisputably long processes of moral\ngrowth and spiritual insight. Its prophets spoke out of their time and\nfor their time. It was plainly enough no longer an infallible dictation\nto writers who were only the automatic pens of God, it was a growth\nrooted deep in the soil out of which it grew and the souls of those who\ncreated it. The fibres of its main roots went off into the darkness of a\nculture too long lost ever to be quite completely understood. It was no\nlonger ultimate science or unchallenged history.\n\n[Footnote 6: The Old Testament narratives particularly. The results of\nNew Testament criticism have not yet fully reached the popular mind.]\n\nWe have come far enough now to see that nothing really worth while has\nbeen lost in this process of re-interpretation, and much has been\ngained. If, as the French say in one of their luminous proverbs, to\nunderstand is to pardon, to understand is also to be delivered from\ndoubts and forced apologies and misleading harmonies and the necessity\nof defending the indefensible. In our use of the Bible, as in every\nother region of life, the truth has made us free. It possesses\nstill--the Bible--the truth and revelation and meaning for life it\nalways possessed. We are gradually realizing this and gaining in the\nrealization. But the Bible has been compelled to meet the challenge of\nan immensely expanded scientific and historical knowledge. We have had\nto test its supposed authority as to beginnings by Astronomy, Geology\nand Biology; we have had to test its history by the methods and\nconclusions of modern historical investigation. The element of the\nsupernatural running through both the Old and New Testaments has been\ncompelled to take into account that emphasis upon law and ordered\nprocess which is, perhaps more than any other single thing, the\ncontribution of science to the discipline of contemporaneous thought.\n\n\n_The Average Man Loses His Bearings_\n\nThe whole process has been difficult and unsettling. There was and is\nstill a want of finality in the conclusions of Biblical scholars. It\nneeded and needs still more study than the average man is able to give\nto understand their conclusions; it needed and it needs still a deal of\npatient, hard, clear-visioned thinking to win from the newer\ninterpretations of the Bible that understanding and acceptance of its\nvalue which went with the inherited faith. The more liberal-minded\nreligious teachers doubtless very greatly overestimate the penetration\nof popular thought already accomplished, by what seems to them a\nfamiliar commonplace. The New Testament is still, even for the scholar,\na challenging problem. Conclusions are being bitterly contested and\nwhere the specialist is himself in doubt the average man is naturally in\nutter confusion. The more conservative communions neither accept nor\nteach the results of the higher criticism, and so it reaches the body of\ntheir communicants only as rumour and a half-understood menace to the\ntruth.\n\nReligion is naturally the most conservative thing in the world and even\nwhen we think ourselves to have utterly changed our point of view\nsomething deeper than mere intellectual acceptance protests and will not\nbe dismissed. We pathetically cling to that to which we, at the same\ntime, say good-bye. The average man somewhat affected by the modern\nscientific spirit is greatly perplexed by the miraculous elements in the\nBible and yet he still believes the Bible the word of God with an\nauthority nothing else possesses. In fact, by a contradiction easy\nenough to understand, what puzzles him most seems to him the clearest\nevidence of the supernatural character of the narrative itself. His\nreligion is not so much the interpretation of what he does understand as\nthe explanation of what he does not understand. If he gives up the\nsupernatural his faith goes with it, and yet the other side of him--the\nscientifically tempered side--balks at the supernatural.\n\nIt is hard to know what to do with such a temper. Indeed, just this\nconfused temper of believing and doubting, with miracles for the storm\ncenter, has offered a rich field for those interpretations of the\nmiraculous, particularly in the New Testament, in terms of faith and\nmental healing, to which Christian Science and New Thought are so much\ngiven. We may conclude in a sentence by saying that since the\ninfallibility of the Bible was one of the flying buttresses which upheld\nthe inherited structure of religion, those changes and confusions which\nhave grown out of two generations of Biblical criticism have greatly\naffected the popular faith.\n\n\n_The New Psychology Both a Constructive and Disturbing Influence_\n\nA third influence tending to break up the stability of the old order has\nbeen the new psychology. So general a statement as this needs also to be\nqualified, for, suggestively enough, the new psychology has not so much\npreceded as followed the modern multiplication of what, using James'\nphrase, we may call the \"Varieties of Religious Experience.\" It has\nbeen, in part, a widening of our conclusions as to the mind and its\nprocesses to make room for the puzzling play of personality which has\nrevealed itself in many of these experiences. Hypnotism necessarily\nantedated the interest of psychology in the hypnotic state; it compelled\npsychology to take account of it and for the explaining of hypnotism\npsychology has been compelled to make a new study of personality and its\nmore obscure states. The psychologists have been far more hospitable to\nthe phenomena of mental healing than have the faculties of medicine.\nThey took them seriously before the average doctor would even admit that\nthey existed. Their study led them to a pretty thoroughgoing\nconsideration of the power of suggestion upon bodily states, and\neventually to formulate, as they have been able, both the laws of\nsuggestion and the secret of its power. Telepathy and psychic phenomena\ngenerally have also offered a rich field to the student of the abnormal\nand psychology has broadened its investigations to include all these\nconditions. That is to say, the border-land phenomena of consciousness\nas stressed and manifested in the more bizarre cults have really\nsupplied the material upon which the new psychology has been working,\nand the psychologist to-day is seriously trying to explain a good many\nthings which his predecessors, with their hard and fast analyses of the\nmind and its laws, refused to take seriously.\n\nThey concede that a complete psychology must have a place in it for the\nabnormal as well as the normal, and for the exceptional as well as for\nthe staid and universally accepted. Those who have been fathering new\nreligions and seeking to make the abnormal normal have been quick to\navail themselves of the suggestions and permissions in the new\npsychology. Once we have crossed the old and clearly defined frontiers,\nalmost anything seems possible. Personality, we are now taught, is\ncomplex, far-reaching, and is really, like a floating iceberg, more\nlargely below the sea level of consciousness than above it. How far it\nextends and what connections it makes in these its hidden depths, no one\nof us may know. Normal consciousness, to change the figure, is just one\nbrilliantly illuminated center in a world of shadow deepening into\ndarkness. The light grows more murky, the shadows more insistent, as we\npass down, or out, or back from that illumined center. We cannot tell\nhow much of the shadow is really a part of us, nor do we dare to be\ndogmatic about what may, or may not, there be taking place.\n\nIndeed, we may fill the shadows with almost anything which caprice or\ndesire may suggest. Our curiously inventive minds have always loved to\nfill in our ignorances with their creations. We formerly had the\nshadowed backgrounds of the universe to populate with the creatures of\nour fear or fancy, but now, strangely enough, since science has let in\nits light upon the universe psychology has given us the subconscious as\na region not yet subdued to law or shot through with light. And the\nprophets of new cults and border-land movements have taken advantage of\nthis. \"Since there is,\" they say in substance, \"so much in life of which\nwe are not really conscious, and since there are hints within us of\nstrange powers, how can we set limits to what we may either be or do,\nand may not one man's caprice be as reasonable as another man's reason?\"\n\nThe popularization of the new psychology has thus created a soil finely\nreceptive to the unusual. Without understanding what has been\naccomplished in the way of investigation, and with little accurate\nknowledge of what has actually been tested out, there is amongst us a\nwidespread feeling that almost anything is possible. Here also we may\nend in a sentence by saying that present-day psychology with its wide\nsweep of law, its recognition of the abnormal, its acceptance of and\ninsistence upon the power of suggestion, its recognition of the\nsubconscious and its tendency to assign thereto a great force of\npersonal action, has broken down old certainties and given a free field\nto imagination. It has, more positively, taught us how to apply the laws\nof mental action to the more fruitful conduct of life, and so supplied\nthe basis for the cults which make much of efficiency and\nself-development. It has also lent new meaning to religion all along the\nline.\n\n\n_The Influence of Philosophy and the Social Situation_\n\nHow far contemporaneous philosophy has affected inherited faith or\nsupplied a basis for new religious development, is more difficult to\nsay. Beyond debate philosophic materialism has greatly influenced the\nreligious attitude of multitudes of people just as the reactions against\nit have supplied the basis for new religious movements. Pragmatism,\naffirming that whatever works is true, has tended to supply a\nphilosophic justification for whatever seems to work, whether it be true\nor not, and it has beside tended to give us a world where little islands\nof understandings have taken, as it were, the place of a continuous\ncontinent of truth. The tendencies of the leaders of new cults have been\nto take the material which science and psychology have supplied and\nbuild them into philosophies of their own; they have not generally been\nable or willing to test themselves by the conclusions of more\ndisciplined thinkers.\n\nNew Thought has undoubtedly been affected by the older\nidealisms--Berkeley's for example--while James and Royce have supplied\ncongenial material. The movements are generally selective. New Thought\nuses James' applied psychology and possibly Royce's Absolute, but does\nnot consistently confine itself to any one system. Philosophy also has\nbeen itself of late working in a pretty rarified region. Its problems\nhave not been the problems of the common mind. It has been trying to\nfind out how we know, to relate the inner and the outer world, and in\ngeneral to account for things which the average man takes for granted,\nand in the understanding of which he is more hindered than helped by the\ncurrent philosophy of the schools. It takes philosophy a good while to\nreach the man in the street, and even then its conclusions have to be\nmuch popularized and made specific before they mean much for him. We\nshall know better fifty years from now what philosophy is doing for\nreligion and life than we know to-day. There are, however, as has been\nsaid, aspects of philosophy which religion generally is beginning to\ntake into account.\n\nThe failure of Christianity to create for itself a distinctly Christian\nenvironment has also had much to do with dissolving old religious\nstabilities. Strongly felt social injustices are releasing forces of\ndiscontent and creating a fertile soil for revolutionary experiment,\nthough it must be said that modern religious cults and movements have\nnot gained so much from this particular form of discontent as have those\nmovements which look toward radical social readjustment. But the whole\nsituation has created a shaken state of public opinion. The fierceness\nof modern competition, industrially and economically, finally carried\nthrough to the tragic competition of a world war, has put our tempers on\nedge. The extremes of wealth and poverty and the baffling fluctuations\nin modern industry have brought the existing order into disrepute. The\nvery great number of the socially unfit and the grievous number of\nsocial misfits, along with crime and poverty and the deposit of human\nsediment in our cities, not only trouble men of good will but create a\nhuman element easily misled. Such conditions as these are in such\npainful contrast with the ideals of the Gospel, the spirit of\nChristianity and even the potential productive force of modern society\nas to lead many to believe that something is radically wrong. Many are\npersuaded that Christianity as now organized and led is socially\nsterile; they have withdrawn themselves from the church; many of them\nhave become its mordant critics; the more extreme of them have disowned\nreligion as well as its organized form, and the violently radical would\ndethrone any conception of the Divine and take the word God out of our\nvocabulary. This extreme group has not for the most part associated\nitself with the new religious movement, but here at least has been a\ndisintegrating force.\n\n\n_An Age of Confusion_\n\nIn such ways as these, then, the accepted religious order identified\nwith historic Catholicism and Protestantism has in the last fifty years\nbeen greatly altered. Science, Biblical criticism, psychology and\nphilosophy, and social unrest have all had their share in making people\nimpatient of the inherited order, or doubtful or defiant of it. We have\nbeen asked to relate our old creeds and confidences to new insights and\nunderstandings. The old answers to the questions Whence? and Whither?\nand Why? have been challenged by new answers; our horizons have been\npushed back in every direction and a strange sense of mystery both in\npersonality and the external order has perplexed and stimulated us.\nAlong with all this and in no little way growing out of it, has gone\nimpatience of discipline and an undue haste to gain the various goods of\nlife.\n\nEvolution misled us, to begin with. If the longing for deliverance be\none of the driving forces in religious life, then the vaster scientific\nconclusions of the latter part of the nineteenth century offered a new\ndefinition of deliverance. It was not, after all, so much in the travail\nof the soul as in a serene and effortless self-commitment to a power,\nnot ourselves, which makes for righteousness, that we were to be saved.\nWe had only to push out upon tides which asked of us neither rudder nor\noar, to be brought to our appointed havens. How greatly we have been\ndisillusioned in all this and how bitterly we have been taught that life\nis not so much a drifting with the tide as making brave headway against\nit, we all know well enough to-day. Somewhere back of a vast deal in\nthese modern religious cults and movements, is the smug optimism, now\ntaking one form and now another, which was the misleading bequest of\nthe nineteenth century to the twentieth.\n\nThe great scientific discoveries and their application to the mechanism\nof life led the nineteenth century to believe that nothing was\nimpossible. Everything we touched became plastic beneath our touch save\npossibly ourselves; there seemed to be no limit to what man might do and\nhe consequently assumed that there was no limit to what he might become.\nHe disassociated his hopes from both his disciplines and experiences;\neverything seemed not only possible but easily possible. A general\nrestlessness of temper, due in part to the breaking up of the inherited\norder, in part to the ferment of new ideas and in part to a general\nrelaxing of discipline, began to manifest itself.\n\nThe demoralizing influence of migratory populations ought not to be\noverlooked in this connection. In all the Western nations there has been\nan outstanding growth of industrial city populations due to changing\neconomic conditions. The steadying influences of old environments have\nbeen lost, the influence of the new environment is too stimulating at\nits best and demoralizing at its worst. Our cities are not kind to home\nlife; too often they do not supply a proper physical setting for it. The\nspecialization of hard driven industries takes the creative joy out of\nwork and leads to an excess of highly commercialized pleasure. The\nresult is the modern city worker, never living long enough in one place\nto create for himself a normal social environment, always anxious about\nhis economic future, restless, too largely alternating between\nstrenuous work and highly coloured pleasure and much open, through\ntemperament and circumstance, to the appeal of whatever promises him a\nnew experience or a new freedom.\n\n\n_The Lure of the Short Cut_\n\nDean Inge in a recent study of the contribution of the Greek temper to\nreligion has drawn a strong, though deeply shadowed picture of the\ndisorganization of modern life through such influences as these. \"The\nindustrial revolution has generated a new type of barbarism, with no\nroots in the past. For the second time in the history of Western Europe,\ncontinuity is in danger of being lost. A generation is growing up, not\nuneducated, but educated in a system which has little connection with\nEuropean culture in its historical development. The Classics are not\ntaught; the Bible is not taught; history is not taught to any effect.\nWhat is even more serious, there are no social traditions. The modern\ntownsman is _deracine_: he has forgotten the habits and sentiments of\nthe village from which his forefathers came. An unnatural and unhealthy\nmode of life, cut off from the sweet and humanizing influences of\nnature, has produced an unnatural and unhealthy mentality, to which we\nshall find no parallels in the past. Its chief characteristic is\nprofound secularity or materialism. The typical town artisan has no\nreligion and no superstitions; he has no ideals beyond the visible and\ntangible world of senses.\"[7]\n\n[Footnote 7: \"The Legacy of Greece,\" p. 38.]\n\nWriting as an Englishman Dean Inge did not note the equally unsettling\ninfluence of migratory races. The European peasant in Detroit or Chicago\nor New York is still more _deracine_. He has not only left the soil in\nwhose culture his ancestors had been established for generations, he has\nleft the tradition and the discipline which have made him what he is.\nThe necessary readjustments are immensely difficult. For the first\ngeneration they are largely a dumb puzzle, or a dull, aching\nhomesickness or a gray laborious life whose outcome must be often\nstrangely different from their dreams, but for the second generation the\nwhole experience is a heady adventure in freedom not easy to analyze\nthough social workers generally are agreed that the children of the\nimmigrant, belonging neither to the old nor the new, are a disturbing\nelement in American life. A city like Detroit, in which this is being\nwritten, where both movements combine, the American country and village\ndweller coming to a highly specialized industrial center and the\nEuropean immigrant to an entirely new environment, illustrates the\ncomplex issue of the whole process.\n\nIt is just to note that the Catholic immigrant, finding in his Church\nthe one homelike thing, is often a better Catholic in America than he\nwas at home. A Protestant writer without accurate information would not\ndare to generalize on the religious dislocation of the second Catholic\ngeneration. But there must be a very great loss. The large non-churched\nelements in our population must be in part due to Catholic\ndisintegration as they are certainly due to Protestant disintegration.\nAnd new movements find their opportunity in this whole group. In\ngeneral, society, through such influences, has grown impatient of\ndiscipline, scornful of old methods, contemptuous of experience and\nstrangely unwilling to pay the price of the best. The more unstable have\nsurrendered themselves to the lure of the short cut; they are persuaded\nthat there are quick and easy roads to regions of well-being which had\nbefore been reached only through labour and discipline and much travail\nof body, mind and soul.\n\n\n_Popular Education Has Done Little to Correct Current Confusions_\n\nNor has the very great extension of popular education really done much\nto correct this; it seems rather to intensify it, for education shared\nand shares still the temper of the time. Our education has been more\nsuccessful generally in opening vistas than in creating an understanding\nof the laws of life and the meaning of experience; it has given us a\nlove of speculation without properly trained minds; it has furnished us\nwith the catch words of science and philosophy but has not supplied, in\nthe region of philosophy particularly, the corresponding philosophic\ntemper. It has, above all, been fruitful in unjustified self-confidence,\nparticularly here in America. We have confused a great devotion to\nhigher education and the widespread taking of its courses with the solid\nfruition of it in mental discipline. America particularly has furnished\nfor a long time now an unusual opportunity for bizarre and capricious\nmovements. Nothing overtaxes the credulity of considerable elements in\nour population. Whatever makes a spacious show of philosophy is sure to\nfind followers and almost any self-confident prophet has been able to\nwin disciples, no matter to what extremes he goes.\n\nThis has not been equally true of older civilizations with a more\nclearly defined culture or a more searching social discipline. Something\nmust be lacking in the education of a people in which all this is so\nmarkedly possible. The play of mass psychology (one does not quite dare\nto call it mob psychology) also enters into the situation. Democracy\nnaturally makes much of the verdict of majorities. Any movement which\ngains a considerable number of adherents is pretty sure to win the\nrespect of the people who have been taught to judge a cause by the\nnumber of those who can be persuaded to adopt it. This generally\nunstable temper, superficial, restless, unduly optimistic, open to\nsuggestion and wanting in the solid force of great tradition has joined\nwith the recasting of Science, Theology, Psychology and Philosophy, to\nopen the door for the entrance of new religions, and in general, to so\nunsettle the popular mind as to make almost anything possible.\n\n\n_The Churches Lose Authority_\n\nIn the field of religion certain well-defined consequences have either\nfollowed or accompanied the whole process. There has been, to begin\nwith, a loosening of church ties. The extent of all this has been\nsomewhat covered up by the reasonable growth of the historic churches.\nIn spite of all the difficulties which they have been called upon to\nface, the statistics generally have been reassuring. The churches are\nattended in the aggregate by great numbers of people who are untroubled\nby doubts. Such as these have little sympathy with the more restless or\ntroubled, and little patience with those who try to understand the\nrestless and troubled; they do not share the forebodings of those who\nlook with a measure of apprehension upon the future of Christianity. As\nfar as they recognize disturbing facts at all they are very much like\nCarlyle who, when told that Christianity was upon its last legs, said,\n\"What of that? Christianity has always been upon its last legs.\" And\nperhaps their simple faith and hope are more to the point than many\nopposing attitudes. The churches have grown faster than the population,\nor at least they had at the last census. More than that, there has been\na marked increase in church activity. The churches are better organized;\nthey are learning the secret of cooeperation; they are reaching out in\nmore directions and all of them, even the more democratic, are more hard\ndriven from the top.\n\nThe result of all this has been a great show of action, though it is\ndifficult now to say whether the real results of this multiplied\nactivity have been commensurate in spiritual force and ethical fruitage\nwith the intensity of their organized life. (The writer thinks not.) But\nthrough all this we discern, nevertheless, a marked weakening of\nauthority as far as the Church goes and a general loosening of ties;\nthough the churches in the regions of finance and organization drive\nharder than they used to drive, in the matter of creed and conduct they\nare driving with an easy rein. Denominational loyalties are relaxed;\nthere is much changing from one denomination to another and within the\ndenominations and individual churches there is, of course, a substantial\nproportion of membership which is only nominal.\n\n\n_Efforts at Reconstruction Within the Church_\n\nThere are those who view with apprehension the whole future of religion.\nThey believe that the foundations of the great deep are breaking beneath\nus, that Christianity must be profoundly recast before it can go on\nprevailingly, and they are reaching in one direction and another for\nconstructive changes, but all this within the frontiers of historic\nChristianity and the Church. They want church unity but they still want\na church; they want a new theology but still a theology; they want new\napplications of religion but still substantially the old religion. There\nwas more of this during the war than just now. Such a book as Orchard's\n\"Future of Religion,\" perhaps the most thoughtful analysis of conditions\ngiven us for a long time, was born of the war itself and already many of\nits anticipations seem to miss the point. Such expectations of wholesale\nreligious reconstruction leave out of account the essential conservatism\nof human nature, a conservatism more marked in religion than anywhere\nelse.\n\nThere is also a strong and telling group which is seeking so to recast\nand interpret inherited faiths as to make them more consonant to modern\nneeds and more hospitable to new understandings. Such as these have\naccepted gladly the tested conclusions of science, the results of\nBiblical criticism and the revealing suggestion of both psychology and\nphilosophy; they have sought to disentangle the essential from the\nunessential, the enduring from the transient. They have found in science\nnot the foe but the friend of religion. Those intimations of unfailing\nforce, those resolutions of the manifold phases of action and reality\ntoward which science is reaching have seemed to them a discovery of the\nvery presence and method of God, and they have found in just such\nregions as these new material for their faith. They have dealt\nreverently with the old creeds, for they have seen that the forms which\nChristianity has taken through the centuries have grown out of enduring\nexperiences and needs never to be outgrown, and that their finality is\nthe finality of the deep things of the soul itself. They have been able,\ntherefore, to make new truth tributary to old faith and to interpret the\ncentral affirmations of Christianity in terms of present-day facts. They\nhave sought to share their conclusions with others and they have really\nbeen able to carry Christianity through the transitional period of the\nlast fifty years and continue it open-minded, strongly established,\nreverent and enriched rather than impoverished.\n\nWhat they have done has been doubly hard, once through the sheer\ndifficulty of the task itself, and once through the hostile and too\noften abusive temper with which they and their endeavours have been\nopposed. None the less, they have saved for Christendom a reasonable\nfaith. Science has of late gone half-way to meet them. It is rather\npainfully revising a good many of its earlier conclusions and on the\nwhole walking rather humbly just now before its God, recognizing that\nthe last word has not yet really been said about much of anything.\n\n\n_An Age of Doubt and a Twilight-Zone in History_\n\nBut the apparently unchanged traditions of the older forms of faith and\nthe relatively strong position of the Church must not blind us to the\ngenerally disorganized condition of religion to-day. There is much in\nevidence a body of doubt which clouds the outlook of multitudes upon\nreligion generally. Beyond debate a kind of eclipse of faith began to\ndraw across the Western world so early as the middle of the last\ncentury. The militant skepticism of the brilliant group of younger poets\nwho sang their defiances in the first two decades of the nineteenth\ncentury to a world which professed itself duly shocked, is wholly\ndifferent from the sadness with which the more mature singers of two\ngenerations later announce their questioning and their disillusionment.\nThe difference is just the difference between Shelley and Matthew\nArnold. There is a philosophic depth in this later music which the\nformer wholly lacked. Arnold speaks for his time when he announces\nhimself as standing between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to\nbe born. A profound disillusionment expressed itself in great ranges of\nlater nineteenth century literature and confirmed the more sensitive and\ndespairing in a positive pessimism, strangely contrasted to the\nself-assertive temper of the science and industry of the period. It\nwould need a pretty careful analysis to follow all this to its roots.\nSomething of it no doubt was due to the inability of poet and\nphilosopher to reconcile their new understanding of life and the\nuniverse with the old religious forms but more of it was likely due to\nsome deep exhaustion of spiritual force, an exhaustion which has from\ntime to time marked transitional periods in the development of cultures\nand civilizations.\n\nThere have always been twilight zones in history, times in which the\nforce of the old had spent itself and nothing new had come to take its\nplace. We are beginning to see now that we too have been passing through\na twilight zone whose contrasts are all the more dramatic through the\nmore than tropic swiftness with which the high lights of the Victorian\nperiod darkened into the distractions and disillusionments of our own\ntime. The best one can say is that there was on the part of the more\nsensitive a widespread anticipation of all this, as if the chill of a\ncoming shadow had fallen first of all upon them, and beyond debate, not\na little of the doubt which has been so marked a feature of the last two\ngenerations in literature generally, and in the attitude of a great\nnumber of people toward religion, has been due to just this.\n\n\n_The Hunger of the Soul and the Need for Faith Persist_\n\nAnd yet, since religion is so inextinguishable a thing, changing forces\nand attitudes have still left untouched the hunger of the soul and the\nneed of men for faith. Indeed the very restlessness of the time, the\nbreaking up of the old orders, the failure of the old certainties, has,\nif anything, deepened the demand for religious reality and there has\nbeen in all directions a marked turning to whatever offered itself as a\nplausible substitute for the old, and above all a turning to those\nreligions which in quite clearly defined ways promise to demonstrate the\nreality of religion through some sensible or tangible experience. If\nreligion will only work miracles and attest itself by some sign or other\nwhich he who runs may read there is waiting for it an eager\nconstituency. We shall find as we go on how true this really is, for the\nmodern religious cult which has gained the largest number of followers\noffers the most clearly defined signs and wonders.\n\nIf religion cures your disease and you are twice persuaded, once that\nyou really are cured and once that religion has done it, then you have\nsomething concrete enough to satisfy anybody. Or if, perplexed by death\nand with no faith strong enough to pierce that veil through a persuasion\nof the necessity of immortality established in the very nature of\nthings, you are offered a demonstration of immortality through the\nvoices and presences of the discarnate, then, once more, you have\nsomething concrete enough, if only you were sure of it, to settle every\ndoubt. And finally, if the accepted religions are too concrete for you\nand if you desire a rather vague and poetic approach to religion made\nvenerable by the centuries and appealingly picturesque through the\npersonalities of those who present it, you have in some adaptation of\noriental faith to occidental needs a novel and interesting approach to\nthe nebulous reality which passes in the Eastern mind for God, an\napproach which demands no very great discipline and leaves a wide margin\nfor the play of caprice or imagination.\n\n\n_Modern Religious Cults and Movements Find Their Opportunity in the\nWhole Situation. The Three Centers About Which They Have Organized\nThemselves_\n\nThere has been, then, as the outcome of the complex of forces which we\nhave been considering, a new approach to religion distinctive in our own\ntime and in general taking three directions determined by that against\nwhich it has reacted, or perhaps more positively by the varying\ncharacter of what it seeks. A pretty careful analysis of modern\nreligious cults and movements shows that they have organized themselves,\nin action and reaction, around three centers definitely related to three\noutstanding deficiencies of inherited faith. I say deficiencies, though\nthat is of course to beg the question. We saw earlier in this study how\nreligion everywhere and always grows out of some of the few central and\nunexpectedly simple, though always supremely great, needs and how the\nforce of any religion waxes or wanes as it meets these needs. Religion\nis real to the generality of us as it justifies the ways of God to man\nand reveals the love and justice of God in the whole of personal\nexperience. Religion is always, therefore, greatly dependent upon its\npower to reconcile the more shadowed side of experience with the Divine\nlove and power and goodness. It is hard to believe in a Providence whose\ndealings with us seem neither just nor loving. Faith breaks down more\noften in the region of trying personal experience than anywhere else.\n\nAll this is as old as the book of Job but it is none the less true\nbecause it is old.\n\nThe accepted theology which explained sin and sorrow in terms of the\nfall of man and covered each individual case with a blanket indictment\njustified by the condemnation of the whole of humanity has lost its\nforce. It depended, to begin with, on a tradition of human beginnings\nwhich has not borne examination, and it was beside, in spite of all the\nefforts to defend it, profoundly unethical. Calvinistic theology,\nmoreover, made a difficult matter worse by assuming for every individual\na predestined fate reaching beyond death itself which a man was\npowerless to escape. Those chapters in the long story of theology which\nrecord the turning and groping of minds--and souls--enmeshed in this web\nof their own weaving and more deeply entangled still in the challenging\nexperiences of life itself are among the most pathetic and arresting\nin the whole story of human thought. We ought to recognize more clearly\nthan we have generally done and confess more frankly that our inherited\nexplanations of the problems of pain and sorrow have been markedly\nunsatisfactory and have greatly contributed to the justifiable reaction\nagainst them.\n\nOne group of modern religious cults and movements, then, has found its\nopportunity just here. Christian Science and kindred cults are just an\nattempt to reconcile the love and goodness of God with pain, sickness,\nsorrow, and to a lesser degree with sin. How they do this remains to be\nseen, but the force of their appeal depends upon the fact that a very\nconsiderable and constantly growing number of people believe that they\nhave really done it. Such cults as these have also found a place for the\nNew Testament tradition of healing; they have also appealed strongly to\nthose who seek a natural or a pseudo-natural explanation for the\nmiraculous elements in religion generally. They have been expectedly\nreinforced by the feeling for the Bible which strongly persists among\nthose who are not able to find in the inherited Protestant position that\nreal help in the Bible which they had been taught they should there\nfind, and who are not, on the other hand, sufficiently acquainted with\nthe newer interpretations of it to find therein a resolution for their\ndoubts and a vital support for their faith. Finally, Christian Science\nand kindred cults offer a demonstration of the reality of religion in\nhealth and happiness, and generally, in a very tangible way of living.\nHere, then, is the first region in which we find a point of departure\nfor modern religious cults and movements.\n\nSpiritualism organizes itself around another center. Religion generally\ndemands and offers a faith in immortality. We are not concerned here\nwith the grounds which various religions have supplied for this faith\nor the arguments by which they have supported it. Generally speaking,\nany religion loses ground as it fails to convince its adherents of\nimmortality, or justify their longings therefor. Any religion supplying\nclear and indisputable proof of immortality will command a strong\nfollowing and any seeming demonstration of immortality not particularly\nassociated with this or that religious form will organize about itself a\ngroup of followers who will naturally give up pretty much everything\nelse and center their entire interests upon the methods by which\nimmortality is thus supposed to be demonstrated. Now modern Spiritualism\ncomes in just here. It professes to offer a sure proof of immortality to\nan age which is just scientific enough to demand something corresponding\nto scientific proof for the support of its faith and not scientific\nenough to accept all the implications of science, or to submit to its\ndiscipline. Theosophy and kindred cults are generally a quest for\ndeliverance along other than accepted Christian lines; they substitute\nself-redemption for Christian atonement, and deliverance through\nmystical disciplines for that forgiveness of sin and assurance of\nsalvation in which Christianity has found its peace.\n\nThere is, of course, a vast deal of action and reaction between the\nnewer movements themselves and between the new faith and the old. There\nare elements common to all religions; there are frontiers where all\nreligions meet and somewhat merge; at some point or other almost every\nfaith touches its contrary or becomes uncertain and shifts its emphasis.\nReligion is always dependent upon changing tempers and very greatly\nupon varying personalities; it is always in flux, impatient of\ndefinitions and refusing the rigid boundary lines within which we\nattempt to confine it. Though it be clearly possible, therefore, to find\nthree distinct points of departure for the whole of the border-land\ncults and religions, there is running through them all a certain unity\nof driving force. They are in general a quest for a new type of\nreligious reality; they are largely due to certain marked inadequacies\nof the more accepted religious teachings and to the want of the more\naccepted religious experiences to satisfy certain types. They have come\nto light in our own time through the failure of authority in both\nCatholicism and Protestantism, through the failure of the accepted\nunderstandings of the Bible to satisfy those who are still persuaded\nthat it has a real message and through the reaction of the modern spirit\nupon religious attitudes. They owe much to the deficiency of the\ntraditional explanation of sin, sorrow and suffering; they owe something\nto the failure of Christianity to create a Christian environment; and\nthey owe not a little to the natural longing for some positive assurance\nof life after death, as well as to the quest of the soul for deliverance\nand its longing for a satisfying communion with God. And they are\nreinforced in every direction by the restless and unsettled temper of a\ntime subject to great changes of habit and outlook through the breaking\nup of old industrial and social orders and the impact of new forces\ndriving in from every direction.\n\nWe shall need to relate these conditioning causes more definitely to the\nvarious cults and movements as we go on to study them, but here at least\nare the backgrounds against which they must be studied and the lines of\ntesting down which they must be followed. We shall begin in our more\ndetailed study of these movements with the modern religious quest for\nhealth and healing. But even here we shall find it worth while to trace\nbroadly the history of faith and mental healing.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nFAITH HEALING IN GENERAL\n\n\nThose cults which are either founded upon faith healing or involve it\nhave a long ancestry. George Barton Cutten's very suggestive book[8]\nmakes that clear enough and supplies an informing mass of detail.\nMedical Science and Psychology have been slow to take into account the\nfacts thus submitted, but they have of late made amends for their\nsomewhat unaccountable delay, and we have now reached certain\nconclusions about which there is little controversy except, indeed, as\nto the range of their application. Beneath all faith healing and kindred\nphenomena there are three pretty clearly defined bases. First, the\naction or reaction of mind upon body; second, the control of mental\nattitudes by the complex of faith; and, as an interrelated third, the\ncontrol of the lower nerve centers by suggestion.\n\n[Footnote 8: \"Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing.\"]\n\n\n_The Bases of Faith and Mental Healing_\n\nThere is an almost baffling interplay of what one may call these three\ncontrolling principles, and the exhaustive discussion of the whole\nsubject demands the knowledge of the specialist. But we do know, to\nbegin with, that just as there are demonstrated bodily approaches to\nboth the mental and spiritual aspects of life, so there are equally\nundeniable mental and even spiritual approaches to physical conditions.\nWe have here to fall back upon facts rather than upon a definite\nknowledge of what happens in the shadowy border-land across which the\nmind takes over and organizes and acts upon what is presented to it by\nthe afferent nervous system. Nothing, for example, could be really more\nprofound than the difference between waves of compression and\nrarefaction transmitted through the luminiferous ether and the\ntranslation of their impact into light. Somewhere between the retina of\nthe eye, with its magic web of sensitive nerve ends, and the proper\nregistering and transforming regions of the brain something happens\nabout which Science can say no final word.\n\nWhat happens in the case of light is equally true of sound and tactual\nsensation. That vivid and happy consciousness of well-being which we\ncall health is just the translation of normal balances, pressures and\nfunctionings in the mechanism of the body into an entirely different\norder of phenomena. Health is a word of manifold meaning and if its\nfoundations are established in the harmonious cooeperation of physical\nprocesses, its superstructure rises through mental attitudes into what,\nfor want of a more clearly defined word, we call spiritual states. Two\norders meet and merge within us. Above a world of idea, insight, desire\nand subordination of means to ends, the whole driven by the will and\nsaturated with emotion, a world which has its contacts with the unseen\nand eternal and derives its strength from the truly immaterial; below a\nworld of material and forces in subjection to the laws of physics and\nchemistry and involved in the processes of the conservation and\ntransformation of physical energy, and consciousness the clearing-house\nfor the whole.\n\n\n_Cannon's Study of Emotional Reactions Upon Physical States_\n\nThis interplay of body and mind has of late been made the subject of\ncareful and long continued experimentation with a special reference to\nthe reactions of strong emotion upon bodily states, particularly as\nregistered in chemical changes. These experiments have been carried on\nwith an almost incredible patience and attention to detail under the\nmost difficult circumstances, and their conclusions seem final.\nProfessor Walter B. Cannon of Harvard University has recently put the\nresult of such investigation at our service in a most interesting\nway.[9] (It ought to be said, however, that a similar series of\nexperiments repeated at the laboratories of the University of Chicago\nfailed to produce the same results.)\n\n[Footnote 9: \"Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage,\" quoted\nwithout page references.]\n\nStrong emotion affects almost every physical region, modifies almost\nevery physical function. The normal secretion of digestive fluids is\ngreatly increased by hunger (though here, of course, hunger itself may\nhave a physical basis) and also by what the investigator calls sham\nfeeding--food, that is, taken by an animal and so deflected as not to\npass into the digestive tract at all stimulates the gastric flow quite\nas much as if it were actually received into the stomach. On the other\nhand unhappy emotional disturbance greatly retards the digestive\nprocesses. Pain, for example, results in pronounced inhibitions of the\nsecretion of gastric juice while happy emotional states produce\nnaturally the opposite effect. Pain is often accompanied by nausea,\nindeed the nausea of a sick headache may be only secondary, induced by a\npain springing from quite another source than retarded digestion.\n\nProfessor Cannon's experiments are most interesting as he traces the\nvariations of the flow of adrenal secretion induced by emotion and then\nretraces the effect of the chemical changes so produced upon bodily and\nmental states. The secretion of adrenin[10] is greatly increased by pain\nor excitement. The percentage of blood sugar is also greatly increased\nby the same causes. The heaviness of fatigue is due, as we know, to\npoisonous uneliminated by-products resulting from long continued or\nover-taxing exertion of any sort. Under the influence of fatigue the\npower of the muscles to respond to any kind of stimulus is greatly\nreduced. (It is interesting to note, however, that muscular fibre\ndetached from the living organism and mechanically stretched and relaxed\nshows after a period the same decrease in contractability under\nstimulation.) On the other hand any increase in adrenal secretion\nresults in renewed sensitiveness to stimulation, that is by an increased\npower of the muscle to respond. Falling blood pressures diminish\nproportionately the power of muscular response. Rising blood pressure is\neffective \"in largely restoring in fatigued structures their normal\nirritability\" and an increase of adrenin seems to raise blood pressure\nby driving the blood from the interior regions of the body \"into the\nskeleton muscles which have to meet, by extra action, the urgent demands\nof struggle or escape.\"\n\n[Footnote 10: I follow Cannon in the form of this word.]\n\nAdrenin is of real use in counteracting the effects of fatigue or in\nenabling the body to respond to some unusual call for effort. The\ncoagulation of the blood is also affected by the same agent, that is, it\ncoagulates very much more rapidly.[11] Coagulation is also hastened by\nheightened emotion; a wound does not bleed so freely when the wounded\none is angry or excited. A soldier, then, in the stress of combat is not\nonly rendered insensible to fatigue and capable of abnormal activity,\nbut his wounds are really not so dangerous as they would otherwise be.\nThere are here suggestions of elemental conditions having to do with\nstruggle and survival, conditions which play their very great part in\nthe contests of life.\n\n[Footnote 11: Cannon thinks, however, that this effect is produced\nindirectly.]\n\nEmotions set free, as has been said, larger percentages of sugar which\nare immediately utilized by the muscles in heightened or fatiguing\neffort. All these experiments point very clearly to reservoirs of power,\nboth physical and mental, upon which we may draw in times of stress and\nunder emotional excitement.[12] Such emotionally induced chemical\nactions and reactions as have been indicated release these stored\nenergies, render us for the time being unconscious of fatigue and even\nguard us against the too rapid exhaustion of vital power. Whatever\nheightens emotion, therefore, modifies the very chemical structure of\nthe body.\n\n[Footnote 12: Excessive emotional reactions upon bodily states may\nexplain, as Cannon suggests, the more obscure phenomena of religious\nfrenzy such as the ceremonial dances of savages, the \"Danse Macabre\" of\nthe Middle Ages, the feats of the whirling dervishes, the jumping and\nshouting of revivalism; also, maybe, the modern jazz.]\n\n\n_The Two Doors_\n\nThere are other changes as well. The breath is quickened, the lungs are\nexpanded, waste products are very much more rapidly eliminated and so in\nanswer to summoning states of the soul the body as a whole readjusts\nitself in marvellous subtle forms, mobilizing all its forces for the\ncontests which the emotion anticipates, or indeed which the emotion\nitself calls out. And if all this seems unduly technical it is only to\nbear out with something like a scientific accuracy the statements made a\nlittle earlier that two orders meet and merge within us and that the\nreactions of our loves, our fears, or our longings upon our bodily\nprocesses may be stated in terms of the test tube and the chemist's\nscale.\n\nSuch changes as are thus registered react in turn upon mental\nattitudes. Fatigue produces mental depression. An accumulation of\nuneliminated waste darkens all our horizons; irritability of mind and\nsoul attend physical irritability; any unhappy modification in the\nbalance of the physical registers automatically an equally unhappy\nmodification in the balance of the psychic. Most of us, as we come to\nknow ourselves better, recognize marked alterations even in spiritual\nstates which we are taught to refer to physical condition, but just as\ntruly altered spiritual conditions produce altered physical states.\nThere is an endless give and take and there are, therefore, two doors of\napproach to our pains, wearinesses and sicknesses.\n\n\n_The Challenge of Hypnotism_\n\nMedicine, surgery and hygiene as at present organized largely approach\npersonal well-being from the physical side. They have for their support\na body of fact and a record of accomplishment which cannot be put out of\ncourt without sheer intellectual stultification. Modern medicine has\nbeen so massively successful in dealing with disease on the basis of a\nphilosophy which makes everything, or nearly everything, of the body and\nnothing or next to nothing of the mind, that medicine was in danger of\nbecoming more sheerly materialistic than almost any other of our\nsciences; Physics and Chemistry had their backgrounds in which they\nrecognized the interplay of realities too great for their formulae and\nforces too subtle for their most sensitive instruments. But medicine was\nalmost in the way of forgetting all this when it was compelled--and\nthat for its own good--to take account of an entirely different set of\nforces.\n\nThis was, to begin with, as far as the modern scientific approach is\nconcerned, first made clearly apparent in Hypnotism. Hypnotism seems to\nbe such a modification of normal mental conditions under the power of\ncommanding suggestion as really for the time being to focus\nconsciousness and mental action generally in one suggested line. A new\nset of inhibitions and permissions are thus imposed upon normal\nconsciousness. Attention is withdrawn from the usual frontiers (if one\nmay use the word) to which, consciously or subconsciously, it has always\nbeen directed and centered upon one single thing.[13]\n\n[Footnote 13: Sidis defines Hypnosis as the disassociation of the\nsuperior and inferior nerve centers. They commonly work in perfect\nharmony, their blended unity forming one conscious personality. \"In\nhypnosis the two systems or nervous centers are disassociated, the\nsuperior centers and the upper consciousness are inhibited or better cut\noff, split off from the rest of the nervous system with its organic\nconsciousness, which is thus laid bare, open to the influence of\nexternal stimuli or suggestions.... In hypnotic trance ... we have\ndirect access to man's organic consciousness and through it to organic\nlife itself.\"... If we broaden this last sentence to include not only\norganic consciousness but the deeper strata of personality in which not\nonly individual but perhaps racial experience is bedded, we have the key\nto a vast range of obscure phenomena. Sidis believes that \"strong\npermanent impressions or suggestions made on the reflex organic\nconsciousness of the inferior centers may modify their functional\ndisposition, induce trophic changes, and even change organic structure\"\nand this in a sentence is probably what lies behind all faith and mental\nhealing.--\"The Psychology of Suggestion,\" pp. 69 and 70.]\n\nThe hypnotized person becomes, therefore, unconscious of any reporting\nagencies outside the field of his abnormally focused attention. Normal\nconditions of pain or pleasure cease for the time to become real.\nAttention has been forced entirely out of normal channels and given a\nnew direction. Then we discover, strangely enough, that though those\nmessages of the afferent nerves cease to have any effect upon the\nsubject, the imaginings of the subject carried back along outgoing lines\nproduce the most unexpected results in physical states. If a postage\nstamp be placed upon the hand of the hypnotized subject and he be told\nthat the stamp is a mustard plaster, the stamp reddens the skin and\npresently raises a blister. In other words, heightened and intensified\nexpectant attention is able to produce the same results as an irritating\nagency.[14]\n\n[Footnote 14: Experiments by Krafft-Ebing and Forel. To be taken with\ncaution. See Jacoby, \"Suggestion and Psycho-Therapy,\" p. 153.]\n\n\n_Changed Attention Affects Physical States_\n\nWe are concerned here chiefly with the fact and it is a fact capable of\nfar-reaching application. Of course the nature and extent of the changes\nthus produced are the battlegrounds of the two schools. Medical Science\nis quite willing to admit that while functional action may thus be\nmodified no real organic changes can be produced. There is a border-land\nso much still in shadow that no final word can be said about the whole\nmatter, but it is incontestably true that modifications of attention\nhave a reflex in the modification of physical states.\n\nA pain which is not registered does not, for the time being at least,\nexist, and if the attention can either through hypnotism or by a\npersistent mental discipline be withdrawn from disturbing physical\nreports, then the conditions which produce them will at least be left to\ncorrect themselves without interference from consciousness and since the\nwhole tendency of disturbed physical organism is to correct itself, the\nwhole process probably goes on more quickly as it certainly goes on with\nless discomfort if attention is withdrawn.[15] The assumption of health\nis a tremendous health-giving force and if the condition to be remedied\nis really due to a mental complex which needs only some strong exertion\nof the will or readjustment of attitude to change, then marvellous\nresults may follow changed mental and spiritual states. The apparently\ndumb may speak, the apparently paralyzed rise from their beds, the\nshell-shocked pull themselves together and those under the bondage of\ntheir fears and their pains be set free. There are so many illustrations\nof all this that the fact itself is not in debate.\n\n[Footnote 15: Organic changes (the storm center of the controversy) may\npossibly be induced through a better general physical tone. Such changes\nwould not be directly due to suggestion but to processes released by\nsuggestion. Organic change may certainly be checked and the effect of it\novercome by increased resistance. So much conservative physicians admit.\nHow far reconstruction thus induced may go is a question for the\nspecialist.]\n\n\n_The Power of Faith to Change Mental Attitudes_\n\nNow since mental attitudes so react upon bodily states, whatever\nstrongly controls mental attitudes becomes a very great factor in\nmental healing. There is a long line of testimony that what may be\ncalled the complex of faith does just this with unique power, for faith\nimplies supernatural intervention. If there be anywhere an\nall-prevailing power whose word is law and we could really be persuaded\nthat such a power had really intervened--even if it actually had not--on\nour behalf and brought its supernatural resource to bear upon our\ntroubled case, then we should have a confidence more potent in the\nimmediate transformation of mental attitudes than anything else we could\npossibly conceive. If we really believed such a power were ready to help\nus, if we as vividly expected its immediate help, then we might\nanticipate the utmost possible therapeutic reaction of mind upon body. A\nfaith so called into action should produce arresting results, and this\nas a matter of investigation is true.\n\nIn following through the theories of faith healing we may take here\neither of two lines. The devout may assert a direct divine\ninterposition. God is. He has the power and the will; all things are\nplastic to His touch; He asks only faith and, given faith enough, the\nthing is done and there is no explaining it. Those who believe this are\nnot inclined to reason about it; in fact it is beyond reason save as\nreason posits a God who is equal to such a process and an order in which\nsuch results can be secured. This is rather an achievement of faith than\nreason but the Christian Church generally has held such a faith--a faith\nsustained by the testimony which favours it and unaffected by the\ntestimony which challenges it. The scientific temper which seeks\neconomy in all its explanations and asks only for a cause sufficient for\nthe effect and which is, moreover, constantly trying to relate the\nunknown to the known, takes another line and finds in faith healing just\none more illustration of the power of mind over body. This does not\nexclude God but it discovers Him in resident forces and finds in law the\nrevelation of His method. The conclusions, then, to which we are\ngenerally coming may not only be reconciled with a devout faith, they\nmay, when followed through, enrich faith; but they do subdue the whole\ngreat matter to a sequence of cause and effect and they are gradually\nfinding a satisfactory explanation for what has heretofore been deeply\ninvolved in mystery.\n\nJust as Hypnotism, through the very dramatic abnormality of it, in\naltering the sensitiveness of those physical tracts from which attention\nis withdrawn or in producing physical effects through suggestive\nfocusing, has helped us to understand the part which attention plays in\nthe flux of physical states, so our later studies of the subconscious\nhelp us here. We do know that a great deal may really take place in\npersonality of which consciousness takes no account. Consciousness in\nits most active phases is alert, purposeful and preoccupied with the\nimmediate concern of the moment. Consciousness heeds commands and takes\naccount of such conditions as strongly assert themselves, but does not\nin its full drive take much account of suggestion unless the suggestion\npossesses unusual force. Suggestions usually need leisurely turning over\nin the mind and the mind commonly refers them--often without knowing\nit--to those regions of mental action which lie beneath the threshold of\nstrongly focused consciousness.\n\nBut suggestion does not thereby cease to work. It starts processes all\nits own which go on till they are worked through. After a longer or\nshorter period of incubation the outcome of suggestion is lifted into\nthe light of consciousness, often to produce results all the more\nstriking because we cannot explain them to ourselves or any one else.\nAll this does not withdraw such phenomena from the realm of law; it only\nclothes them with the mystery of the unknown and extends the fields in\nwhich they may operate. Proper suggestion let fall into these unknown\ndepths or improper suggestion as well, becomes an incalculable force in\nshaping the ends of life. We have here, then, well attested truths or\nlaws--it is difficult to know what to call them--which help us to\nunderstand the bases of faith healing or mental healing by suggestion.\nNow directly we turn to such records as remain to us we find that such\nforces as these have been in action from the very beginning. All disease\nwas in early times referred generally to spirit possession. If only the\nevil spirit could be exorcised the patient would get well and the priest\nwas, of course, the proper person to undertake this. Religion and\nmedicine were, therefore, most intimately united to begin with and\nhealing most intimately associated with magic. The first priests were\ndoctors and the first doctors were priests and what they did as priests\nand what they did as doctors were alike unreasonable and capricious.\nThe priest and his church have very unwillingly surrendered the very\ngreat hold over the faithful which this early association of medicine\nand religion made possible. Any order or institution which can approach\nor control humanity through the longing of the sick for health, has an\nimmense and unfailing empire.\n\n\n_Demon Possession the Earliest Explanation of Disease_\n\nThere are, says Cutten, three fairly well defined periods in the history\nof Medicine. The first, beginning as far back as anything human begins\nand coming down to the end of the second century; the second, ending\nwith the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries; and the third from perhaps\nthe sixteenth century on. The second period, he adds, was by far the\nmost sterile and stationary of the three \"largely due to the prohibitive\nattitude of the Church. The science of Medicine, then, is almost wholly\nthe result of the investigations and study of the last period. This\nmeans that medicine is one of the youngest of the sciences, while from\nthe very nature of the case it is one of the oldest of the arts.\"\n\nDemon possession was, as has been said, the earliest explanation of\ndisease. This would naturally be true of a time almost wholly wanting in\nany conception either of law or any relation of cause and effect beyond\nthe most limited regions of experience. Since the only cause of which\nman had any real knowledge was his own effort he peopled his world with\nforces more or less like himself, except that they were invisible, who\noperated practically the whole of natural phenomena. There was a spirit\nfor every place and every happening; spirits for fields and hearths,\nthresholds and springs. Some of them were friendly, some of them\nnaturally unfriendly, but they were everywhere in existence, everywhere\nin action and naturally if they were unfriendly they would from time to\ntime and in various most curious ways get into the body itself and there\ndo any amount of mischief.\n\nThe priest-doctor's task, therefore, was to get them out. He might scare\nthem out, or scold them out, or pray them out, or trick them out. He\nwould use his medicine as much to make the place of their temporary\nabode uncomfortable for the demon as remedial for the patient and,\nindeed, the curious and loathsome things which have been used for\nmedicines might well disgust even a malevolent demon. One thing stands\nout very clearly and that is that whatever the medicine did or left\nundone, it worked through its influence upon the mind of the patient and\nnot through any real medicinal value.\n\n\n_The Beginnings of Scientific Medicine_\n\nOf course along with all this would go a kind of esoteric wisdom which\nwas part of the stock in trade of the healer. There were charms,\nincantations and magic of every conceivable sort. The medicine man of\nuncivilized or even half-civilized peoples really makes medicine for the\nmind rather than the body. There were, however, gleams of scientific\nlight through all this murky region. The Egyptians knew something of\nanatomy though they made a most capricious use of it and there must have\nbeen some knowledge of hygienic methods; the prohibitions of Leviticus,\nfor example, and of the Jewish law generally for which the Jew must have\nbeen, as far as medical science is concerned, somewhat in debt to the\nEgyptian and the Chaldean, really have sound hygienic reasons behind\nthem. The Greeks began with demons but they ended with something which\napproached true science.\n\nThe real contribution of Greece, however, seems to have been on the\npositive rather than the negative side. They made much of health as an\nend in itself, had gods and goddesses of physical well-being. The Greek\nhad constantly held before him such an ideal of physical excellence as\nhad never before been approached and has never since been equalled. He\nseems to have been abstemious in eating; he practiced the most strenuous\nphysical exercises; he lived a wholesome outdoor life, and so created a\ncivilization in which health very largely took care of itself. An\nexamination of what records remain to us hardly sustains the accepted\nopinion that the Greeks had made substantial advances along purely\nscientific lines,[16] but at any rate as far as medicine goes, there is\nlittle to choose between the Greece of the fourth century before Christ\nand the Europe of the sixteenth century after, save that the life of the\nGreek was far more normal, temperate and hygienic and the mind of the\nGreek more open, sane and balanced.\n\n[Footnote 16: Probably too strong a statement. For an opposite view\nstrongly supported by a scholar's research see Singer's article in \"The\nLegacy of Greece\" (Oxford Press), p. 201.]\n\nPlato anticipated conclusions which we are just beginning to reach when\nhe said, \"the office of the physician extends equally to the\npurification of mind and body. To neglect the one is to expose the other\nto evident peril. It is not only the body which, by sound constitution,\nstrengthens the soul, but the well regulated soul, by its authoritative\npower, maintains the body in perfect health.\" Whether the best classic\ncivilization made, consciously, its own this very noble insight of\nPlato, the best classic civilization did secure the sound mind and the\nsound body to an extent which puts a far later and far more complex\ncivilization to shame. Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Greek to\nthis whole great subject was his passion for bodily well-being and his\nmarvellous adaptation of his habits and type of life to that end.\n\nHe did, moreover, separate religion, magic and medicine to some\nappreciable extent and he gave us at least the beginnings of a medical\nprofession, approaching medicine from the scientific rather than the\nreligious or traditional point of view. Even though his science was a\npoor enough thing, his doctors were none the less doctors and the\nmedical profession to-day is entirely within its right when it goes back\nto Hippocrates for the fathering of it.\n\n\n_The Attitude of the Early and Medieval Church_\n\nChristianity changed all this and on the whole for the worse. And yet\nthat statement ought to be immediately qualified, for Christianity did\nbring with it a very great compassion for suffering, a very great\nwillingness to help the sick and the needy. The Gospels are inextricably\ninterwoven with accounts of the healing power of the founder of\nChristianity. All the later attitude of Christianity toward disease must\nbe considered in the light of this fact. We owe to Christianity the\nfirst real hospitals, the first really compassionate and unselfish care\nfor the sick and impulses which, as they have finally worked out, have\nhad more to do with giving quality and direction to medicine and\nparticularly in investing the whole practice of medicine with its true\natmosphere than any other single force.\n\nAnd yet all this has been a long, long time coming true and for almost\n1,500 years the Church and its authorities were a hindrance rather than\na help and that for two or three outstanding reasons. Christianity, to\nbegin with, sadly underestimated physical values in its overinsistence\nupon spiritual values. The body was at best but the tabernacle of the\nsoul and the soul being the chief concern, whatever happened to the body\nwas of little importance. The body was not only underestimated, it was\nscorned and abused, starved and scourged; it was the seat of unholy\ninfluences and impulses; its natural longings were at the best under\nsuspicion, at the worst under absolute condemnation. Christianity,\nspeaking through the Church, took immense care for its spiritual\nhygiene, though even here it went wrong because it forgot Plato's noble\nword, but it failed utterly in physical hygiene.\n\nThen again sickness and suffering were for the Church but the manifest\npunishment of some sin known or concealed. To interfere, therefore, was\nin some way to defeat the justice of God. Pestilences were inscrutable\nprovidences; they were the wrath of God made manifest. In the face of so\nstupendous a calamity anything man might do was not only futile but\nimpertinent.\n\nBy a strange contradiction early and medieval Christianity, while making\nlittle of the body, nevertheless strongly opposed any study of anatomy\nwhich depended upon post-mortems or dissection. This probably because of\ntheir belief in the resurrection of the body. Any mutilation of the body\nafter death would be a real handicap in the day of resurrection. But\nbehind all this, equally real though intangible, was the desire of the\nChurch to have the whole of life under its own direct control. It\ninstinctively feared methods of thought or processes of investigation\nnot directly a part of its own imperial administration of life. Some\nsubtle distrust of the human reason went along with all this. As a\nresult the Church, in the main, threw herself against the more\nindependent processes of scientific thought, sought to subdue all the\nfacts of life to her creeds and understandings and so became a real\nhindrance to any pursuit of truth or any investigation of fact which lay\noutside the region of theological control. How largely all this retarded\ngrowth and knowledge and the extension of human well-being it is\ndifficult to say, but the fact itself is well established.\n\n\n_Saints and Shrines_\n\nFor one thing early Christianity continued the belief in demoniac\npossession. By one of those accidents which greatly influence history\nthe belief in demon possession was strongly held in Palestine in the\ntime of Christ and the Gospel narratives reflect all this in ways upon\nwhich it is not necessary to enlarge. The Gospels themselves lent their\nmighty sanction to this persuasion and there was nothing in the temper\nof the Church for more than a thousand years afterward to greatly modify\nit. Indeed the temper of the Church rather strengthened it. Origen\nbelieved that demons produce famine, unfruitfulness, corruptions of the\nair and pestilences. They hover concealed in clouds in the lower\natmosphere and are attracted by the blood and incense which the heathen\noffered them as gods.\n\nAccording to St. Augustine all diseases of Christians are to be ascribed\nto these demons and the church fathers generally agreed with these two,\nthe greatest of them all. It was, therefore, sinful to do anything but\ntrust to the intercession of the saints. The objection of the Church to\ndissection which is, of course, the indispensable basis for any real\nknowledge of anatomy was very slowly worn down. The story of Andreas\nVesalius whom Andrew White calls the founder of the modern science of\nanatomy is at once fascinating and illuminating. He pursued his studies\nunder incredible difficulties and perhaps could never have carried them\nthrough without the protection of Charles V whose physician he was. He\nwas finally driven out, a wanderer in quest of truth, was shipwrecked\non a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and in the prime of his life and\nstrength \"he was lost to the world.\" But he had, none the less, won his\nfight and the opposition of the Church to the scientific study of\nanatomy was gradually withdrawn. But every marked advance in medical\nscience had really to fight the battle over again. The Sorbonne\ncondemned inoculation, vaccination had slowly to fight its way and even\nthe discovery of anesthetic, perhaps the greatest single blessing ever\ngiven surgery, met with no little theological obstruction. It is only\nfair to say in this connection that so stupid a conservatism has been by\nno means the sole possession of the Church and the clergy. Medicine has\nbeen upon occasion almost as conservative and the difficulties which Sir\nJoseph Lister encountered in his endeavour to win the London hospitals\nfor asepsis and anti-sepsis were quite as bitter. The difficulties were\nof a piece with the opposition of the Church to scientific advancement.\nAfter all a conservatism of this sort is a matter of temperament rather\nthan creed or class.\n\nBut if the Church was strangely slow to give place to medicine and\nsurgery, the Church sought, through agencies and methods of its own, to\ncure disease. It is impossible to follow through in detail the long\nstory though it all bears upon the line we are following through its\nmassive testimony to the power of mind over body. Since the Church\nbelieved in demon possession it sought to cure by exorcism and there are\nin the ritual of the Church, as the ritual has finally taken form,\noffices growing out of this long, long battle against evil spirits which\nhave now little suggestion of their original purpose. The sign of the\nCross was supposed to have commanding power, the invocation of the\ntriune deity had its own virtue, the very breathing of the priest was\nsupposed to influence the evil spirit and he fled defeated from the\ntouch of holy water.\n\nThe Church possessed, as was everywhere then believed, not only a\nprevailing power over demons, but a supernatural power all her own for\nthe healing of disease. This power was associated with saints and relics\nand shrines. During the lifetime of the saint this power was exercised\nthrough direct saintly interposition. After the death of the saint it\nwas continued in some relic which he left behind him, or some shrine\nwith which he had been particularly associated. There grew up gradually\na kind of \"division of labour among the saints in the Middle Ages.\" Each\nsaint had its own peculiar power over some bodily region or over some\nparticular disease. And so the faithful were guarded by a legion of\nprotecting influences against everything from coughs to sudden death.\nThere is almost an unimaginable range of relics. Parts of the true Cross\npossessed supreme value. St. Louis of France was brought back almost\nfrom death to life by the touch of the sacred wood. The bones and hairs\nof saints, rings which they had worn and all such things as these had\nvalue and to prove that the value was not resident in the relic but in\nthe faith with which the relic was approached we have reported bones of\nsaints possessing well authenticated healing value, later proved to have\nbeen the bones not of men but of animals. There have been sacred springs\nand consecrated waters almost without number. They will still show you\nin Canterbury Cathedral stones worn by the feet of countless pilgrims\nseeking at the shrine of Thomas a Becket a healing to the reality of\nwhich those who wore away those stones bore testimony in a variety of\ngifts which made the shrine of a Becket at one time one of the treasure\nhouses of Christendom.\n\n\"The two shrines at present best known are those of Lourdes in France\nand Ste. Anne de Beaupre in the Province of Quebec. Lourdes owes its\nreputed healing power to a belief in a vision of the Virgin received\nthere during the last century. Over 300,000 persons visit there each\nyear.\" Charcot, it is worth noting, had confidence enough not in the\nshrine but in the healing power of faith to send fifty or sixty patients\nto Lourdes every year. His patients were, of course, the mentally and\nnervously unbalanced. The French government supervises the sanitary\nconditions at Lourdes and a committee of doctors have undertaken some\nexamination of the diseased who visit the shrine for the guidance of\ntheir profession. Ste. Anne de Beaupre owes its fame to certain wrist\nbones of the mother of Christ.\n\n\n_Magic, Charms, and the King's Touch: The Rise of the Faith Healer_\n\nReligious faith is not always necessary--any faith will do. Charms,\namulets, talismans have all played their part in this long compelling\nstory. The various metals, gems, stones and curious and capricious\ncombinations of pretty much every imaginable thing have all been so\nused. Birth girdles worn by women in childbirth eased their pain. A\ncircular piece of copper guarded against cholera. A coral was a good\nguard against the evil eye and sail-cloth from a shipwrecked vessel tied\nto the right arm was a preventive as well as a cure for epilepsy. There\nis almost no end to such instances. The list of charms and incantations\nis quite as curious. There are forms of words which will cure insomnia\nand indeed, if one may trust current observation, forms of words not\nprimarily so intended may still induce sleepfulness.\n\nThe history of the king's touch as particularly helpful in epilepsy and\nscrofula, though useful also for the healing of various diseases, is\nespecially interesting. This practice apparently began with Edward the\nConfessor in England and St. Louis in France and was due to the faith of\nthose who came to be touched and healed in the divine right and lonely\npower of the king. It is significant that the practice began with these\ntwo for they, more than any kings of their time or most kings since,\nwere really men of rare and saintly character. Curiously but naturally\nenough the English have denied any real power in this region to French\nkings and the French have claimed a monopoly for their own sovereigns.\nThe belief in the king's touch persisted long and seems toward the end\nto have had no connection with the character of the monarch, for\nCharles II did more in this line than any one who ever sat on an English\nthrone. During the whole of his reign he touched upward of 100,000\npeople. Andrew White adds that \"it is instructive to note, however, that\nwhile in no other reign were so many people touched for scrofula and so\nmany cures vouched for, in no other reign did so many people die of the\ndisease.\"\n\nAlong with the king's touch went the king's gift--a piece of gold--and\nthe drain upon the royal treasury was so considerable that after the\nreign of Elizabeth the size of the coin was reduced. Special coins were\nminted for the king's use in that office and these touching pieces are\nstill in existence. William III refused to take this particular power\nseriously. \"God give you better health and more sense,\" he said as he\nonce touched a patient. In this particular instance the honest\nskepticism of the king was outweighed by the faith of the suppliant. We\nare assured that the person was cured. The royal touch was discontinued\nafter the death of Queen Anne.\n\nThe list of healers began early and is by no means ended now. The power\nof the healer was sometimes associated with his official station in the\nChurch, sometimes due to his saintly character and often enough only to\na personal influence, the fact of which is well enough established,\nthough there can be in the nature of things no finality in the estimate\nof his real efficacy. George Fox performed some cures; John Wesley also.\nIn the seventeenth century one Valentine Greatrakes seems to have been\nthe center of such excitements and reported healings as Alexander Dowie\nand others in our own time and it is finally through the healer rather\nthan the saint or the king or shrine or relic that we approach the\nrenaissance of mental and faith healing in our own time.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE APPROACH TO CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND MARY BAKER EDDY\n\n\nThere is, however, another stage in this long line of development which\nneeds to be considered since it supplies a double point of departure;\nonce for the most outstanding healing cult in our time--Christian\nScience--and once for the greatly enlarged use of suggestion in modern\nmedical practice, and that is mesmerism and \"animal magnetism.\"\n\n\n_Mesmerism a Point of Departure for Modern Healing Cults_\n\nParacelsus[17] may be taken as a starting point just here. He is known\nin the history of medicine \"for the impetus he gave to the development\nof pharmaceutical chemistry, but he was also the author of a visionary\nand theosophic system of philosophy.\" He believed in the influence of\nthe stars upon men, but he enlarged upon the old astrologic faiths. \"He\nbelieved the human body was endowed with a double magnetism, one portion\nattracted to itself the planets and was nourished by them, the result of\nwhich was the mental powers, the other portion attracted and\ndisintegrated the elements, from which process resulted the body.\" His\nworld, therefore, was a world of competitive attractions. He believed\nthe well had an influence over the sick through magnetism and used the\nmagnet in his practice.\n\n[Footnote 17: A German-Swiss physician and alchemist, b. 1493, d. 1541.\nThese quotations, partly from authorities on faith healing and partly\nfrom the history of Spiritualism, illustrate the underground connection\nin this whole region.]\n\n\"This dual theory of magnetic cures, that of the magnetic influence of\nmen on men and of the magnet on man, was prevalent for over a century.\"\n\"It is, then, upon these ideas--the radiation from all things, but\nespecially the stars, magnets and human bodies, of a force which would\nact in all things else, and which was in each case directed by the\nindwelling spirit, together with the conception of a perpetual contact\nbetween reciprocal and opposing forces--that the mysticism of the\nseventeenth and eighteenth centuries mainly depends.\"[18]\n\n[Footnote 18: Podmore, \"Modern Spiritualism,\" Vol. I, p. 45. I am in\ndebt also to Cutten for general information and some quoted paragraphs.]\n\nThese ideas were adopted by a group of men who are now only names for\nus. The phenomena of magnetism fascinated them and supplied them\nanalogies. There is, they thought, an all-prevailing magnetic influence\nwhich binds together not only celestial and terrestrial bodies, but all\nliving things. Life and death were for them simply the registry of the\nebbing and flowing of these immaterial tides and they ended by\nconceiving a vital fluid which could be communicated from person to\nperson and in the communication of which the sick could be healed--the\ndriftwood of their lore has come down to us on the tides of time; we\nstill speak of magnetic personalities--and they sought in various ways\nto control and communicate these mysterious forces.\n\nOne of them invented steel plates which he applied to the body as a cure\nfor disease. He taught his system to Mesmer who made, however, one\nmarked advance upon the technique of his predecessors and gave his name\nto his methods; he produced his results through physical contacts and\npasses. But he shared with his predecessors and stated with that compact\nclearness of which the French language is so capable even when dealing\nwith obscure matters, that there is a \"fluid so universally diffused and\nconnected as to leave nowhere any void, whose subtlety is beyond any\ncomparison and which by its nature is capable of receiving, propagating\nand communicating all impressions of movement.... This reciprocal action\nis subject to mechanical laws at present unknown.\"[19] This fluid in its\naction governs the earth and stars and human action.\n\n[Footnote 19: Price's \"Historique de facts relatifs du Magnetisme\nAnimal,\" quoted by Podmore.]\n\nHe originated the phrase \"Animal Magnetism\" and was, though he did not\nknow it, the originator of hypnotism; until well within our own time\nmesmerism was the accepted name for this whole complex group of\nphenomena. The medical faculties examined his claims but were not\nwilling to approve them, but this made no difference in Mesmer's\npopularity. He had so great a following as to be unable to deal with\nthem personally. He deputed his powers to assistants, arranged a most\nelaborate apparatus and surrounded his whole procedure with a dramatic\nsetting of stained glass, mirrored and scented rooms and mysterious\nmusic. The result of it all naturally, as far as his patients were\nconcerned, was marked excitements and hysterias. They had often to be\nput into padded rooms. And yet the result of all this murky confusion\nwas said to be numbers of marked cures. He was investigated by the\nFrench government and two commissions presented their reports, neither\nof which was favourable. Imagination, not magnetism, they said,\naccounted for the results. His popularity wore away markedly when he\nundertook to explain his method and reveal his secrets. He left Paris in\n1815 and lapsed into obscurity.\n\n\n_The Scientific Investigation of Mesmerism in France_\n\nAs has been said, there are two lines of development growing out of\nMesmer and his methods. Ten years after Mesmer left Paris Alexandre\nBertrand pointed out that after the elimination of errors due to fraud\nor mal-observation, the results which Mesmer and his associates had\nproduced were due not to animal magnetism, but to expectation induced by\nsuggestion and intensified by the peculiar setting which Mesmer had\ncontrived for his so-called treatments. The schools of medicine were\nslow to follow out Bertrand's discovery and it was not until something\nlike twenty years later, through the studies of Braid, that hypnotism\nbegan to be taken seriously.\n\nBut once the matter was brought broadly before them, the doctors began\nto follow it through. Charcot, in the Salpetriere, used hypnotic\nsuggestion for the correction of abnormal mental and nervous states. The\npsychologists took up the matter and hypnotic suggestion has come to be\nnot only a legitimate subject for the investigation of the student and\nan accepted method in correction of abnormal mental states, but as it\nwere a window through which we are beginning to see deeply into\nunsuspected depths and intricacies of personality.\n\nModern faith healing cults, however, have not come to us down this line,\nthough the studies of Bertrand, Braid, Charcot, Du Bois and their\nassociates supply the interpretative principles for any real\nunderstanding of them. Mesmerism naturally appealed to the type of mind\nmost easily attracted by the bizarre and the mysterious. There are\nalways amongst us the credulous and curious who find little enough\neither to awe or inspire them in the broad sweep of law, or in such\nfacts as lie open to the light of reason. Such as these are impatient of\ndiscipline, eager to free themselves from the sequence of cause and\neffect; they are impressed by the occult powers and seek short cuts to\nhealth, or goodness, or wisdom. They delight to build up, out of their\nown inner consciousness, systems which have little contact with reality\nand which, through their very tenuousness, are as incapable of disproof\nas through their disengagement from normal experience they are capable\nof verification. They are the people of what the alienist calls the\n\"idee fixe.\" Everything for them centers about one idea; they have one\nkey and one only to the marvellous complexity of life. Such a temper as\nthis naturally disassociates them from reality and makes them\ncontemptuous of contradictory experiences.\n\n\n_Mesmerism is Carried to America; Phineas Quimby an Important Link in a\nLong Chain_\n\nAmerica has been far too rich in such a temper as this and it was never\nmore so than in the forties and the fifties of the last century.\nMesmerism crossed the ocean and while Braid and later Bernheim and\nCharcot were following it through on sound, psychological lines and\nbringing to bear upon it great insight and scientific discipline, it\nfell here into the hands of charlatans and adventurers. Phineas\nParkhurst Quimby, best known for his connection with Mary Baker Eddy,\nhardly deserves the name of charlatan, though he was dangerously near\nbeing just that. He belonged to the border-land regions in thought and\npropaganda and he did give to the whole complex movement which we have\nbeen considering a direction which has played a relatively great part in\nits later development. He had a shrewd mind which ranged over wide\nregions; he is a pretty typical example of the half-disciplined,\nforceful and original personality which has played so large a part in\nAmerican life. The New England of his time--Quimby was born in New\nHampshire and spent his life in Maine--was giving itself whole-heartedly\nto a mysticism bounded on the one side (its higher and more\nrepresentative side) by Emerson and the transcendentalists and on the\nother by healers, prophets of strange creeds and dreamers of Utopias.\nPhrenology, mind reading, animal magnetism, clairvoyance, all had their\nprophets.\n\nQuimby belongs to this succession. His education was meagre, he did not\neven know how to spell according to the dictionary or punctuate\naccording to the grammar.[20] He had his own peculiar use of words--a\nuse by which Mary Baker Eddy was doubtless greatly influenced. He had\nmarked mechanical ability and a real passion for facts. He was an\noriginal thinker, little in debt to books for his ideas though he was\nundoubtedly influenced by the temper of his environment to which\nreference has already been made. He had a speculative, but not a trained\ninterest in religion and dealt freely with the orthodoxy of his time\nconstrained by no loyalty to the accepted faith and no critical\nknowledge of its content. \"Truth\" and \"Science\" were characteristic\nwords for him and he shared his speculations and conclusions freely with\nhis disciples.\n\n[Footnote 20: What is here said of Quimby is condensed from Dresser's\n\"The Quimby Manuscripts.\"]\n\n\n_Quimby is Led to Define Sickness as Wrong Belief_\n\nIn his early thirties he was supposed to be dying of consumption and\nsuffered much from excessive medication. He recovered through an\nemotional crisis but does not seem to have followed out the possible\nsuggestion of his recovery. He turned instead to mesmerism and travelled\nabout with one Lucius Burkmer over whom he had strong hypnotic\ninfluence. When hypnotized Burkmer (or Burkman) claimed the power to\nlook as through a window into the bodies of Quimby's patients and\ndiscover, often with illuminating detail, their condition; a good many\nreputed cures followed. The testimonials to these cures and to the\nstrange powers of Burkmer are themselves an arresting testimony to the\nlengths people go in the face of what they do not understand. \"I have\ngood reason to believe that he can discern the internal structure of an\nanimal body and if there be anything morbid or defective therein detect\nand explain it.... He can go from point to point without passing through\nintermediate space. He passes from Belfast [Maine] to Washington or from\nthe earth to the moon ... swifter than light, by a single act of\nvolition.\"[21]\n\n[Footnote 21: \"The Quimby Manuscripts,\" p. 38.]\n\nQuimby had too alert an intelligence to rest content with the merely\noccult. He came to believe that Burkmer only saw what the patient\nthought, could do no more than describe the patient's idea of his own\nstate, or else report the \"common allopathic belief about the disease in\nquestion,\" and the cure, he was persuaded, was not in the medicine\nprescribed but in \"the confidence of the doctor or medium.\" (Note that\nQuimby here associates the cures produced by the medical faculty and his\nown cures in one sweeping generalization.) What he was really dealing\nwith then was \"belief.\" It might be the belief of the doctor or the\npatient or the belief of his friends--but sickness was only \"belief.\"\nThis also was a sweeping generalization but it becomes intelligible as\nwe follow the process by which Quimby reached his conclusions and it\nhelps us to understand the significance of Belief as one of the key\nwords of Christian Science. Quimby was led to identify sickness and\nwrong beliefs through this analysis of mesmeric diagnosis and health and\nright belief through his own experiences as a healer. He had no training\nto help him to an understanding of the real facts which lay behind the\nbelief in sickness. He became a skillful diagnostician of states of mind\nand a healer of such diseases as could be so treated. But he knew,\nscientifically, no more of what lay behind it all than a ploughman may\nknow of what lies beneath the furrows he turns.\n\n\n_Quimby Develops His Theories_\n\nMrs. Eddy took over the catch-words of his system and its loose\nassumptions, and a reasonably careful comparison of the Quimby\nmanuscripts and \"Science and Health\" shows not only Mrs. Eddy's\nfundamental and never honestly acknowledged and finally categorically\ndenied indebtedness to Quimby, but the confusion which Quimby's rather\nstriking and original philosophy suffered at her hands. Beginning with\nhis persuasion that health and sickness are phases of belief Quimby\ndiscarded mesmerism altogether and addressed himself to the minds of his\npatients. He had doubtless a keen intuitive knowledge of human nature\nand its morbid fancies and he was dealing generally with neurotic\ntemperaments over which he exercised a strong and helpful power of\nsuggestion. His explanation of disease--that it is a wrong\nbelief--becomes grotesque enough when he comes down to detail. This, for\nexample, is his diagnosis of Bronchitis--\"You listen or eat this belief\nor wisdom [evidently that Bronchitis is real] as you would eat your\nmeals. It sets rather hard upon your stomach; this disturbs the error of\nyour body and a cloud appears in the sky.... The elements of the body of\nyour belief are shaken, earth is lit up by the fire of your error, the\nheat rises, the heaven or mind grows dark ... the lightning of hot\nflashes shoot to all parts of the solar system of your belief. At last\nthe winds or chills strike the earth or surface of the body, a cold\nclammy sensation passes over you. This changes the heat into a sort of\nwatery substance which works its way into the channels and pores to the\nhead and stomach.\"[22]\n\n[Footnote 22: \"Quimby Manuscripts,\" p. 118.]\n\nThis is Quimby at his worst but beneath it is the germ of the method and\nphilosophy which have attained so luxurious a growth--the explaining,\nthat is, of disease in terms of wrong belief. Inevitably in the\nelaboration of all this Quimby reached out to include religion and\ntheology and even created his own distinctive metaphysics. He\ndistinguished between the mind and spirit; he must of course discover in\npersonality a power superior to fluctuating mental attitudes. He called\nhis system a science since he was trying to reduce it to a system and\ndiscover its laws. He found a parallel to what he was doing in the\nnarratives of healing in the Christian Gospels and claimed Christ as the\nfounder of his science.[23]\n\n[Footnote 23: _Ibid._, p. 185.]\n\nAll belief opposed to his was \"error\"; \"Truth\" was naturally opposed to\nerror. He subordinates the testimony of the senses to the necessities of\nhis system; he defines God variously as Wisdom, as Truth, possibly as\nPrinciple though his use of the word Principle is far more intelligible\nthan Mrs. Eddy's.[24] He increasingly identifies his system and the\nteachings of Jesus and ends by calling it \"Christian Science.\"[25]\n\n[Footnote 24: \"The Quimby Manuscripts,\" p. 309.]\n\n[Footnote 25: _Ibid._, p. 388.]\n\nIn substance in the more than 400 closely printed pages of the Quimby\nmanuscripts as now edited we discover either the substance or the\nsuggestion of all that Mrs. Eddy later elaborated. Now all this,\nconfused as it is, brings us to the threshold of a distinct advance in\nmental and faith healing.\n\n\n_Mary Baker Eddy Comes Under Quimby's Influence_\n\nPractically faith and mental healing had depended, till Quimby took it\nup, upon persons or objects. The saint or the healer worked through\npersonal contact; the shrine must be visited, the relic be touched. Such\na system was naturally dependent upon accidents of person or place; it\nwould not be widely extended nor continued nor made the basis of\nself-treatment. But if what lay behind the whole complex group of\nphenomena could be systematized and given real power of popular appeal\nthrough its association with religion it would possess a kind of\ncontinuing independence, conditioned only by the willingness of people\nto be persuaded of the truth of its philosophy or to answer to its\nreligious appeal. It would then become a mental and spiritual\ndiscipline to be written into books and taught by the initiated. As far\nas it could be associated with religion it would become the basis of a\ncult and it would have an immense field.\n\nAll difficult or chronic or obscure illnesses would offer an opportunity\nto its propagandists, and the necessary obscurities and irrationalities\nof such a system would simply be, for the minds to which it would\nnaturally appeal, added elements of power. Any system which has sickness\nfor its field and credulity for its reinforcement and a specious show of\nhalf truth for its philosophic form and religion to give its sanction\nand authority is assured, to begin with, of a really great following.\nIts very weaknesses will be its strength. It will work best as it is\nneither clear nor simple--though it must make a show of being both. And\nif, in addition, there is somewhere at the heart of it force and truth\nenough to produce a certain number of cures it will go on. What it fails\nto do will be forgotten or ignored in the face of what it really does\ndo.\n\nNow Quimby, through his own native force and such a combination of\ncircumstances as occurs only once in long periods of time, stood upon\nthe threshold of just such a revolution in the history of faith and\nmental healing as this. He anticipated the method and supplied the\nmaterial, but he either did not or could not popularize it. He was not\nselfish enough to monopolize it, not shrewd enough to commercialize it,\nand, maybe, not fanatic enough to make it a cult. He was more interested\nin his own speculations than in making converts and without one of those\naccidents which become turning points in a movement nothing would have\nprobably come of his work save its somewhat vague and loose continuance\nin the thought and teaching of a small group. (It is doubtful if New\nThought, which as we shall see grew out of his work through his\nassociation with the Dressers, would have come to much without the\nstimulus of Christian Science against which it reacted.) Some one was\nneeded to give the whole nebulous system organization and driving force\nand above all to make a cult of it.\n\n\n_Outstanding Events of Her Life: Her Early Girlhood_\n\nMary Baker Eddy did just this and Christian Science is the result. It is\nidle to calculate the vanished alternatives of life but in all\nprobability she never would have done it without Quimby. She and her\nfollowers would do far better to honestly recognize this indebtedness.\nIt would now make little difference with either the position of their\nleader or the force of their system but it would take a pretty keen\nweapon out of the hands of their critics and give them the added\nstrength which thoroughgoing honesty always gives to any cause. There\nis, on the other hand, little likelihood that Quimby's persuasions would\never have carried beyond the man himself if he had not found in Mrs.\nEddy so creative a disciple.\n\nThe outstanding facts of Mary Baker Eddy's life are too well known to\nneed much retelling here. The story of her life and the history of\nChristian Science as told by Georgine Milmine in _McClure's Magazine_\nduring the years of 1907-8 is final. It is based upon thorough\ninvestigation, original documents and an exhaustive analysis of facts.\nThe facts brought out in the various litigations in which Mrs. Eddy and\nthe church have been involved confirm both the statements and\nconclusions of this really distinctive work. The official life by Sibyl\nWilbur (whose real name seems to be O'Brien) is so coloured as to be\nsubstantially undependable. It touches lightly or omits altogether those\npassages in Mrs. Eddy's life which do not fit in with the picture which\nMrs. Eddy herself and the church desire to be perpetuated.\n\nMrs. Eddy was descended from a shrewd, industrious and strongly\ncharacterized New England stock. Her father was strongly set in his\nways, narrow and intense in his religious faith. Mary Baker was a\nnervous, high-strung girl, unusually attractive in personal appearance,\nproud, precocious, self-conscious, masterful. She was subject to\nhysterical attacks which issued in states of almost suspended animation.\nHer family feared these attacks and to prevent them humoured her in\nevery way. In due time she joined the Tilton Congregational Church. She\nsays herself that she was twelve years old at the time, but the records\nof the church make her seventeen. The range of her education is debated.\nMrs. Eddy herself claims a rather ambitious curriculum. \"My father,\" she\nsays, \"was taught to believe that my brain was too large for my body and\nso kept me out of school, but I gained book knowledge with far less\nlabour than is usually requisite. At ten years of age I was familiar\nwith Lindley Murray's Grammar, as with the Westminster Catechism and\nthe latter I had to repeat every Sunday. My favourite studies were\nNatural Philosophy, logic and moral science. From my brother Albert I\nreceived lessons in the ancient tongues, Hebrew, Greek and Latin. After\nmy discovery of Christian Science most of the knowledge I gleaned from\nschool books vanished like a dream. Learning was so illumined that\ngrammar was eclipsed. Etymology was divine history, voicing the idea of\nGod in man's origin and signification. Syntax was spiritual order and\nunity. Prosody the song of angels and no earthly or inglorious\ntheme.\"[26]\n\n[Footnote 26: \"Retrospection and Introspection,\" 1909.]\n\n\n_Her Education: Shaping Influences_\n\nIt is not fair to apply critical methods to one who confesses that most\nof the knowledge she had gleaned from school books vanished like a\ndream, but there is much in Mrs. Eddy's writing to bear out her\nstatement. Those who knew her as a girl report her as irregular in\nattendance upon school, inattentive during its sessions and far from\nknowing either Greek or Latin or Hebrew. \"According to these schoolmates\nMary Baker completed her education when she had finished Smith's Grammar\nand reached Long Division in Arithmetic.\" The official biography makes\nmuch of an intellectual friendship between the Rev. Enoch Corser, then\npastor of the Tilton Congregational Church, and Mary Baker. \"They\ndiscussed subjects too deep to be attractive to other members of the\nfamily. Walking up and down in the garden, this fine old-school\nclergyman and the young poetess as she was coming to be called, threshed\nout the old philosophic speculations without rancour or irritation.\"[27]\n\n[Footnote 27: \"The Life of Mary Baker Eddy,\" Sibyl Wilbur, 4th edition.\nChristian Science Publishing Company.]\n\nThere is little reason to doubt her real interest in the pretty rigid\nCalvinistic theology of her time. Indeed, we could not understand her\nfinal line of religious development without taking that into\nconsideration. Milmine suggests other forces which would naturally have\ninfluenced a sensitive and curious girl; for example, the current\ninterest in animal magnetism, a subject which dominated certain aspects\nof her thinking to the end. Milmine suggests also that she may have been\nconsiderably influenced by the peculiar beliefs of the Shakers who had a\ncolony near Tilton. The Shakers regarded Ann Lee, their founder, as the\nfemale principle of God and greater than Christ. They prayed always to\n\"Our Father and Mother which art in heaven.\" They called Ann Lee the\nwoman of the Apocalypse, the God-anointed woman. For her followers she\nwas Mother Ann, as Mary Baker was later Mother Eddy. Ann Lee declared\nthat she had the gift of healing. The Shakers also made much of a\nspiritual illumination which had the right of way over the testimony of\nthe senses. The Shakers called their establishment the Church of Christ\nand the original foundation the Mother Church. The Shakers forbade\naudible prayer and enjoined celibacy. There are parallels enough here to\nsustain Milmine's contention that Mary Baker was at least largely\ninfluenced by suggestions from her peculiar group of neighbours.\n\n\n_Her Unhappy Fortunes. She is Cured by Quimby. An Unacknowledged Debt_\n\nMary Baker married George Washington Glover at the age of twenty-two.\nShe was soon left a widow and her only son was born after his father's\ndeath. The story of the years which follow is unhappy. She was poor,\ndependent upon relatives whose patience she tried and whose hospitality\nwas from time to time exhausted. Her attacks of hysteria continued and\ngrew more violent. Her father sometimes rocked her to sleep like a\nchild. The Tiltons built a cradle for her which is one of the traditions\nof this unhappy period of her life. She tried mesmerism and clairvoyance\nand heard rappings at night.\n\nShe married again, this time a Dr. Daniel Patterson, a travelling\ndentist. He never made a success of anything. They were miserably poor\nand his marriage was no more successful than most of his other\nenterprises. He was captured, though as a civilian, during the Civil War\nand spent one or two years in a southern prison. Futile efforts were\nmade at a reconciliation and in 1873 Mrs. Patterson obtained a divorce\non the grounds of desertion. Meanwhile she had been separated from her\nson, of whom she afterward saw so little that he grew up, married and\nmade his own way entirely apart from his mother.\n\nIn 1861 Mrs. Patterson's physical condition was so desperate that she\nappealed to Quimby. Her husband had had some interest in homeopathy and\nshe was doubtless influenced by the then peculiar theories of the\nhomeopathic school. (Indeed she claimed to be a homeopathic practitioner\nwithout a diploma.) She had had experience enough with drugs to make her\nimpatient and suspicious of current methods of orthodox medication.\nUnder Quimby's treatment she was physically reborn and apparently\nspiritually as well. It is necessary to dwell upon all these well-known\ndetails to understand what follows and the directions which her mind now\ntook. Milmine's analysis is here penetrating and conclusive. She had\nalways been in revolt against her environment. Her marriages had been\nunhappy; motherhood had brought her nothing; she had been poor and\ndependent; her strong will and self-assertive personality had been\nturned back upon herself.\n\nShe had found no satisfaction in the rigid theologies of the time. She\nhad sought help from accepted religion and religion had had nothing to\ngive her. We have to read between the lines and especially to evaluate\nall this period in the light of \"Science and Health\" itself to\nreconstruct the movement of her inner life, but beyond a doubt her\nthought had played about the almost tragic discrepancy between her own\nexperiences and the love and goodness of God. She had known pain and\nunhappiness in acute forms and had found nothing in what she had been\ntaught ample enough to resolve her doubts or establish her faith.\n\nShe found in Quimby's philosophy a leading which she eagerly followed.\nNow for the first time she is really set free from herself. A truer\nsense of dramatic values would have led Mrs. Eddy herself to have made\nmore of the unhappy period which began to come to an end with her visit\nto Quimby and would lead her disciples now to acknowledge it more\nhonestly. It is a strong background against which to set what follows\nand give colour by contrast to her later life. The twice-born from Saul\nof Tarsus to John Bunyan have dwelt much upon their sins and sorrows,\nseeking thereby more greatly to exalt the grace of God by which they had\nbeen saved. Mary Baker Eddy came strongly to be persuaded that she had\nsaved herself and consequently not only greatly underestimated her debt\nto Quimby, but emptied her own experiences of dramatic contrasts to make\nthem, as she supposed, more consistent, and her disciples have followed\nher.\n\nAs a matter of fact, though her life as a whole is not an outstanding\nasset for Christian Science and is likely to grow less so, one must\nrecognize the force of a conviction which changed the neurotic Mrs.\nPatterson of the fifties and sixties into the masterful and successful\nwoman of the eighties and nineties. She belongs also to the fellowship\nof the twice-born and instead of minimizing the change those who seek to\nunderstand her, as well as those who seek to exalt her, would do well to\nmake more of it. She did that herself to begin with. No master ever had\nfor a time a more grateful disciple. She haunted Quimby's house, read\nhis manuscripts, wrote letters for the paper, \"dropped into verse\" and\nthrough her extravagance \"brought ridicule upon Quimby and herself.\"\n\nQuimby died in 1866, accompanied to his last resting place by a tribute\nin verse from his grateful pupil. Mrs. Eddy had at the time apparently\nno thought of continuing his work except in a most modest way. She wrote\nJulius Dresser who had come under Quimby's influence, suggesting that he\nwould step forward into the place vacated. \"I believe you would do a\nvast amount of good and are more capable of occupying his place than any\nother I know of.\"[28] She asked Dresser's help in recovering from a fall\nwhich she had just had on the ice and which had so injured her, as she\nsupposed, to make her the helpless cripple that she was before she met\nQuimby. This fall is worth dwelling upon for a bit, for it really marks\na turning place in Mrs. Eddy's life. In her letter to Dresser she says\nthat the physician attending \"said I have taken the last step I ever\nshould, but in two days I got out of my bed alone and will walk.\"[29]\nSometime later in a letter to the _Boston Post_ Mrs. Eddy said, \"We\nrecovered in a moment of time from a severe accident considered fatal by\nthe regular physicians.\" There is a considerable difference between two\ndays and a moment of time and the expression of a determination to walk\nin the Dresser letter and the testimony to an instantaneous cure in the\n_Boston Post_ letter. Dr. Cushing, the physician who attended Mrs. Eddy\nat the time, gives still a third account. He treated her, he says, over\na period of almost two weeks and left her practically recovered. He also\nattended her in a professional capacity still later and offers all this\nin a sworn statement on the basis of his record books. There is a very\nconsiderable advantage in a philosophy which makes thought the only\nreality, for, given changing thought and a complacent recollection,\nfacts may easily become either plastic or wholly negligible.\n\n[Footnote 28: \"A History of the New Thought Movement,\" Dresser, p. 110.]\n\n[Footnote 29: _Ibid._]\n\n\n_She Develops Quimby's Teachings Along Lines of Her Own_\n\nThe real significance of this much debated but otherwise unimportant\nepisode is that it seems to have thrown Mrs. Eddy upon her own\nresources, for now that Quimby was dead she begins to develop what she\nhad received from him through both experience and teaching along lines\nof her own. She had found a formula for the resolution of problems, both\nphysical and mental, which had hag-ridden her for years. She had a\nnatural mental keenness, a speculative mind, a practical shrewdness (the\ngift of her New England ancestors) and an ample field. The theology, the\nmedical science and indeed the philosophy or psychology of the New\nEngland of the sixties contributed strongly, through their limitations,\nto the growth of bizarre systems which had in them elements of truth. We\nshall need to come back to this again in any evaluation of Christian\nScience as a whole, but we cannot understand the rapid development of\nthe movement of which Christian Science was just one aspect without\ntaking all this into consideration.\n\nMedicine itself has been greatly revolutionized within the last fifty\nyears. While Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy was finding her unhappy\nway through border-land regions into a cloudy light, Louis Pasteur,\nsitting, in the phrase of Huxley, \"as humbly as a little child before\nthe facts of life,\" was making those investigations in bacteriology\nwhich were to be, in some ways, the greatest contribution of the\nnineteenth century to the well-being of humanity. He was following\npatiently the action of microscopic organisms, especially in their\nrelation to health, discovering the secret of contagion and infection,\noutlining methods of defense against the attacks of these invisible\narmies, finding the true basis for inoculation, extending its operation,\nrobbing hospitals of their terrors and surrounding surgery with\nsafeguards heretofore undreamt of, literally performing miracles (in his\ncontrol of swine plague and the like), and for the want of another\nsubject preparing to experiment upon himself for the prevention of\nhydrophobia, and in doing it all in the most simple and humble way,\nnaively unconscious of his own fame and living from first to last in a\nnoble and comparative poverty which contrasts dramatically with the\nmaterial well-being for which Mrs. Eddy was so eager. Nothing of this\nhad ever come into Mrs. Eddy's field or those whom she addressed. With\nall the aid which the modern physician has at his control, diagnosis is\nstill a difficult matter, physicians confess it themselves. There is\nstill, with all the resource of modern medical science, a residuum of\nhopeless and obscure cases which baffle the physician. That residuum was\nvery much larger fifty years ago than it is now.\n\n\n_She Begins to Teach and to Heal_\n\nThe typical Protestant religious experience, as we have seen, was not\ngreat enough to contain all the facts of life. The molten passion of an\nearlier Calvinism had hardened down into rigidities which exalted the\npower of God at the cost of human helplessness. There was no adequate\nrecognition among the devout of the sweep of law. Everything that\nhappened was a special Providence and it was hard enough to fit the\ntrying facts of life into an understanding of Divine Love when there was\napparently so much in life in opposition to Divine Love.\n\nA very great deal of the ferment of the time was just the endeavour to\nfind some way out of all this and the group of which Mrs. Eddy was a\npart were really the first to try to find their way out except as roads\nof escape which were, on the whole, not ample enough had been sought by\nthe theological liberalism of the time of which Unitarianism was the\nmost respectable and accepted form. There are, as has been said, curious\nunderground connections through all this region. We find homeopathy,\nspiritualism, transcendentalism, theological liberalism and faith\nhealing all tied up in one bundle.\n\nThe line which Mrs. Eddy now came to follow is, on the whole, clear\nenough. She becomes in her turn teacher and healer, giving her own\nimpress and colour to what she called the science she taught, claiming\nit more and more as her own and not only forgetting, but denying as she\nwent on, her indebtedness to any one else. The whole thing gradually\nbecame in her mind a distinct revelation for which the ages had been\nwaiting and this revelation theory is really the key to the\ncontradictions and positive dishonesties which underlie the authorized\naccount of the genesis of Christian Science. She associated herself with\none of the more promising of her pupils who announced himself as Dr.\nKennedy, with Mrs. Eddy somewhat in the background. Kennedy was the\nagent, Mrs. Eddy supplied him with the material of what was a mixed\nmethod of teaching and healing. She had always been desperately poor;\nnow for the first time she had a respectable bank account.\n\nThere were corresponding changes in her personality and even her\nphysique. She began to give lessons, safeguarding her instructions from\nthe very first in such ways as to make them uncommonly profitable. Her\npupils paid $100 for the course and agreed also to give her a percentage\nof the income from their practice. In the course of litigation which\nafterward follows, the courts pronounced that they did not find in her\ncourse of instruction anything which could be \"in any way of value in\nfitting the defendant as a competent and successful practitioner of any\nintelligible art or method of healing the sick.\" The court, therefore,\nwas of the opinion that \"consideration for the agreement had wholly\nfailed.\" In a sense the court was mistaken. Mrs. Eddy was giving her\ndisciples something which, whether it fitted them to be competent and\nsuccessful practitioners of any intelligible art or method of healing\nthe sick, or no, was of great financial advantage both to them and to\ntheir teacher. She afterward raised her tuition fee to $300 and stated\nthat God had shown her in multitudinous ways the wisdom of this\ndecision.\n\n\n_Early Phases of Christian Science_\n\nEverything was, to begin with, a matter of personal relationship between\nMrs. Eddy and her students. They constitute a closely related group, the\npupils themselves extravagant in their gratitude to their teacher. There\nwere, of course, schisms, jealousies, recriminations, litigation, but\nnone the less, the movement went on. The first attempt at organization\nwas made at Lynn in 1875. A hall was rented, meetings were held in the\nevening, the society was known as the \"Christian Scientists\" and as an\norganization Christian Science came into the world. The first edition of\n\"Science and Health\" was also published in 1875. There was difficulty in\nfinding a publisher; those who assisted Mrs. Eddy financially were\nlosers in the enterprise. They were never reimbursed, though \"Science\nand Health\" afterward became the most remunerative single publication in\nthe world. Two years later Mrs. Glover (for after her divorce from\nPatterson she had taken her earlier married name) married Gilbert Eddy\nand so took the name by which she is best known to the world.\n\nThere is much in this period of Mrs. Eddy's life to indicate that she\nhad not yet reached an inner serenity of faith. She was never able to\nfree herself from a perverted belief in animal magnetism or mesmerism\nwhich showed itself in fear rather than faith. She believed herself\npersecuted and if she did not believe in witchcraft she believed in\nsomething curiously like it. Indeed, to Mrs. Eddy belonged the rather\ncurious distinction of having instigated the last trial for witchcraft\nin the United States and with a fitting sense of historic propriety she\nstaged it at Salem. The judge dismissed the case, saying that it was not\nwithin the power of the Court to control the defendant's mind. The case\nwas appealed, the appeal waived and the whole matter rests as a curious\ninstance in the records of the Salem court.\n\nMrs. Eddy does not appear as the plaintiff in the case. The complainant\nis one of her students, but Mrs. Eddy was behind the complaint, the real\nreason for which is apparently that the defendant had refused to pay\ntuition and royalty on his practice and was interfering with the work of\nthe group of which Mrs. Eddy was leader. The incident has value only as\nshowing the lengths to which the mind may be led once it has detached\nitself from the steadying influences of experience-tested reality. It is\ninteresting also to note that in one way and another Mrs. Eddy and her\nchurch have been involved in more litigation than any other religious\nteacher or religious movement of the time.\n\n\n_She Writes \"Science and Health\" and Completes the Organization of Her\nChurch_\n\nNothing apparently came of the first tentative organization in 1875. The\nfirst incorporated Church of Christ Scientist was chartered in 1879 with\ntwenty-six charter members and Boston as its seat. Meetings of this\nchurch were held, to begin with, in Lynn and Boston, but Lynn was not\nfriendly to the new enterprise and the Boston group became the center of\nfurther growth. Mrs. Eddy left Lynn finally in 1882 and during all the\nnext period the history of Christian Science is the history of the\nMother Church in Boston and of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College.\nMrs. Eddy suffered no dissent, her pupils either followed or left her.\nShe was the controlling force in the whole movement. She began to\nsurround herself with a certain mystery and delighted in theatrical\neffects. She had written and rewritten \"Science and Health\" until it\nbegan to take final form. The _Journal of Christian Science_ became the\nofficial organ of Mrs. Eddy's movement as \"Science and Health\" was its\ngospel.\n\nThe movement reached beyond Boston and New England and invaded the West.\nIt was now so outstanding as to create general public interest. The\nchurches began to take notice of it and indeed, whatever has been for\nthe last twenty years characteristic of Christian Science was then\nactively in action. What follows is the familiar story of Mrs. Eddy's\nown personal movements, her withdrawal to Concord, her growing\ndetachment from the movement which she nevertheless ruled with an iron\nhand, the final organization of the church itself along lines wholly\ndictated by its leader, the deepening of public interest in the movement\nitself, Mrs. Eddy's removal from Concord to Newton and her death. She\nleft behind her the strongest and most driving organization built up by\nany religious leader of her time. Of all those, who since the Wesleys\nhave inaugurated and carried through a distinct religious movement, only\nAlexander Campbell is in the same class with Mrs. Eddy and Campbell had\nbehind him the traditional force of the Protestantism to which he gave\nonly a slightly new direction and colouring. Mrs. Eddy's contributions\nare far more distinct and radical.\n\nWe need, then, to turn from her life, upon whose lights and shadows,\ninconsistencies and intricacies, we have touched all too lightly, to\nseek in \"Science and Health\" and the later development of Christian\nScience at once the secret of the power of the movement and its\nsignificance for our time.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nCHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nChristian science has a considerable group of authorized publications\nand a well-conducted department of publicity. Its public propaganda is\ncarried on by means of occasional lectures, always extremely well\nadvertised and through its reading rooms and periodicals. Its\nunadvertised propaganda is carried on, naturally, by its adherents.\nEvery instance of obscure or protracted illness offers it an opportunity\nand such opportunities are by no means neglected. But the supreme\nauthority in Christian Science is Mary Baker Eddy's work \"Science and\nHealth.\" This is read at every Sunday service and is the basis of all\nlectures and explanatory advertisements. In general its exponents do not\nsubstantially depart from the teachings of its book, nor, such is the\ndiscipline of the cult, do they dare to. There are doubtless such\nmodifications of its more extreme and impossible contentions as every\nreligion of authority experiences. Christian Science cannot remain\nunaffected by discussion and the larger movements of thought. But it has\nnot as yet markedly departed from the doctrines of its founder and must\nthereby be judged.\n\nThe book in its final form represents a considerable evolution. The\ncomparison of successive editions reveals an astonishing amount of\nmatter which has been discarded, although there has been no real\nmodification of its fundamental principles. References to malicious\nanimal magnetism which fill a large place in the earlier editions, are\nalmost wholly wanting in the last, and there has been a decided progress\ntoward a relative simplicity of statements. The book is doubtless much\nin debt to Mrs. Eddy's literary adviser, Mr. Wiggins, who brought to the\nrevision of Mrs. Eddy's writings a conscientious fidelity. One needs to\nstand a good ways back from the book itself in order at all to get any\nbalanced view of its philosophy but, so seen, its fundamentals are\nalmost unexpectedly simple.\n\n\n_Christian Science a Philosophy, a Theology, a Religion and a System of\nHealing; General Conditions Which Have Lent it Power_\n\nChristian Science is offered as a philosophy, a theology, a religion and\na method for the practical conduct of life and it needs to be considered\nunder each of these four heads. It demands also for any proper\nunderstanding of it the backgrounds of Mrs. Eddy's peculiar temperament\nand checkered history. It is a growth. For her fundamentals Mrs. Eddy\nis, beyond reasonable debate, in debt to Quimby and in some ways\nQuimby's original insights have suffered at her hands. None the less, in\nits final form \"Science and Health\" is what Mrs. Eddy has made it and it\nis what it is because she was what she was. She shared with her own\ngeneration an absorbing interest in fundamental theological problems.\nShe inherited a religion which has reduced the whole of life to rigid\nand on the whole too narrow theological formulae. She was not able to fit\nher experience into the formula which her faith supplied and yet, on the\nother hand, her faith exercised a controlling influence over her life.\nShe was in a small and pathetic way a kind of nineteenth century Job\ngrappling with the old, old question given sin and, above all, pain and\nsuffering to find God. She could not adjust either Divine love or a just\nDivine sovereignty to what she herself had been called upon to bear. A\nnatural tendency toward the occult and the desperate willingness of the\nhopelessly sick to try anything which promises a cure, led her in many\ndirections. So much her biography explains.\n\nQuimby was the first teacher she found whose system seemed to offer any\nkey at all to the intellectual and spiritual puzzle in which she found\nherself and when his system seemed to be proved for her by her recovery\nfrom a chronic abnormal state, she thereafter followed and elaborated\nwhat he suggested. Here a certain natural shrewdness and ingenuity of\nmind stood her in good stead. She was helped by her own ignorances and\nlimitations. If she had been a trained thinker, familiar with a wide\nrange of philosophic speculation, she would never have dared write so\ndogmatically; if she had been a great philosopher with the philosopher's\ninclusive vision, she would never have dared build so much on\nfoundations so narrow.\n\nMrs. Eddy was, unconsciously to herself, a type. She thought and felt\nfor multitudes of perplexed people unable to reconcile the more trying\nexperiences of life with what faith they had in the love and goodness of\nGod, unable on the other side to find the love and goodness of God in\nthe wide sweep of law and the orderly sequence of cause and effect, and\nincapable under any circumstances of the patient analysis needed to\ntrace to all their sources the threads of their strangely mingled webs\nof life; impressionable folk under the spell of words; speculative; at\nonce credulous and skeptical; intellectually alert enough to want to do\ntheir own thinking and not intellectually disciplined enough to do it\nwell; persuaded that the Bible has both a message and authority and\nunable to find in their traditional interpretation of it either a\nsatisfying message or an adequately directing authority; impatient of\ndiscipline and pathetically eager for some short cut to happiness and\nwell-being. In a very signal way Mrs. Eddy has spoken and written for\nthis type particularly in American life. Her very style a liability as\nit is, when tested by either logic or the accepted standards of good\nwriting, has, nevertheless, been an asset with those who have made her\ntheir prophetess.\n\nThe secret of Mrs. Eddy's power and the power of her system after her is\nmost largely in her essential intellectual and spiritual kinship with\nsuch a temper and intellectual status as this, but she possessed also a\nreal measure of creative capacity, a marked reach of speculative power,\nrare shrewdness and a masterful temper. Mrs. Eddy believed herself to\nhave found her system in the Old and New Testaments--but she did not.\nShe gradually built it up out of the suggestions which had been given\nher to begin with; she gave it colour and direction from her own\nexperiences; she proved it to her own satisfaction in the healings which\nseemed to result from it, then fitted it all as best she could into the\nframework of her inherited Christian faith and read its meanings back\ninto the Scriptures. It is a pseudo-philosophy pseudo-Christianized (if\none may use the word) by a curious combination of ingenuity, devotion,\nmain strength and even awkwardness. And though Christian Science is\ncarrying on to-day as a religion rather than as either a philosophy or a\nsystem of healing, it will stand or fall on the intellectual side as a\nphilosophy and not as a religion.\n\n\n_The Philosophic Bases of Christian Science_\n\nIt is professedly an idealistic monism based on carefully selected facts\nand depending for its proof upon certain results in the experience of\nthose who accept it. An idealism because there is for Mrs. Eddy no\nreality save in mind, a monism because there is for Mrs. Eddy only one\nreality and that is God. For a definition of God she offers only\nsynonyms and affirmations though here perhaps she follows only the usual\nprocedure of theology. God is divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul,\nSpirit, Mind--and all these capitalized, for it makes a vast difference\nin the philosophy of Christian Science whether such familiar words as\nthese are spelled with a capital letter or not. It would be possible\nfrom Mrs. Eddy's own words to pretty effectually prove what has been\nmore than once claimed: that Christian Science does not offer a personal\nGod, but all our terminology in this region is necessarily somewhat\nloose, though hers is excessively so. Some of her definitions of God are\nas personal as the Westminster Catechism or the Thirty-nine Articles.\nThe writer believes, however, after such dispassionate consideration of\nthe philosophy of Christian Science as he is able to give, that it would\nmake absolutely no difference in its philosophic basis whether God were\nconceived as a person or not. If the God of Christian Science be taken\nmerely as the exaltation of an abstract idealism or a philosophic\nAbsolute everything would be secured which is otherwise secured.\n\nUp to a certain point Christian Science marches with other idealistic\nsystems. From Plato down we have had philosophers a plenty, who have\nsought to build for us a universe whose only realities are mind and its\nattributes, or perhaps more technically, consciousness and its content.\nIt is truly a difficult enough matter to relate the world without and\nthe world within, once we begin thinking about it (though happily and in\nthe practical conduct of life this is not so hard as the philosophers\nmake out, otherwise we should be in a hopeless state), and it is natural\nenough for one type of mind to simplify the problem by making the world\nwithin the only world. Nor have there been wanting those who have sought\nto reduce everything to a single reality whether matter or mind, and\never since we have had theology at all a perplexed humanity has been\nseeking to reconcile the goodness and the power of God with the sin and\nsorrow of our troubled world.\n\nBut Christian Science parts company soon enough with this great\nfellowship of dreamers and philosophers and takes its own line. It\naffirms consciousness and its content to be the only reality; it affirms\nthe divine Mind to be the ultimate and all-conditioning reality; it\naffirms love and goodness to be the ultimate qualities of the divine\nMind, but it meets the problem of sin and evil by denying them any\nreality at all. (Here it is in more or less accord with certain forms of\nmysticism.) But even as Christian Science cuts this Gordian knot it\ncreates for itself another set of difficulties and involves itself in\nthose contradictions which will eventually be the undoing of it as a\nphilosophy.\n\n\n_It Undertakes to Solve the Problem of Evil. Contrasted Solutions_\n\nWhat Christian Science is seeking is an ideal order with a content of\nunqualified good and it secures this by denying the reality of every\naspect of experience which either challenges or contradicts its own\nidealism. What is distinctive, then, in Christian Science is not its\naffirmations but its denials. All systems of philosophic idealism face\npractically the same problem and offer various solutions. They most\ncommonly resolve evil of every sort--and evil is here used in so wide a\nway as to include sin and pain and sorrow--into an ultimate good.\n\nEvil is thus an \"unripe good,\" one stage in a process of evolution\nwhich, when it has had its perfect and all-transforming way, will reveal\nboth moral and physical evil to have been no evil at all but simply\naspects of life, trying enough at the time and puzzling enough when\ntaken by themselves, but having their own distinct and contributory\nvalue when considered in their relation to the final whole. Such an\napproach as this does not in any wise diminish for the individual either\nthe reality of pain or the unhappy consequences of sin, but it does ask\nhim to judge the wisdom and love of God not by their passing phases but\nby their outcome in the wealth and worth of character.\n\nRobert Browning sang this sturdily through a long generation riding down\nits difficulties by the sheer force of an unconquerable optimism and\nsubduing argument to lyric passion.\n\n       \"The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound;\n     What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;\n       On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.\n\n     \"And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence\n       For the fullness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?\n     Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?\n       Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?\"\n\nOthers affirm the self-limitation of God.[30] In His respect for that\nhuman freedom which is the basis of self-regulated personal action and\ntherefore an essential condition of character, He arrests Himself, as it\nwere, upon the threshold of human personality and commits His children\nto a moral struggle justifying the inevitable incidents of moral defeat\nby the greatness of the ends to be attained. A vast deal of what we call\nevil--broadening evil to include not only moral defeat but also pain--is\neither a consequence or a by-product of what Henry Churchill King calls\nthe fight for character. Such a solution as this is consistent with the\nlove of God and the moral order; whether it is consistent with a\nthoroughgoing monism or not is another question. William James doubted\nit and so frankly adopted Pluralism--which is perhaps just a way of\nsaying that we cannot reconcile the contending forces in our world order\nwith one over-all-controlling power--as his solution of the problem.\n\n[Footnote 30: Walker, for example, in his extremely suggestive Spiritual\nMonism and Christian Theism.]\n\nJosiah Royce has valiantly maintained, through long and subtle argument,\nthe goodness of the whole despite the evil of the incidental. \"All\nfinite life is a struggle with evil. Yet from the final point of view\nthe Whole is good. The Temporal Order contains at no one moment anything\nthat can satisfy. Yet the Eternal Order is perfect. We have all sinned,\nand come short of the glory of God. Yet in just our life, viewed in its\nentirety, the glory of God is completely manifest. These hard sayings\nare the deepest expressions of the essence of true religion.\"[31] He\nfinds the root of evil in the dissatisfaction of the finite will--a\ndissatisfaction which on the other hand is the secret of the eventual\ntriumph of good.\n\n[Footnote 31: \"The World and the Individual,\" Royce, Vol. II, Chap.\n9--passim.]\n\nWe suffer also through our involution with \"the interests and ideals of\nvast realms of other conscious and finite lives whose dissatisfactions\nbecome part of each individual man's life when the man concerned cannot\nat present see how or why his own ideals are such as to make these\ndissatisfactions his fate.\" We suffer also through our associations with\nnature, none the less \"this very presence of evil in the temporal order\nis the condition of the perfection of the eternal order.\" He dismisses\ndefinitely, in an argument still to be quoted, the conclusion of the\nmystic that an \"experience of evil is an experience of unreality ... an\nillusion, a dream, a deceit\" and concludes: \"In brief, then, nowhere in\nTime is perfection to be found. Our comfort lies in the knowledge of the\nEternal. Strengthened by that knowledge, we can win the most enduring of\ntemporal joys, the consciousness that makes us delight to share the\nworld's grave glories and to take part in its divine sorrows,--sure that\nthese sorrows are the means of the eternal triumph, and that these\nglories are the treasures of the house of God. When once this comfort\ncomes home to us, we can run and not be weary, and walk and not faint.\nFor our temporal life is the very expression of the eternal triumph.\"\n\nOne may gravely question whether philosophy has ever so completely made\nout its case as Professor Royce thinks. He is affirming as the reasoned\nconclusion of philosophy what is rather a faith than a demonstration,\nbut none the less, all honest thinking has hitherto been brave enough to\nrecognize the reality of evil and to test the power of God and His love\nand goodness not by the actuality of present pain, or the confusion of\npresent sin, but rather by the power which He offers us of growing\nthrough pain to health or else so bearing pain as to make it a real\ncontribution to character and of so rising above sin as to make\npenitence and confession and the struggle for good and the achievement\nof it also a contribution to character. So St. Paul assures us that all\nthings work together for good for those that love God. \"The\nwillingness,\" says Hocking, \"to confront every evil, in ourselves and\noutside ourselves, with the blunt, factual conscience of Science;\nwillingness to pay the full causal price for the removal of the blemish;\nthis kind of integrity can never be dispensed with in any optimistic\nprogram.\"[32]\n\n[Footnote 32: \"The Meaning of God in Human Experience,\" p. 175.]\n\nSir Henry Jones takes the same line. \"The first requisite for the\nsolution of the contradiction between the demand of religion for the\nperfection of God, and therefore the final and complete victory of the\ngood in the other, is the honest admission that the contradiction is\nthere, and inevitable; though possibly, like other contradictions, it is\nthere only to be solved.\"[33]\n\n[Footnote 33: \"A Faith that Enquires,\" p. 45.]\n\n\n_The Divine Mind and Mortal Mind_\n\nChristian Science solves this problem, as has been said, by denying the\nreality of evil, but since we have an abundance of testimony to pain and\nsickness, Mrs. Eddy goes a step farther. She denies the reality of the\ntestimony of the senses wherever pain and sickness are concerned.[34]\n(Mrs. Eddy's denial of the reality of sin is hardly parallel to her\ndenial of the reality of physical ills.) And here the word comes in\nwhich is made to carry a heavier load than any one poor word was ever\nburdened with before. All that is involved in the recognition of\nphysical ills and indeed all that is involved in the recognition of the\nmaterial side of existence is error. (Once fairly on her road Mrs. Eddy\nmakes a clean sweep of whatever stands in her way.) What one may call\nthe whole shadowed side of experience is not only ignored, it is denied\nand yet before it can be explained away it has to be explained. It is,\nin brief, for Mrs. Eddy and her followers the creation of mortal mind.\nMortal mind, she says, \"is nothing claiming to be something; mythology;\nerror creating other errors; a suppositional material sense; ... that\nwhich neither exists in science nor can be recognized by the spiritual\nsense; sin; sickness; death.\"[35]\n\n[Footnote 34: \"Science and Health,\" last edition, pp. 108, 120, 293,\n488.]\n\n[Footnote 35: _Ibid._, p. 591.]\n\nMortal mind is that side of us which accepts our entanglement in the\nfacts and forces of the world order and upon mortal mind so vaguely\nconceived Mrs. Eddy throws the whole burden of responsibility for all\nthe unhappy aspects of experience and conditioning circumstances. She\ngives it a surprising range of creative power. It has created\neverything Mrs. Eddy does not like or believe in. In other words, there\nis not one reality but two, one the reality of well-being, the other the\nreality of unhappiness and suffering, but according to Mrs. Eddy the\nfirst reality is the only real reality, the second is an unreal reality\nwhich we ourselves create through false beliefs and which we may escape\nat any moment by simply shifting the center of our creative idealism.\nMrs. Eddy makes what she means by mortal mind reasonably clear through\nendless repetition and some analysis, but she never for a moment\naccounts for its existence. It is no creation of what she calls the\ndivine Mind; indeed she says in substance that God is not conscious of\nit at all; it lies entirely outside the range of His knowledge. (Page\n243.)\n\nGod is Good. Since He is good He cannot have created nor be responsible\nfor, nor even recognize pain, sorrow or suffering. \"The Divine Mind\ncannot suffer\" (page 108, also page 335), \"is not responsible for\nphysical and moral disasters\" (page 119). God did not create matter (the\nFather mind is not the father of matter) (page 257), for matter means\npain and death, nor do such things as these belong in any way to the\norder of the Divine Mind. They have no admitted reality in Mrs. Eddy's\nscheme of a true idealism. Man is \"God's spiritual idea\" and since he\nbelongs by right to an order in which there is neither sin nor sorrow\nnor death, such things as these have no reality for him save as he\nadmits them. What really admits them is mortal mind, the agent of\nanother system of Belief in which humanity has in some way, which is\nnever really explained, become entangled, and we may apparently escape\nfrom the one order to the other simply by a change in our beliefs. For\nall the shadowed side of life has reality only as we accept or believe\nin it; directly we cease to believe in it or deny it it ceases to be.\n\nIt is, as near as one can make out, a myth, an illusion, whose\nbeginnings are lost in obscurity and which, for the want of the\nrevelation vouchsafed through her, has been continued from age to age by\nthe untaught or the misled. For example, Arsenic is not a poison, so we\nare told again and again. It is only a poison because people think it\nis;[36] it began to be a poison only because people thought it was, it\ncontinues to be a poison only because the majority of people think it is\nnow and, such is the subtle and far-reaching influence of mind upon\nmind, it will continue to be a poison as long as any one continues to\nbelieve it to be. Directly we all believe that Arsenic is not a poison\nit will be no poison. Poisons, that is, are the creation of mortal mind.\nPain is pain only through the same mistaken belief in the reality of it.\n\"By universal consent mortal belief has constituted itself a law to bind\nmortals to sickness, sin and death.\" And so on at great length and\nalmost endless repetition.\n\n[Footnote 36: Page 178.]\n\n\n_The Essential Limitations of Mrs. Eddy's System_\n\nSince matter conditions us who were born to be unconditioned and since\nmatter is apparently the root of so many ills, the seat of so many\npains, matter goes with the rest. Mrs. Eddy is not always consistent in\nher consideration of matter; sometimes she confines herself to saying\nthat there is neither sensation nor life in matter--which may be true\nenough save as matter both affords the material for sensation and\nconditions its forms, which is an immense qualification,--but again and\nagain she calls matter an illusion. Consistently the laws of physics and\nchemistry should disappear with the laws of hygiene and medicine, but\nMrs. Eddy does not go so far as that though it would be difficult to\nfind a logical stopping place once you have taken this line. Mortal mind\nis apparently the source of all these illusions.\n\nMrs. Eddy's disposal of matter, along with her constant return to its\nmisleading mastery in experience is an outstanding aspect of her book.\nThe writer is inclined to believe that Mrs. Eddy's formula: \"There is\n... no matter in life and no life in matter,\" is an echo of Tyndall's\nfamous utterance--made about the time she was working with her\nsystem--that he found \"in matter the promise and potency of all life.\"\nThere is surprisingly little reference in \"Science and Health\" to\nphilosophic or scientific sources. Cutter's physiology is quoted in some\neditions--an old textbook which the writer remembers to have found among\nhis mother's school books. There are a few references to popular\nastronomy, but in general for Mrs. Eddy modern science does not exist\nexcept in the most general way as the erroneous expression of error and\nalways with a small \"s\" as against the capital \"S\" of her own system.\nNor does she show any knowledge of other philosophic idealisms nor any\nacquaintance with any solution of the problems she was facing save the\ncommonplaces of evangelical orthodoxy. \"Science and Health\" knows\nnothing also of any medical science save the empirical methods of the\nmedical science of 1860 and 1870.\n\nBut she cannot have been wholly uninfluenced--being a woman of an alert\nmind--by the controversy which, in the seventies and eighties, was\nraging about a pretty crass and literal materialism, and her writings\nprobably reflect--with a good deal of indirection--that controversy.\nHere is a possible key to a good many things which are otherwise\npuzzling enough. She is, in her own fashion, the defender of an\nidealistic interpretation of reality and experience. Now all idealistic\nsystems have had to dispose of matter in some way. In general idealists\nfind in matter only the reflection in consciousness of the material\nwhich sense experience supplies, and since the raw material is in every\nway so different from the mental reflection, the idealist may defend his\nposition plausibly in assuming matter to be, in its phenomenal aspects,\nreally the creation of thought. But he must account for the persistency\nof it and the consistency of experience so conditioned. He does this by\nassuming the whole interrelated order to be held, as it were, in\nsolution, in some larger system of thought which really supplies for us\nour environment and if he be both devout and consistent he calls this\nthe thought God.[37] In this way he solves his problem--at least to his\nown satisfaction--and even supplies a basis for Theistic faith. But he\ndoes not deny the working reality of his so-called material experiences\nnor does he, like Mrs. Eddy, accept one aspect of this experience and\ndeny the other. This is philosophically impossible.\n\n[Footnote 37: So Royce in \"The World and the Individual.\"]\n\nA thoroughgoing theistic monism must find in matter some aspect or other\nof the self-revelation of God. It may be hard pressed to discover just\nhow the psychical is \"stepped down\" to the physical. (That is the\nessential difficulty in all Creationism.) But something must be assumed\nto get a going concern in any department of thought and there is much in\nthat resolution of matter into force and force into always more tenuous\nand imponderable forms--which is the tendency of modern science--to\nrender this assumption less difficult to the rational imagination than\nperhaps any other we are asked to make. When the final elements in\nmatter have become electrons and the electron is conceived as a strain\nin a magnetic field and thus the\n\n          \"Cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,\n          The solemn temples, the great globe itself,\n          Yea, all which is inherent,\"\n\nbecome the projection into sensibly apprehended form of the flux of an\ninfinite and eternal energy, it is not hard to define that energy in\nterms of a divine will. Indeed it is hard not to do just that. But there\nis no place in such a resolution as this for the conclusions of \"Science\nand Health.\"\n\nOr we may accept in one form or another a dualism in which the\npractical mind is generally content to rest. According to this point of\nview we have to do with a reality which may be known under two aspects.\nIt is the chemical action and interaction of elements--and the mind\nwhich measures and combines them; it is the physical action and\ninteraction of force--and the mind which directs the process.\nBiologically \"the living creature gives an account of itself in two\nways. It can know itself as something extended and intricately built up,\nburning away, moving, throbbing; it can also know itself as the seat of\nsensation, perceptions, feelings, wishes, thoughts. But there is not one\nprocess, thinking, and another process, cerebral metabolism (vital\nprocesses in nerve-cells); there is a psycho-physical life--a reality\nwhich we know under two aspects. Cerebral control and mental activity\nare, on this view, different aspects of one natural occurrence. What we\nhave to do with is the unified life of a psycho-physical being, a\nbody-mind or mind-body.\"[38] In short there is no philosophy or science\noutside the covers of her own book to which Mrs. Eddy may turn for\nsupport and though this does not prove the case against her--she might\nbe right and the whole disciplined thought of her time be wrong--this\nlatter supposition is so improbable as to rule it out of court.\n\n[Footnote 38: J.A. Thomson, \"The Outline of Science,\" p. 548.]\n\nThe materialism against which she contends has ceased to exist. The\nmatter which she denies does not exist in the sense of her denial. There\nwas, even when she was writing, a line of which she was apparently\nwholly ignorant which has since been immensely developed, and of all\nthis there is naturally no reflection at all in her work. It is more\nhopelessly out of touch with the laborious and strongly established\nconclusions of modern thought in every field than the first chapters of\nGenesis for there one may, at least, substitute the science of to-day\nfor the science of 3,000 years ago and still retain the enduring\ninsights of the faith then voiced, but there is no possible\naccommodation of \"Science and Health\" to either the science or the\nphilosophy of the twentieth century. It must be left to a consistent\nChristian Scientist to reconcile his gospel with the freer movements of\nthe world of which he is still a citizen--though perhaps this also might\nbe urged against a deal of contemporaneous Christian faith--but it is\nall an arresting testimony to the power of the human mind to organize\nitself in compartments between which there is no communication.\n\n\n_Experience and Life_\n\nBeyond all this is the fact of which \"Science and Health\" takes no\naccount--the conditioning of conscious life and working experience by\nits material environment however conceived. This is true of every phase\nof life and all our later emphasis upon the power of the mind in one\ndirection and another to escape this conditioning scarcely affects the\nmassive reality of it. Christian Science makes no attempt at all to\nescape this--save in the region of physical health--or else it provides\nan alibi in the phrase, \"I have not demonstrated in that region yet.\"\nBut it does not thus escape the limitation imposed upon us all and if\nwe may dare for a moment to be dogmatic, it never will. At the best we\nlive in a give and take and if, through discipline and widening\nknowledge, we may push back a little the frontiers which limit us, and\nassert the supremacy of soul over the material with which it is so\nintimately associated, we do even this slowly and at great cost and\nalways in conformity with the laws of the matter we master.\n\nThere is a body of evidence here which can no more be ignored than\ngravitation, and we best dispose of association of personality with the\nmaterial fabric of the body and the world of which it is a part, not by\ndenying their mutual interdependence but by discovering therein the laws\nand methods of an infinite wisdom. Here are ministries through which we\ncome to consciousness of ourselves, here are materials upon which we\nexercise our power, here are realities which hold us fast to normal and\nintelligible lives, here are masters whose rule is kind and servants\nwhose obediences empower us. They condition our happinesses as well as\nour unhappinesses and supply for us the strings of that harp of the\nsenses upon which the music of life is played. Life really gains its\nspiritual content through the action and interaction of the aspiring\nself upon its environment--whether that environment be intimate as the\nprotest of a disturbed bodily cell or remote as Orion and the\nPleiades.[39] The very words which Mrs. Eddy uses would be idle if this\nwere not so and though a thoroughgoing defender of her system may read\ninto its lines a permission for all this, the fundamentals of her system\ndeny it.\n\n[Footnote 39: \"And I am inclined to think that the error of forgetting\nthat spirit in order to be real or that principles, whether of morality,\nreligion or knowledge, must be exemplified in temporal facts, is a no\nless disastrous error than that of the sciences which have not learned\nthat the natural, when all the meaning of it is set free, blossoms into\nthe spiritual like the tree into flower. Religion and philosophy and\nscience also have yet to learn more fully that all which can possibly\nconcern man, occupy his intelligence or engage his will, lies at the\npoint of intersection of the natural and spiritual.\"--\"A Faith that\nEnquires,\" p. 27.]\n\nChristian Science breaks down both philosophically and practically just\nhere. It is none the less a dualism because it denies that it is. It\nconfronts not one but two ranges of reality; it gains nothing by making\nmortal mind the villain in the play. It is compelled to admit the\nexistence of the reality which it denies, even in the fact of denying\nit. What we deny exists for us--we could not otherwise deny it. Royce\nhas put all this clearly, strongly, finally. \"The mystic first denies\nthat evil is real. He is asked why, then, evil seems to exist. He\nreplies that this is our finite error. The finite error itself hereupon\nbecomes, as the source of all our woes, an evil. But no evil is real,\nhence no error can be real, hence we do not really err even if we\nsuppose that evil is real. Here we return to our starting point and\ncould only hope to escape by asserting that it is an error to assert\nthat we really err or that we really believe error to be real, and with\na process thus begun there is indeed no end, nor at any stage in this\nprocess is there consistency.\"[40] All this is subtle enough, but if we\nare to make our world by thinking and unthinking it, all this is\nunescapably true.\n\n[Footnote 40: \"The World and the Individual,\" Vol. II, p. 394.]\n\nWhen, moreover, you have reduced one range of experience to illusion\nthere is absolutely nothing to save the rest. If evil is error and error\nevil and the belief that evil is an illusion is itself an illusion what\nis there to guarantee the reality of good? The sword with which Mrs.\nEddy cut the knot of the problem of evil is two-edged. If the optimist\ndenies evil for the sake of good and points for proof to the solid\ncoherency of the happier side of life, the pessimist may as justly deny\ngood for the sake of evil and point for proof to the solid coherency of\nthe sadder side of life; he will have no trouble in finding his facts.\nIf sickness is a dream then health is a dream as well. Once we have\ntaken illusion for a guide there is no stopping until everything is\nillusion. The Eastern mystic who went this road long before Mrs. Eddy\nand who thought it through with a searching subtleness of which she was\nincapable, reached the only logical conclusion. All experience is\nillusion, entire detachment from action is the only wisdom, and\nabsorption in an unconscious something which only escapes being nothing\nis our appointed destiny:\n\n          \"We are such stuff\n          As dreams are made of,\n          And our little life\n          Is rounded with a sleep.\"\n\n\n_Sense-Testimony Cannot Be Accepted for Health and Denied for Sickness_\n\nChristian Science, then, is not monism, it is rather a dualism; it\nconfronts not one but two ranges of reality and it is compelled to admit\nthe existence of the reality which it denies, even the fact of denying\nit, for it is a philosophical axiom that what we deny exists for us--we\ncould not otherwise deny it. Denial is the recognition of reality just\nas much as affirmation. To repeat, it is this continuous interwoven\nprocess of trying to reconcile the one-sided idealism of Christian\nScience with the necessity of its argument and the facts of life which\ngives to \"Science and Health\" what one may call its strangely bifocal\ncharacter, though indeed this is a somewhat misleading figure. One has\nthe same experience in reading the book that one has in trying to read\nthrough glasses which are out of focus; you are always just seeing and\njust missing because Mrs. Eddy herself is always just seeing and just\nmissing a really great truth.\n\nThis fundamental inconsistency penetrates the whole system even down to\nits practical applications. Christian Science denies the testimony of\nthe senses as to sickness and yet accepts them as to health. It goes\nfurther than this, it accepts the testimony of the senses of other\npeople--physicians, for example, in accepting their diagnosis. The\nedition of \"Science and Health\" published in 1918 offers in chapter\neighteen a hundred pages of testimonials sent in by those who have in\nvarious ways been helped by their faith. These letters are shot through\nand through with a recognition of the testimony of the senses which no\nexplanation can possibly explain away. \"I was afflicted with a fibroid\ntumour which weighed not less than fifty pounds, attended by a\ncontinuous hemorrhage for eleven years.\" If the senses have any language\nat all, this is their language. A growth cannot be known as a fibroid\ntumour without sense testimony, nor its weight estimated without sense\ntestimony, nor a continuous hemorrhage be recorded, or its cessation\nknown without sense testimony, nor can epilepsy be diagnosed, nor\nbilious attacks recognized without sense testimony. On page 606 a\ngrateful disciple bears witness to the healing of a broken arm,\ntestimony to said healing being demonstrated by a visit to a physician's\noffice \"where they were experimenting with an X-ray machine. The doctor\npointed out the place as being slightly thicker at that part, like a\npiece of steel that had been welded.\" In other words, Christian Science\ncannot make out its case without the recognition of the veracity of a\nsense testimony, whose truth its philosophy denies.\n\nMrs. Eddy seems to dismiss all this in one brief paragraph. \"Is a man\nsick if the material senses indicate that he is in good health? No, for\nmatter can make no conditions for man. And is he well if the senses say\nhe is sick? Yes, he is well in Science, in which health is normal and\ndisease is abnormal.\"[41] If Mrs. Eddy and her followers believe so\nspecious a statement as that, to set them free from an inconsistency\nwhich is central in their whole contention, they are welcome to their\nbelief, but the inconsistency still remains. You can go far by using\nwords in a Pickwickian sense but there is a limit. A consistent idealism\nis philosophically possible, but it must be a far more inclusive and\ndeeply reasoned idealism than Christian Science. The most thoroughgoing\nidealisms have accepted the testimony of the senses as a part of the\nnecessary conduct of life as now conditioned. Anything else would reduce\nus to unspeakable confusion, empty experience of its content, dissolve\nall the contacts of life and halt us in our tracks for we cannot take a\nstep safely without the testimony of the senses and any scheme of things\nwhich seeks to distinguish between the varying validities of sense\ntestimony, accepting only the evidence of the senses for health and\nwell-being and denying the dependability of whatever else they register,\nis simply an immense caprice which breaks down under any examination.\n\n[Footnote 41: Page 120. It is only fair to say that Mrs. Eddy is\nhampered by her own want of clear statement. The phrase (so often used\nin \"Science and Health\") \"in Science\" is probably in her mind equivalent\nto \"in the ideal order\" and if Mrs. Eddy had clearly seen and clearly\nstated what she is groping for: that the whole shadowed side of life\nbelongs to our present world of divided powers and warring forces and\nunfinished enterprises, that God has something better for His children\ntoward which we are being led through the discipline of experience and\nthat we may therefore seek to conceive and affirm this ideal order and\nbecome its citizens in body, mind and soul, she would have escaped a\nperfect web of contradiction and been in line not only with the great\nphilosophies but with historic Christian faith. But then Christian\nScience would not be Christian Science.]\n\n\n_The Inescapable Reality of Shadowed Experience_\n\nEvil does not cease to be because it is denied. The acceptance of sense\ntestimony is just as necessary in the region of pain and sickness as in\ndriving a motorcar down a crowded street and the hypothesis of a\nmisleading mortal mind, instead of explaining everything, demands itself\nan explanation. What Mrs. Eddy calls mortal mind is only the registry of\nthe dearly bought experience of the race. We began only with the power\nto feel, to struggle, to will and to think. We have been blind enough\nand stupid enough but we are, after all, not unteachable and out of our\nexperience and our reflections we have created the whole splendid and\ndependable body of human knowledge. What we know about pain is itself\nthe outcome of all the suffering of our kind. We began with no developed\nphilosophy nor any presuppositions about anything. Experience reflects\nencompassing realities which we are able to escape only as we make their\nlaws our ministers. We did not give fire the power to burn, we\ndiscovered that only in the school of the touch of flame. We did not\ngive edged steel the power to cut, we found that out through death and\nbleeding wounds. We did not give to poisons their deadly power, our\nattitude toward them is simply the outcome of our experience with them.\n\nConditioned as we are by those laws and forces with which this present\nexistence of ours is in innumerable ways inextricably interwoven, our\ntested and sifted beliefs are only the outcome of an action and\ninteraction of recipient or creative personality upon its environment\nold as human consciousness, and if in all this we have become persuaded\nof pain and suffering and shadowed experience, it is only because these\nare as real as any elements in experience can possibly be. To attempt\nto write them out or deny them out or juggle them out in any kind of way\nsave in bravely meeting them and humbly being taught by them and in the\nfull resource of disciplined power getting free from them by removing\nthe causes which create them, is to cheat ourselves with words, lose\nourselves in shadows which we mistake for light and even if in some\nregions we seem to succeed it is only at the cost of what is more bitter\nthan pain and more deadly than wounds--the loss of mental and spiritual\nintegrity. This is a price too great to pay for any mere healing.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nCHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A THEOLOGY\n\n\n\"Science and Health\" is offered, among other things, as a key to the\nScriptures, and along with her interpretation of both the Old and the\nNew Testaments in terms of her peculiar philosophy Mrs. Eddy rewrites\nthe great articles of the Christian creeds. A careful student of Mrs.\nEddy's mental processes is able in this region to understand them better\nthan she understood them herself. She had, to begin with, an inherited\nreverence for the Bible as an authority for life and she shared with\nmultitudes of others a difficulty to which reference has already been\nmore than once made. For what one may call the typical Protestant\nconsciousness the Bible is the final revelation of God, governing, if\nonly we can come to understand it, both our faith and our conduct of\nlife, but the want of a true understanding of it and, above all, the\nburdening of it with an inherited tradition has clouded its light for\nmultitudes of devout souls.\n\n\n_Science and Health Offered as a Key to the Scriptures_\n\nSuch as these have been almost pathetically eager to accept any\ninterpretation, no matter how capricious, which seemed to read an\nintelligible meaning into its difficult passages, or reconcile its\ncontradictions, or make it a more practical guide in the conduct of\nlife. Any cult or theory, therefore, which can seem to secure for itself\nthe authority of the Bible has obtained directly an immense\nreinforcement in its appeal to the devout and the perplexed, and Mrs.\nEddy has taken full advantage of this. Her book is veined with Scripture\nreferences; two of her chapters are expositions of Biblical books\n(Genesis and Revelation); and other chapters deal with great doctrines\nof the Church.\n\n\n_It Ignores All Recognized Canons of Biblical Interpretation.\nIllustrations_\n\nMrs. Eddy naturally sought the authority for her philosophy between the\ncovers of the Scriptures. Beyond debate her teachings have carried much\nfarther than they otherwise would, in that she claims for them a\nScriptural basis, and they must be examined in that light. Now there are\ncertain sound and universally recognized rules governing the scholarly\napproach to the Old and New Testaments. Words must be taken in their\nplain sense; they must be understood in their relation to their context.\nA book is to be studied also in the light of its history; the time and\nplace and purpose of its composition, as far as these are known, must be\nconsidered; no changes made in the text save through critical\nemendation, nor any translations offered not supported by accepted\ntexts, nor any liberties be taken with grammatical constructions. By\nsuch plain tests as these Mrs. Eddy's use of the Scriptures will not\nbear examination. She violates all recognized canons of Biblical\ninterpretation on almost every page.[42]\n\n[Footnote 42: This is a brief--and a Christian Scientist may protest--a\nsummary dismissal of the claim of \"Science and Health\" to be a \"key to\nthe Scriptures.\" But nothing is gained--save of the unnecessary\nlengthening of this chapter--in going into a detailed examination of her\nmethod and conclusions. She has insight, imagination, boundless\nallegorical resource, but the whole Bible beneath her touch becomes a\nplastic material to be subdued to her peculiar purpose by omissions,\nread-in meanings and the substantial and constant disregard of plain\nmeanings. To the student the whole matter is important only as revealing\nthe confusion of the popular mind which receives such a method as\nauthoritative.]\n\nHer method is wholly allegorical and the results achieved are\nconditioned only by the ingenuity of the commentator. It would require a\nbody of citation from the pages of \"Science and Health,\" not possible\nhere, to follow through Mrs. Eddy's peculiar exegesis. One needs only to\nopen the book at random for outstanding illustrations. For example,\nGenesis 1:6, \"And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the\nwaters and let it divide the waters from the waters.\" The word\n\"firmament\" has its own well established connotation gathered from a\ncareful study of all its uses. We can no more understand the earlier\nchapters of Genesis without an understanding of Hebrew cosmogony than we\ncan understand Dante without a knowledge of medieval cosmogony. But,\ngiven this knowledge which is the common possession of all sound\nscholarship, we can at least understand what the passage means, even\nthough we have long left behind us the naive conception of the vaulted\nskies to which it refers.\n\nAll this is a commonplace not worth repeating at the cost of the white\npaper upon which it is printed, save as the ignoring of it leads to such\nan interpretation of the passage as that which Mrs. Eddy offers:\n\"spiritual understanding by which human conception material mind is\nseparated from Truth is the firmament. The Divine Mind, not matter,\ncreates all identities and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of Spirit\napparent only as Mind, never as mindless matter nor the so-called\nmaterial senses\" (page 505). Comment is not only difficult but\nimpossible in the face of a method like this. If such an interpretation\nwere an exception it might seem the unfair use of a hypercritical temper\nto quote this particular expression of Mrs. Eddy's mind. But her whole\ntreatment of Scripture suffers from the same method.\n\nEverything means something else. The Ark is \"the idea, or reflection of\ntruth, proved to be as immortal as its Principle.\" Babel is\n\"self-destroying error\"; baptism is \"submergence in Spirit\"; Canaan is\n\"a sensuous belief\"; Dan (Jacob's son) is \"animal magnetism\"; the dove\nis \"a symbol of divine Science\"; the earth is \"a type of eternity and\nimmortality\"; the river Euphrates is \"divine Science encompassing the\nuniverse and man\"; evening \"the mistiness of mortal thought\"; flesh \"an\nerror, a physical belief\"; Ham (Noah's son) is \"corporeal belief\";\nJerusalem \"mortal belief and knowledge obtained from the five corporeal\nsenses\"; night, \"darkness; doubt; fear\"; a Pharisee, \"corporeal and\nsensuous belief\"; river is \"a channel of thought\"; a rock is \"a\nspiritual foundation\"; sheep are \"innocence\"; a sword \"the idea of\nTruth.\"[43]\n\n[Footnote 43: Glossary, p. 579--passim.]\n\nMrs. Eddy does not hesitate to make such textual modifications of\npassages as suit her purpose and even when she is not dealing with her\ntexts in such ways as these, she is constantly citing for her proofs\npassages which cannot by any recognized canon of interpretation possibly\nbe made to mean what she says they mean. Beneath her touch simple things\nbecome vague, the Psalms lose their haunting beauty, even the Lord's\nPrayer takes a form which we may reverently believe the author of it\nwould not recognize.\n\n     \"Our Father: Mother God, all harmonious, Adorable One, Thy kingdom\n     is come; Thou art ever present. Enable us to know--as in heaven, so\n     on earth--God is omnipotent, supreme. Give us grace for to-day;\n     feed the famished affections; and love is reflected in love; and\n     God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin,\n     disease and death. For God is Infinite, all Power, all Life, Truth,\n     Love, over all and All.\"\n\n\n_Its Conception of God_\n\nIt was quite as inevitable that she should undertake to fit her\nspeculations into the fabric of the theology in which she and most of\nher followers had been trained, as that she should try to secure for her\nspeculation the weight of the authority of the Bible. She would have to\ntake for her point of departure the centrality of Christ, the\noutstanding Christian doctrines, markedly the Incarnation and the\nAtonement and she would need somehow to dispose of the Sacraments. All\nthis is inevitably implied in the persistent designation of her whole\nsystem as a Christian system.\n\nThe chapter headings in \"Science and Health\" and the sequence of\nchapters are the key to the movement of her mind; they are determined by\nher association of interests. Marriage is on the same level with Prayer,\nAtonement and the Eucharist, and Animal Magnetism with Science, Theology\nand Medicine. It is hard to know where to begin in so confused a region.\nShe is handicapped, to begin with, by the rigidity of her idealism and\nactually by her limitation both of the power and personality of God.\nThis statement would probably be as sharply contradicted by Mrs. Eddy's\napologists as anything in this study, but it is not hastily made.\nPhilosophically He is for Mrs. Eddy only an exalted ideality into\nrelation with which we may think ourselves by a change in our system of\nbelief. Actually, as we shall see, this conception yields to emotional\nand devotional needs--it is bound to--but in theory it is unyielding.\n\nNow the accepted Christian conception of God is entirely different. Both\nthe Old and New Testaments conceive a God who is lovingly and justly\nconscious of all our need, who is constantly drawing near to us in\nmanifold appeals and approaches and who has, above all, in the\nIncarnation made a supreme and saving approach to humanity. He is no\nmore rigid than love is rigid; His attitude toward us, His children,\nchanges as the attitude of a father toward the changing tempers of a\nchild. Now all this may be true or it may be only the dream of our\nstrangely sensitive personalities, but whether it be true or not, it is\nthe Christian conception and any denial of this or any radically\ndifferent substitution for it cannot call itself Christian save as it\nwrites into the word Christian connotations to which it has heretofore\nbeen utterly strange.\n\n\n_Mrs. Eddy's Interpretation of Jesus Christ_\n\nMrs. Eddy begins, therefore, with the handicap of a philosophy which can\nbe adjusted to Christian theology only through fundamental modifications\nof that theology. It is hard to systematize the result. Mrs. Eddy\ndistinguishes between Jesus and Christ. Her conception of Jesus is\nreasonably clear whether it be historically true or not, but her\nconception of the Christ is vague and fluctuating. Jesus was apparently\nthe first Christian Scientist, anticipating, though not completely, its\nphilosophy and demonstrating its practices. His teachings are so\ninterpreted as to be made to yield a Christian Science content. When He\nurged the commandment: \"Thou shalt have no other gods before me\" what He\nreally meant was, \"Thou shalt have no belief of Life as mortal; thou\nshalt not know evil, for there is one Life.\"[44] \"He proved by His deeds\nthat Christian Science destroys sickness, sin and death. Our Master\ntaught no mere theory, doctrine or belief; it was the divine Principle\nof all real being which He taught and practiced.\"[45] \"He taught His\nfollowers the healing power of Truth and Love\"[46] and \"the proofs of\nTruth, Life and Love which Jesus gave by casting out error and healing\nthe sick, completed His earthly mission.\"[47] \"The truth taught by Jesus\nthe elders scoffed at because it demanded more than they were willing to\npractice.\"[48] They, therefore, crucified Him and He seemed to die, but\nHe did not. Apparently He was not dead when He was entombed and His\nthree days in the tomb gave Him \"a refuge from His foes, a place in\nwhich to solve the great problem of being.\" In other words He\ndemonstrated His own healing in the tomb. \"He met and mastered, on the\nbasis of Christian Science, the power of mind over matter, all the\nclaims of medicine, surgery and hygiene. He took no drugs to allay\ninflammation; He did not depend upon food or pure air to resuscitate\nwasted energies; He did not require the skill of a surgeon to heal the\ntorn palms and bind up the wounded side and lacerated feet, that He\nmight use those hands to remove the napkin and winding sheet and that He\nmight employ His feet as before.\"[49]\n\n[Footnote 44: Page 19. All citations from last edition.]\n\n[Footnote 45: Page 26.]\n\n[Footnote 46: Page 31.]\n\n[Footnote 47: Page 41.]\n\n[Footnote 48: Page 41.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Page 44.]\n\n\"His disciples believed Jesus to be dead while He was hidden in the\nsepulchre, whereas He was alive, demonstrating within the narrow tomb\nthe power of the spirit to overrule mortal, material sense.\" His\nascension was a final demonstration in which He \"rose above the physical\nknowledge of His disciples and the material senses saw Him no more.\" He\nattained this perfection of demonstration only gradually and He left\nbehind Him an incomplete revelation which was to wait for its full\nillumination for the coming of Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science. Perhaps\nmore justly He left behind Him, according to Mrs. Eddy and her\nfollowers, a body of teaching which could not be clearly understood\nuntil she came to complete the revelation. At any rate, Christian\nScience is really His second coming.\n\n\n_Christian Science His Second Coming_\n\nIn an advertisement printed in the New York _Tribune_ on January 23,\n1921, Augusta E. Stetson says: \"Christ in Christian Science is come to\nthe understanding of those who looked for His reappearing.\" And if\ncertain sentences which follow mean anything, they mean that, in the\nthought of Mrs. Eddy's followers, she completes what Jesus began and\nfulfills the prophecy of His reappearing. \"Her earthly experience runs\nparallel with that of her Master; understood in a small degree only by\nthe few who faintly see and accept the truth, she stood during her\nearthly mission and now stands on the mount of spiritual illumination\ntoward whose heights no feet but those of the blessed Master have so\ndirectly toiled, first in agony and finally, like Jesus Christ the\nmasculine representative of the Fatherhood of God, she as the feminine\nrepresentative of the motherhood of God, will appear in triumphant\ndemonstration of divine power and glory as the combined ideal man in\nGod's image and likeness.\"\n\nAnd, indeed, there are not wanting intimations in \"Science and Health\"\nwhich give to Mrs. Eddy a certainty in this region which Jesus Himself\ndid not possess. He falters where she firmly trod. No need to dwell\nupon the significant omissions which such an interpretation of the\nhistoric Jesus as this demands. The immensely laborious and painstaking\nscholarship which has sought, perplexedly enough it must be confessed,\nto discover behind the Gospel narratives the fundamental facts and\nrealities of His life, is entirely ignored. Mrs. Eddy has no place for\nthe social aspects of the teachings of Christ, indeed His whole system\nof ethic could be \"blacked out\"; as far as her teaching is concerned it\nwould make absolutely no difference.\n\nMrs. Eddy distinguishes, in theory at least though there is no\nconsistency in her use of terms, between Jesus and the Christ. \"Jesus is\nthe human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of\nJesus, the Christ\" (page 473). \"Jesus is the name of the man who, more\nthan all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God, healing\nthe sick and the sinning and destroying the power of death\" (page 473).\n\"In an age of ecclesiastical despotism, Jesus introduced the teaching\nand practice of Christianity ... but to reach His example and test its\nunerring Science according to His rule, ... a better understanding of\nGod as divine Principle, Love, rather than personality or the man Jesus,\nis required\" (page 473).\n\nIt is difficult enough to know just what this means, but as one stands\nfar enough back from it all it seems to reduce Jesus historically to the\nfirst outstanding Christian Science teacher and healer. \"Jesus\nestablished what He said by demonstration, thus making His acts of\nhigher importance than His words. He proved what He taught. This is the\nScience of Christianity. Jesus _proved_ the Principle, which heals the\nsick and casts out error, to be divine\" (page 473). He is, therefore,\nhistorically of chiefest value as the demonstrator of Christian Science,\nthe full philosophy of which apparently awaited a later revelation.\n\n\"Christ is the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through\nChristian Science, and attributes all power to God\" (page 473). \"He\nunveiled the Christ, the spiritual idea of divine Love\" (page 38). The\nChrist of Christian Science, then, is an ideal Truth, a spiritual idea,\napparently an abstraction. But Mrs. Eddy is not consistent in her use of\nthese two names. On one page Christ is \"the spiritual idea of divine\nLove\"; on the next page \"we need Christ and Him crucified\" (page 39),\nthough how an ideal truth or a spiritual idea could possibly be\ncrucified we are not told. In many of her passages Mrs. Eddy uses the\nfamiliar phrase, Jesus Christ, in apparently its ordinary connotations.\n\n\n_The Incarnation: Christian Theology and Christian Science Belong Really\nto Different Regions_\n\nThe Incarnation is disposed of in the same vague way. \"Those instructed\nin Christian Science have reached the glorious perception that God is\nthe only author of man. The virgin mother conceived this idea of God and\ngave to her ideal the name of Jesus.\"[50] \"The illumination of Mary's\nspiritual sense put to silence material law and its order of generation,\nand brought forth her child by the revelation of Truth. The Holy Ghost,\nor divine Spirit, overshadowed the pure sense of the Virgin-mother with\nthe full recognition that being is Spirit.\"[51] \"Jesus was the offspring\nof Mary's self-conscious communion with God.\"[52] Now all this is\nneither honest supernaturalism nor the honest acceptance of the normal\nmethods of birth. It is certainly not the equivalent of the Gospel\naccount whether the Gospel account be accepted or rejected. To use a\nphrase which has come into use since \"Science and Health\" was written,\nthis is a \"smoke screen\" under cover of which Mrs. Eddy escapes the\nnecessity of either accepting or denying the testimony of the Gospels.\n\n[Footnote 50: Page 29.]\n\n[Footnote 51: Page 29.]\n\n[Footnote 52: Page 30.]\n\nSomething of this, one must confess, one may find in not a little\nreligious teaching old and new, but it is doubtful if there is anywhere\nso outstanding an instance of what one may call the smoke screen method\nin the consideration of the Incarnation, as in the passages just quoted.\nAs a matter of fact all this is simply the attempt to fit the idealistic\ndualism, which is the real philosophic basis of Christian Science and\nwhich, in so far as it is capable of explanation at all, can be as\neasily explained in two pages as two hundred, into the theology in which\nMrs. Eddy was nurtured and which was a background common to both herself\nand her disciples. Christian Science would carry far less weight in the\nrace it is running if it frankly cut itself clear of a theology with\nwhich it has fundamentally no affinity. This indoctrination of an\nidealistic dualism with a content of Christian theology probably\nheightens the appeal of the system to those who are most at home in a\nnew faith as they discover there the familiar phrases of their older\nfaith, but it weakens the fundamental Christian Science apologetic. I\nthink, however, we ought justly to recognize this as simply an\ninevitable aspect in the transition of Christian Science from the\northodox faith and experience of historic Christianity to a faith and\nexperience of its own.\n\nSeen as a curious half-truth development made possible by a whole group\nof forces in action at the end of the nineteenth century, Christian\nScience is reasonably intelligible, but as a system of doctrine built\nupon the hitherto accepted bases of Christian fact and teaching, it is\nnot intelligible at all and the long controversy between the Christian\ntheologian and the Christian Science lecturer would best be ended by\nrecognizing that they have so little in common as to make attack and\ncounter-attack a movement in two different dimensions. The one thing\nwhich they have in common is a certain set of words and phrases, but\nthese words and phrases have such entirely different meanings on the one\nside and the other as to make the use of them hopelessly misleading.\n\n\n_The Atonement. The Cross of Christian Science and the Cross of\nTheology_\n\nThere are passing references to the Cross in \"Science and Health,\" but\nthe word is used generally in a figurative and sentimental way. Mrs.\nEddy's cross is simply the pain of being misunderstood and criticised in\nthe preaching and practice of Christian Science, though indeed the Cross\nof Jesus was also the outcome of hostilities and misunderstandings and a\nfinal and terribly fierce method of criticism. One feels that mainly she\nis thinking of her own cross as a misunderstood and abused woman and for\nsuch suggestion she prefers the Cup as a figure to the Cross. As for the\nAtonement \"every pang of repentance and suffering, every effort for\nreform, every good thought and deed will help us to understand Jesus'\nAtonement for sin and aid its efficacy.\"[53] \"Wisdom and Love require\nmany sacrifices of self to save us from sin.\" All this seems to be in\nline with the moral theory of the atonement until we see that in such a\nline as this there is no recognition of the fact that again and again we\nsuffer and that largely for others, and when she adds that \"Its [the\natonement] scientific explanation is that suffering is an error of\nsinful sense which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and\nsuffering will fall at the feet of everlasting love\" (page 23), those\npassages cancel one another, for if suffering be \"an error of sinful\nsense\" it is hard to see how any pang of it can help us to understand\nJesus' atonement unless His suffering be also \"an error of sinful\nsense,\" and this is to reduce the atonement to a like error.\n\n[Footnote 53: Page 19.]\n\nIn another connection Mrs. Eddy finds the efficacy of the Crucifixion\n\"in the practical affection and goodness it demonstrated for mankind.\"\nBut this turns out to be nothing more than that the Crucifixion offers\nChrist a needed opportunity for the instruction of His disciples to\ntriumph over the grave. But since in another connection we are told He\nnever died at all (chapter Atonement and Eucharist, paragraph \"Jesus in\nthe tomb\") even this dissolves into unreality. Moreover the \"eternal\nChrist in His spiritual selfhood never suffered.\"[54] Whichever road she\ntakes here Mrs. Eddy reaches an impasse. It ought to be said, in justice\nto Mrs. Eddy, that her treatment of the atonement reflects the\ndifficulty she found in the theology in which she had been trained as a\ngirl and that there are many true insights in her contentions. She was\nat least seeking a vital and constructive interpretation and doubtless\nher observations, confused as they are, have been for her followers a\nreal way out of a real difficulty. Here, as in so many other regions,\n\"Science and Health\" is best understood by its backgrounds.\n\n[Footnote 54: A curious and far-off echo of early Docetism which also in\nits own way reduced Christ's suffering to a simple seeming to suffer.]\n\nAs a matter of fact there is in Christian Science absolutely no soil in\nwhich to plant the Cross as the Cross is understood in Christian\ntheology. There is no place in Christian Science for vicarious\natonement, whether by God or man; there is little place in Christian\nScience for redemptive suffering; there is a rather narrow region in\nwhich suffering may be considered as instructive, a guide, perhaps, to\nlead us out of unhappy or shadowed regions into the regions of physical\nand, maybe, spiritual and moral well-being, and to quench the love of\nsin.[55] Mrs. Eddy sometimes speaks of Christ as the Saviour but if her\nsystem be pressed to a logical conclusion she must empty the word of all\nthe associations which it has hitherto had and make it simply the\nequivalent of a teacher or demonstrator.\n\n[Footnote 55: Page 36. But this is to recognize the reality of\nsuffering. Mrs. Eddy is here on the threshold of a great truth--that\nsuffering is an aspect of education--but she goes no further.]\n\n\n_Sin an Error of Mortal Mind_\n\nSin along with sickness and death are the projections of mortal error,\nthe creations of mortal mind; sin, sickness and death are to be\nclassified as effects of error. Christ came \"to destroy the belief of\nsin.\" All this is to root sin simply in the mind. No intimation at all\nhere of the part which a perverted will may play in the entanglements of\nlife; no intimation of the immense force of the emotional side of life;\nno intimation here of the immense part which sheer selfishness plays.\nMrs. Eddy's sin is far too simple. There is, once more, a sound reason\nfor that. Mrs. Eddy is twice-born, if you will, but the struggle from\nwhich she finally emerged with whatever measure of victory she attained\nwas not fought out with conscience as the field of battle, or in the\nfinal reconciliation of a divided self finding unity and peace on some\nhigh level.\n\nIf Mrs. Eddy's true struggle was of the soul and not of complaining\nnerves she has left no record of it anywhere. It was rather the reaction\nof a speculative mind against the New England theology. Her experience\nis strangely remote from the experience of Saul of Tarsus, or Augustine,\nor John Bunyan. This is not to deny that in the practical outcome of\nChristian Science as evidenced in the life of its adherents there is not\na very real power of helpful moral adjustment, but the secret of that\nmust be sought in something else than either its philosophy or its\ntheology. Christian theologians themselves have been by no means agreed\nas to what sin really is. Under their touch it became too often a\ntheological abstraction rather than entanglement of personality caught\nin manifold urgencies and pulled this way and that by competing forces\nbattling in the will and flaming in passion and desire. But a sin which\nhas no reality save through a mistaken belief in its existence is\ncertainly as far from the fact of a world like ours as is a sin which is\nonly one factor in a scheme of redemption.\n\nBut at any rate, if sin have no reality except our mistaken persuasion\nthat it be true and if we are delivered from it directly we cease to\nbelieve in it and affirm in the stead of it the reality of love and\ngoodness, then while there may be in such a faith as this both the need\nand possibility of the recasting of our personal lives, there is in it\nneither need nor possibility of the Christian doctrine of the atonement.\nNaturally since man is incapable of sin, sickness and death, he is\nunfallen, nor is \"his capacity or freedom to sin any part of the divine\nplan.\" \"A mortal sinner is not God's man. Mortals are the counterfeits\nof immortals; they are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil\nwhich declares that man begins in dust or as a material embryo\" (page\n475).\n\nHere also is an echo from an early time and a far-off land. It is not\nlikely that Mrs. Eddy ever heard of Mani or Manicheeism, or knew to what\na travail of soul St. Augustine was reduced when he fought his way\nthrough just a kindred line of teaching which, to save God from any\ncontact with or responsibility for evil, affirmed our dual genesis and\nmade us on one side children of darkness and on the other the children\nof light, without ever really trying to achieve in a single personality\nany reconciliation of two natures drawn from two entirely different\nsources. Nor does Mrs. Eddy know that one Eusebius, finding much\nevidence of this faith in the Christianity of the fourth century,\ndismissed it briefly enough as \"an insane heresy.\" Heresy it certainly\nwas for all those who were fighting their way out of their paganism into\nan ordered Christian faith and whether it be insane or no, it is of all\nthe explanations which have been offered for the presence of evil in a\nworld supposedly ruled by the love and goodness of God, the one which\nwill least bear examination. It has been dead and buried these thousand\nyears.\n\nWe may deny, if we are so minded, any freedom of the will at all, so\ninvolving ourselves in an inevitable sequence of cause and effect as to\nmake us also simply weather-vanes driven east or west by winds of\ninheritance and environment which we have no power to deflect and to\nwhich we can only choose to respond. But to deny us the freedom to sin\nand so to shut us up to a determinism of goodness is no more in accord\nwith the facts than to deny us the power to be good and shut us up to a\ndeterminism of sin. If we are free at all we are free in all directions.\n\n\n_The Sacraments Disappear. Mrs. Eddy's Theology a Reaction from the\nRigid Evangelicism of Her Youth_\n\n\"Science and Health\" deals in the same radical way with the sacraments.\nNothing at all, apparently, is made of baptism save that Mrs. Eddy says\nour baptism is a purification from all error. In her account of the Last\nSupper the cup is mostly dwelt upon and that only as showing forth the\nbitter experience of Jesus. The bread \"is the great truth of spiritual\nbeing, healing the sick\" and the breaking of it the \"explaining\" it to\nothers. More is made of what is called the last spiritual breakfast with\nthe Disciples by Lake Galilee than of the Last Supper in the upper room.\n\"This spiritual meeting with our Lord in the dawn of a new light is the\nmorning meal which Christian Scientists commemorate\" (page 35). \"Our\nbread,\" she says, \"which cometh down from heaven, is Truth; our wine,\nthe inspiration of Love\" (page 35). All this is of a piece with the\ngeneral allegorical use of the Old and New Testaments in \"Science and\nHealth,\" but it is a marked departure from the sacrament of the Lord's\nSupper even in the simple memorial way in which it is kept by\nnon-liturgical churches.\n\nMrs. Eddy's theology, then, is in part a reaction from the hard phrasing\nof the evangelical doctrines in which she was trained and it is indeed\nin part a reaching out toward the interpretation of these doctrines in\nterms of life and experience, but as a theology it is extraordinarily\nloose and even though the familiar phrases of Protestant and Catholic\nfaiths are employed, what is left is wholly out of the current of the\nmain movement of Christian theology heretofore. The central articles of\nthe historic creeds practically disappear under Mrs. Eddy's treatment.\n\nHere, then, is a philosophy which will not bear examination, a use of\nScripture which can possibly have no standing in any scholarly\nfellowship, and a theology which empties the central Christian doctrines\nof the great meanings which have heretofore been associated with them.\nAnd yet in spite of all this, Christian Science gets on and commends\nitself to so considerable a number of really sincere people as to make\nit evident enough that it must have some kind of appealing and\nsustaining power. Where, then, is the hiding of its power? Partly, of\ncourse, in its spaciousness. There are times when a half-truth has a\npower which the whole truth does not seem to possess. Half truths can be\naccepted unqualifiedly; they are capable of a more direct appeal and if\nthey be skillfully directed toward needs and perplexities they are\nalways sure of an acceptance; they make things too simple, that is one\nsecret of their hold upon us. This, of course, is more largely true\namong the spiritually undisciplined and the mentally untrained, but even\nthe wisest folk find it easier upon occasion to accept a half truth\nwhich promises an easy satisfaction or deliverance than a whole truth\nwhich needs to be wrestled with and may be agonized over before it\nbrings us into some better estate.\n\n\n_The Real Power of Christian Science is in Neither Its Philosophy Nor\nIts Theology_\n\nWe have already seen what predisposing influences there were in the\nbreaking down of what we have called the accepted validations of\nhistoric Christianity--due, as we have seen also, to many contributing\ncauses--to offer unusual opportunity to any new movement which promised\ndeliverance. But one must seek the conditions which have made possible\nso many strange cults and movements in America, not only in the\nbreakdown of the historic faiths, but also in the state of popular\neducation. Democracy tends, among other things, to lead us to value a\nmovement by the number of people whom it is able to attract. We are,\nsomehow, persuaded that once a majority has accepted anything, what they\nhave accepted must be true and right. Even a strong minority always\ncommands respect. Any movement, therefore, which succeeds in attracting\na considerable number of followers is bound to attract others also, just\nbecause it has already attracted so many. One has only to listen to the\ncurrent comment on Christian Science to feel that this is a real factor\nin its growth.\n\nDemocracy believes in education, but has not commonly the patience to\nmake education thoroughgoing. Its education is very much more likely to\nbe a practical or propaganda education than such training as creates\nthe analytical temper and supplies those massive backgrounds by which\nthe departures of a day are always to be tested. In America particularly\nthere is an outstanding want of background. It needs history,\nphilosophy, economic understanding and a wealth of racial experience to\ngive to any people either the power to quickly discriminate between the\ntruth and the half-truth, or to carry itself with poise through a\ntransitional period. But one may not dispose of the distinct hold of\nChristian Science upon its followers by such generalizations. The real\ninwardness of no religion can ever be known from its theology. A sincere\ndevotion may attend a most deficient theology and we need to be\ncharitable in judging the forms which other people's faith takes. What\nseems unreasonable to one may seem quite right to another and whatever\ncarries a sincere faith deepening into a positive spiritual experience\naccomplishes for the moment its purpose. These studies of Christian\nScience are severe--for one must deal with it as honestly as he knows\nhow--but the writer does not mean that they should fail in a due\nrecognition of the spiritual sincerity of Christian Scientists. We must\ntherefore go in to what is most nearly vitally central in the system to\nfind the real secret of its powers. It continues and grows as a system\nof healing and a religion.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nCHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS A SYSTEM OF HEALING AND A RELIGION\n\n\nChristian Science practice is the application of its philosophy and\ntheology to bodily healing. This is really the end toward which the\nwhole system is directed. \"Science and Health\" is an exposition of Mrs.\nEddy's system as a healing force. Her philosophy and theology are\nincidental, or--if that is not a fair statement--they both condition and\nare conditioned by her system of healing. There is hardly a page in her\nbook without its reference to sickness and health. Her statements are\nconsequently always involved and one needs to stand quite back from them\nto follow their outline. Here, as elsewhere, one may read deeply and\nindirectly between the lines attitudes and beliefs against which she is\nreacting. Her reactions against the environment of her girlhood and\nearly womanhood affect her point of view so distinctly that without the\nrecognition of this a good deal of what she says is a puzzle without a\nkey.\n\n\n_Christian Science the Application of Philosophy and Theology to Bodily\nHealing_\n\nShe had been taught, among other things, that sickness is a punishment\nfor sin. One may safely assume this for the theology of her formative\nperiod fell back upon this general statement in its attempt to reconcile\nindividual suffering and special providence. One ought not justly to say\nthat Mrs. Eddy ever categorically affirms that she had been taught this,\nor as categorically denies the truth of it, but there are statements--as\nfor example page 366--which seem to imply that she is arguing against\nthis and directing her practitioners how to meet and overcome it. This\nperhaps accounts for the rather difficult and wavering treatment of sin\nand sickness in a connection where logically sickness alone should be\nconsidered.\n\nMrs. Eddy would not naturally have thus associated sin and sickness had\nthey not been associated for her in earlier teaching and yet, as has\nbeen said, all this is implicit rather than explicit. The key to a great\ndeal in \"Science and Health\" is not in what the author says, but in the\nreader's power to discover behind her statements what she is \"writing\ndown.\" Her system is both denial and affirmation. In the popular\ninterpretation of it quite as much is made of denial and the recognition\nof error as of its more positive aspects, but in the book there is a\npretty constant interweaving of both the denial of evil and the\naffirmation of well-being.\n\nThere is a sound element of wisdom in many of her injunctions, but more\nneeded perhaps fifty years ago than now. We must remember constantly\nthat Mrs. Eddy is writing against the backgrounds of a somber theology,\na medical practice which relied very greatly on the use of drugs which\nwas at the same time limited in its materia medica and too largely\nexperimental in its practice. She was writing before the day of the\ntrained nurse with her efficient poise. The atmosphere of a sick room is\nnot naturally cheerful and generally both the medical procedure and the\nspiritual comfort of the sick room of the fifties and sixties did very\nlittle to lighten depression. When, therefore, Mrs. Eddy urges, as she\ndoes, an atmosphere of confidence and sympathy she is directly in the\nright direction.\n\n\n_Looseness of Christian Science Diagnosis_\n\nAs we pass beyond these things which are now commonplace, what she says\nis not so simple. It is difficult to say how far the healing which\nattends upon Christian Science is in her thought the result of Divine\nPower immediately in exercise, and how far it is the outcome of\ndisciplines due to the acceptance of her theology and philosophy. It is\nhard also to distinguish between the part the healer plays and the\ncontribution of the subject. There is no logical place in Christian\nScience practice for physical diagnosis. \"Physicians examine the pulse,\ntongue, lungs, to discover the condition of matter, when in fact all is\nMind. The body is the substratum of mortal mind, and this so-called mind\nmust finally yield to the mandate of immortal Mind\" (page 370).\n\nThe result of this in practice is that the Christian Science healer\naccepts either the diagnosis of the medical schools, reported\nsecond-hand or else the patient's own statement of his condition.\nNeedless to say there is room for very great looseness of diagnosis in\nsuch a practice as this. The actuality of sickness must be recognized\nneither directly nor indirectly. The sickness must not be thought or\ntalked. Here also, as far as the patient is concerned, is a procedure of\nundebated value. It all comes back, as we shall see presently, to\nsuggestion, but any procedure which frees the patient from depressing\nsuggestion and substitutes therefor an encouraging suggestion is in the\nright direction. At the same time those who are not Christian Scientists\nwould rather stubbornly believe that somebody must recognize the fact of\nsickness or else we cannot begin to set in action the machinery for\ncuring it, even if that machinery be Christian Science itself, and we do\nnot change this rather stubborn fact by covering sickness with the blank\ndesignation Error. Even the error is real for the time being.[56]\n\n[Footnote 56: The writer once received an unexpected sidelight on the\npractice of the Christian Science healer in this connection. He once\nenjoyed the friendship of a Christian Science healer with whom he often\nplayed golf. He called this healer up one morning to make an\nappointment. His voice was not recognized over the telephone and he was\nmistaken for a patient. The reply came back in professional tones--\"And\nwhat error are you suffering from this morning?\" When he answered that\nhis own particular error was his persuasion that he could play golf the\ntelephone atmosphere was immediately changed.]\n\nThe results of fear are constantly dwelt upon and this too is in the\nright direction. Much is made of the creative power of mind in that it\nimparts purity, health and beauty (page 371). When Mrs. Eddy says on\npage 373 that disease is expressed not so much by the lips as in the\nfunctions of the body she is making one of those concessions to common\nsense which she makes over and over again, but when she attempts to\nexplain how erroneous or--as one may venture to call it--diseased belief\nexpresses itself in bodily function one is reminded of Quimby.\nTemperature, for example, is wholly mental. Mrs. Eddy's reason for\nbelieving this is apparently because \"the body when bereft of mortal\nmind at first cools and afterward it is resolved into its primitive\nmortal elements.\" \"Mortal Mind produces animal heat and then expels it\nthrough the abandonment of a belief or increases it to the point of\nself-destruction\" (page 374). Fever is a mental state. Destroy fear and\nyou end fever.\n\nIn all this there is a profound ignorance of the real causes of fever\nwhich helps us to understand the marked deficiencies of the whole\nsystem. There is nowhere any recognition of the body as an instrument\nfor the transformation and conservation and release of energy real as a\ndynamo. There is nowhere any recognition of the commonplaces of modern\nmedical science in the tracing of germ infections. True enough, medical\nscience had hardly more than begun when \"Science and Health\" was first\nwritten to redefine fevers in terms of germ infection and the consequent\ndisorganization of the balance of physical functionings, and the\noxidation of waste materials real as fire on a hearth, but that is no\nreason why such ignorance should be continued from generation to\ngeneration.\n\n\n_The Power of Mental Environment_\n\nIn general, Christian Science practice as indicated in \"Science and\nHealth\" is a strange mingling of the true, the assumed and the false;\nits assumptions are backed up by selected illustrations and all that\nchallenges it is ignored. Disease is unreal because Mind is not sick and\nmatter cannot be (page 393). But Mind is \"the only I, or Us, divine\nPrinciple, ... Life, Truth, Love; Deity, which outlines but is not\noutlined\" (page 591). In other words Mind is an ideal affirmation which\nMrs. Eddy assumes to underlie human experience and possibly to reveal\nitself through human experience, and it certainly does not follow that\nwhile an ideal affirmation is not sick, a human being involved in the\nnecessary relationships of our present material existence may not be.\nMrs. Eddy never clearly distinguishes between what a speculative mind\nmay affirm and actual experience report. Her dialectic is a constant\nwrestling with reality in a range of statement which involves her in\nmany contradictions. She recognizes what she denies and denies what she\nrecognizes and, in a lawyer's phrase, constantly changes the venue.\n\nBut through and behind it all is an intelligible method. Confidence is\nto be reestablished, fear is allayed, the sufferer from error led to\ncommit himself to healing forces. These healing forces are not\nconsistently defined. Sometimes they are the \"power of the mind to\nsustain the body\" (page 417); sometimes \"the power of Christian Science\"\n(page 412), or \"the power of Truth\" (page 420) or divine Spirit, or her\nbook itself. \"Continue to read and the book will become the physician,\nallaying the tremor which Truth often brings to error when destroying\nit\" (page 422).\n\nMrs. Eddy sometimes anticipates in a vague way the reaction of thought\nand emotion upon physiological function to which Cannon has given such\ncareful attention, but her definite statements are strangely inadequate.\n\"What I term _chemicalization_ is the upheaval produced when immortal\nTruth is destroying erroneous mortal belief. Mental chemicalization\nbrings sin and sickness to the surface, forcing impurities to pass away,\nas is the case with a fermenting fluid\" (page 401).[57] She recognizes\nthe limits of Christian Science practice when she advises her followers\nto leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to\nthe fingers of a surgeon until the advancing age admits the efficacy and\nsupremacy of mind (page 401).\n\n[Footnote 57: Compare \"The Quimby Manuscripts,\" p. 118.]\n\nGreat care is to be taken as to the patient's mental environment. Mrs.\nEddy's constant emphasis upon this explains the excessive separatist\nnature of Christian Science. More than almost any other of its cults it\nseparates its followers from those who do not belong to the cult. They\ncannot, naturally, attend churches in which the reality of disease is\nrecognized; they must have their own nurses as well as their own\nhealers; in certain regions they must confine their reading to their own\nliterature; their children must be educated, on their religious side, in\ntheir own cult schools and they cannot consistently associate themselves\nwith remedial movements which assume another philosophy as their basis.\nIt is difficult for a detached observer to see how a consistent\nChristian Scientist reconciles the general conclusions of a modern\nscientific education with the presuppositions of his cult. That he does\nthis is one more testimony to a power which indeed is exercised in many\nother fields than the field of Christian Science to keep in the\npractical conduct of life many of our governing conceptions in different\nand apparently water-tight compartments.\n\n\n_Christian Science Defines Disease as a Belief Which if Treated as an\nError Will Disappear_\n\nThe answer to such a line of criticism is, of course, in the familiar\nChristian Science phrase that perfect demonstration has not yet been\nachieved in the regions in which the Christian Scientist appears to be\ninconsistent. But beyond this is the rather stubborn fact that in some\nof these regions demonstration never will be realized; Christian Science\nis confined to the field in which suggestion may operate. Mrs. Eddy is\nmost specific about diseases, concerning which the medical practice of\nher time was most concerned and in the light of later medical science\nmost ignorant--fever, inflammation, indigestion, scrofula, consumption\nand the like. These are all beliefs and if treated as error they will\ndisappear. Even death is a dream which mind can master, though this\ndoubtless is only Mrs. Eddy's way of affirming immortality. She hardly\nmeans to say that death is not a fact which practically has to be\nreckoned with in ways more final and unescapable than any other fact in\nlife. As Dr. Campbell Morgan once said: \"If you have the misfortune to\nimagine that you are dead, they will bury you.\"\n\nMrs. Eddy concludes her chapter on Christian Science Practice with an\nallegory which she calls a mental court case, the suggestion of which is\nto be found in one of the Quimby manuscripts.[58] Since this manuscript\nis dated 1862 it anticipates Mrs. Eddy by almost thirteen years. The\nsetting is like the trial of Faithful and Christian in the town of\nVanity Fair as recorded in Bunyan's \"Pilgrim Progress.\" Doubtless\nmemories of Mrs. Eddy's reading of that deathless allegory are\nreproduced in this particular passage which the author is inclined to\nbelieve she wrote with more pleasure than anything else ever turned out\nby her too facile pen. Personal Sense is the plaintiff, Mortal Man the\ndefendant, False Belief the attorney for Personal Sense, Mortal Minds,\nMateria Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Hypnotism, Envy, Greed and\nIngratitude constitute the Jury. The court room is filled with\ninterested spectators and Judge Medicine is on the bench. The case is\ngoing strongly against the prisoner and he is likely to expire on the\nspot when Christian Science is allowed to speak as counsel for the\ndefense. He appeals in the name of the plaintiff to the Supreme Court of\nSpirit, secures from the jury of the spiritual senses a verdict of \"Not\nGuilty\" and with the dismissal of the case the chapter on Christian\nScience Practice ends.\n\n[Footnote 58: \"The Quimby Manuscripts,\" p. 172.]\n\n\n_Christian Science Has a Rich Field to Work_\n\nNow what can finally be said of the whole matter? In general, two\nthings. Recognizing the force and reality of psycho-therapy Christian\nScience gets its power as a healing system from the great number of\npeople who are open to its appeal and the shrewd combination of elements\nin the appeal itself. In spite of our great advance in medical knowledge\nand practice and in spite of the results of an improved hygiene there\nremains in society at large a very great deposit of physical ill-being\nsometimes acute, sometimes chronic, sometimes clearly defined, sometimes\nvague, badly treated cases, hopeless cases and a great reach of cases\nwhich are due rather to disturbed mental and moral states than to\nascertainable physical causes. Illness has its border-land region as\nwell as thought and the border-land faiths make their foremost appeal to\nthose who, for one reason or another, live in border-land physical\nstates.\n\nAnd, to repeat, the number of those who belong to this group is\nunexpectedly large. Naturally such as these grasp at anything which\noffers help; they supply to the manufacturer of cure-all drugs their\nclientele; they fill printed pages with testimonials of marvellous cures\nachieved where the regular medical faculty had been helpless; they crowd\nabout every faith healer; they are the comrades of the pilgrims to\nLourdes and Ste. Anne de Beaupre; they belong to the fellowship of those\nwho, in the Middle Ages, haunted shrines and sought out relics and asked\nto be touched by kings. We discover their forebears in the pages of the\nGospels and as far back as any records go we see this long, pathetic\nprocession of the hopeless or the handicapped seeking help. And again\nand again they get it, for we have also seen that, given faith enough\neither in a saint or a shrine or a system, psycho-therapy with certain\nsubjects and in certain cases does heal. But this type of healing\ndepends upon no one philosophy or no single force except indeed those\nobscure forces which are released by suggestion.\n\nWhile this was being written certain evangelistic faith healers in the\ncity of Detroit were sending out broadsides of testimonials to their\nhealings, as definite in detail as the testimonials in \"Science and\nHealth,\" or the _Christian Science Journal_, and yet the basal\nprinciples by which these men have claimed to work are as different from\nthe basal principles of Christian Science as east is from west. While\nthis is being revised Coue, the apostle of suggestion according to the\nNancy school, is besieged in New York by those who have been led to hope\nfor healing through the success of his method. Whether the relic be true\nor false does not matter if only the relic be believed in.\n\n\n_One of the Most Strongly-Drawn Systems of Psycho-therapy Ever Offered_\n\nNow Christian Science is one of the most strongly drawn\npsycho-therapeutic agencies ever offered. Most faith healing systems\nheretofore have depended upon some place, some thing, some healer. Here\nis a system capable of the widest dissemination and dependent only upon\na book and its interpreters. It universalizes what has heretofore, for\none reason or another, been localized. It is shrewdly organized, as far\nas propaganda goes, and effectively directed. It is widely advertised by\nits friends--and its critics. Its temples, for beauty and dignity, put\nto shame most Protestant churches. Its rituals combine in an unusual way\nthe simple and the dramatic. It is so fortunately situated as to be able\nto keep finance--which is a trying element in Protestant Church life--in\nthe background. Its followers have that apostolic fervour which attaches\nto movements sure of their divine commission and not yet much worn by\ntime. It possesses distinctly one of Sir Henry Jones' hall-marks of\nreligion. \"It impassions the spirit of its disciples and adds\nconsequence to the things it sanctions or condemns.\"\n\nIt draws upon deeply established Christian reverences and faiths. It\nsecures for its authority the persistent but perplexed faith in the\nBible which the average Protestant inherits and for those who believe in\nit the force of this authority is no wise weakened by the fact that by\nevery sound canon of Biblical interpretation it is illicit. Its very\ndogmatism is an asset. It could not do its work if it were less sure.\nThe confusions of the systems which try the critically minded are a\ncontribution to the devout who find in them an added opportunity for\nfaith. Its experience meetings create enthusiasm and confidence. It is,\nin short, more than any one of the movements we are here considering, a\nclearly defined cult whose intensities, limitations and mystic\nassurances all combine to produce among its disciples the temper most\nfavourable to suggestion and it locks up on its force as a system of\nhealing.\n\nAn accurate analysis of what it actually accomplishes would require an\nimmense and probably impossible labour--a knowledge of each case, an\naccurate diagnosis when even for the trained diagnostician the thing is\ndifficult enough, and the following up of all reported cases. The\nmedical faculty would probably have done better to have taken such\nmovements as these more seriously and to have brought to them a trained\ninvestigation which, except in the case of Lourdes, has never even been\nattempted. Doubtless there is looseness and inconsistency in the whole\nsystem. Almost any one who has had a practical observation of the\nworking of Christian Science has knowledge enough not only of looseness\nand inconsistency but of what seems to the non-Christian Science mind\npositive untruth. Something, however, must always be allowed here for\nthe way in which the mind acts under excitement and for the way in which\ndelusion deludes. All this combines to make any final judgment in this\nregion difficult, but there still remains, after all qualification, an\narresting solidity of achievement. Christian Science does work,\nespecially with the self-absorbed, the neurotic and those who have\nneeded, above all, for their physical deliverance, a new access to faith\nand courage. Christian Science practitioners have also an unusual\nopportunity in what may be called moral rehabilitation with physical\nconsequences. The physician has a better chance with the bodies of his\npatients than with their souls; the minister a better chance with the\nspiritual needs of his parishioners than with their bodies and habits;\nthe Christian Science practitioner to an unusual extent has the whole of\nlife under his control and it ought in all fairness to be conceded that\nthis power is helpfully employed.\n\nThe very discipline of Christian Science is itself a therapeutic. There\nare really a good many things which become non-existent directly you\nbegin to act as if they did not exist. An atmosphere in which no one\nrefers to his ailment and every one to his well-being is a therapeutic\natmosphere. Psychologists have taught us that if we go through the\nmotions of being happy we are likely to have an access of happiness; if\nwe go through the motions of being unhappy we have an access of misery.\nIf we go through the motions of being well, very often we achieve a\nsound measure of health.\n\n\n_But it is Fundamentally a System of Suggestion_\n\nAll this has been so strongly dwelt upon of late as to make any extended\nconsideration of it unnecessary here, as indeed any extended\nconsideration is impossible for any one save a specialist. What we are\nmore concerned with is the way in which the discipline and philosophy of\nChristian Science produce their results. The answer to this question is\nas plain as anything can be in our present state of knowledge, for\nessentially, as a healing force, Christian Science stands or falls with\nthe therapeutic power of suggestion. It is a strongly drawn system of\npsycho-therapy because it is a strongly drawn system of suggestion. Its\nsuggestion involves assumptions which are sometimes philosophy,\nsometimes theology, and more commonly a baffling interplay of the two.\n\nBut the outcome of it all is the practical persuasion on the part of the\npatient that he is not sick and does not need so much to get well as to\ndemonstrate that he is well, and that in this demonstration he has an\nabsolute force on his side. To this end the whole body of affirmation,\npersuasion, assumption, suggestion and technique of Christian Science is\ndirected. As one tries to analyze these separate elements they are,\ntaken singly, inconsistent, often unverifiable and often enough, by any\ntests at all save the tests of Christian Science, positively untrue. But\nas Mrs. Eddy has combined them and as they are applied in practice they\ndo possess an undeniable power. They are not dependent, as has been\nsaid, fundamentally upon persons or things or places. Here is a coherent\nsystem, the force of which may be felt when it is not understood and it\nbears upon the perplexed or the impressionable with very great power. It\nwould be appreciably weakened if any one of its constituent elements\nwere taken out of it. But fundamentally it can do no more than any other\nsystem of suggestion, unquestionably accepted, can do.\n\n\n_It is Bound to be Affected by Our Growing Understanding of the Ranges\nof Suggestion_\n\nA deal of water has gone under the bridge since Mary Baker Eddy began\nher work. What was then almost wholly involved in mystery is now\nbeginning to be reduced to law. The psychology of suggestion is by no\nmeans clear as yet, nor are the students of it agreed in their\nconclusions, but we do know enough about the complex character of\nconsciousness, the actuality of the subconscious and the reaction of\nstrongly held attitudes upon bodily states to be in the way, generally,\nof freeing this whole great matter from the priest, the healer, the\ncharlatan or the prophet of strange cults and referring it hereafter for\ndirection and employment to its proper agents--the physician, the expert\nin disordered mental conditions and the instructed spiritual adviser.\n\nIt is now generally agreed that suggestion, however induced, may\npositively affect bodily function. If it is a wrong suggestion its\neffects are hurtful, right suggestion its effects are helpful. Now since\na vast range of physical maladjustments--and this may be broadened to\ninclude nervous maladjustments as well--is functional, suggestive\ntherapeutics have a far-reaching and distinct field. When Christian\nScience or any other healing cult reports cures in this field, those\ncures, if verified by sufficient testimony, may be accepted as\naccomplished. Those who have accomplished them may take what credit they\nwill for their own agency in the matter, but for all that the cure is no\ntestimony at all to the truth or falsity of their system. It proves only\nthat those helped have believed it.\n\nThe matter of organic healing is more difficult. Medical Science does\nnot generally admit the possibility of organic change through\nsuggestion. There may be, however, a real difference of opinion as to\nwhether a particular trouble is functional or organic. Here is a\nborder-land not so much of fact as of diagnosis. A cure may be reported\nas of an organic trouble when the basal diagnosis was wrong and it was\nonly functional, but the body possesses undoubtedly the power of\ncorrecting or at least of limiting organic disease. Tuberculosis is an\norganic disease but it is again and again limited and finally overcome\nwithout the knowledge of the subject. Post-mortem examinations may\nreveal scars in the lungs and so reflect processes only thus brought to\nlight.\n\nWhatever serves general physical well-being may greatly help the body in\neliminating disease and securing a going measure of physical health. In\nsuch indirect ways as these suggestion may, therefore, while not acting\ndirectly upon diseased organism, contribute most distinctly to arrest\norganic disease. Thoughtful physicians are ready to concede this and\nthus open a door for a measure of organic healing which technically\ntheir science denies. A very revealing light has been let in upon this\nwhole region by hypnotism. Some of the students of hypnotism are\ninclined to go as far as to admit organic change under hypnotic\nsuggestion. \"Strong, persistent impressions or suggestions made on the\nreflex organic consciousness of the inferior centers may modify their\nfunctional disposition, induce trophic changes, and even change organic\nstructures.\"[59]\n\n[Footnote 59: Sidis, \"The Psychology of Suggestion,\" p. 70.]\n\nChristian Science, then, as a healing agency has a great field for there\nare always folk enough to heal. It has a method, a discipline highly\neffective in producing changed mental and spiritual states and,\nstrangely enough, it is all the more effective because it is so narrowly\ntrue. Those to whom it makes its appeal are, for the most part, not\ncapable of analyzing through to their sources its fundamental\ninveracities, nor would they be inclined to do that if they were able.\nIts vagueness and its spacious rhetoric really give it power. It does\nproduce results and probably one case of physical betterment has a\nprevailing power which a chapter of criticisms cannot overcome and, more\nthan that, one case of physical betterment may screen a dozen in which\nnothing happened at all.\n\nFor Christian Science has in this region two alibis which can always be\nbrought into action, the most perfect ever devised. If it fails to cure\nit is either because the one who was not cured lacked faith, or because\nof the erroneous belief of some one else. A system which believes that\nthe toxic effect of poisons depends upon the vote of the majority in\nthat arsenic will cease to be a poison when everybody ceases to think of\nit as a poison and will be a poison as long as anybody believes it is,\nis perfectly safe even if it should fail to cure a case of arsenical\npoison, for until facts and experience cease to weigh at all there will\nalways be some one somewhere believing that arsenic is a poison and that\none will be the scapegoat for the system.\n\n\n_As a Religion it is Strongest in Teaching That God Has Meaning for the\nWhole of Life_\n\nChristian Science is, however, more than a system of mental\ntherapeutics, it is also a religion and due allowance must be made in\nany just appraisal of it for the way in which it has made religion real\nto many for whom religion had ceased to have a working reality. It needs\nto be said on one side that a good deal of Christian Science religion is\nreally taking the Ark of God to battle, using religion, that is, for\ncomfort, material prosperity, health and just such tangible things. But\nChristian Science meets a demand of the time also just here. Our own\nage, deeply entangled in material satisfactions, has no mind to postpone\nthe satisfactions of religion to a future life. The monk and, indeed,\nthe generality of the devout in the medieval Church sought in\nself-limited earthly joy a proper discipline for the soul and a state in\ncontrast to which the felicities for which they paid so great a price\nshould be the more welcome. The devout of Mary Baker Eddy's time, though\ninclined to find in material well-being a plain mark of divine favour,\nnone the less accepted sickness and sorrow as from the hand of God and\nprayed that with a meek and lowly heart they might endure this fatherly\ncorrection and, having learned obedience by the things they suffered,\nhave a place amongst those who, through faith and patience, inherit His\npresence.\n\nBut our own time is not so eager to inherit promises as to enter into\npossession. A religion which does not demonstrate itself in actual\nwell-being is under suspicion. The social passion now much in evidence\namong the churches grows out of this as well as the many cults which\nseek the proof of the love of God in health, happiness and prosperity.\nAnd indeed all this is natural and right enough. If religion be real the\nfruits of it should be manifest, though whether these are the more\nsignificant and enduring fruits of the spirit may be questioned. A\nreligion which demonstrates itself in motor-cars and generous incomes\nand more than comfortable raiment may be real enough to those who\nprofess it, but its reality is not quite the reality of the religion of\nthe Sermon on the Mount.\n\nChristian Science is in line with a distinct contemporaneous demand to\ndemonstrate God's love in about the terms of Jacob's famous vow at\nBethel--\"If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go,\nand will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on so that I come again\nto my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God.\" This is a\nfar cry from the noble protestation of Job which sounds still across the\nyears: \"Though he slay me, still will I trust in him.\"\n\nAnd yet the more sensitive and richly endowed among the followers of\nMary Baker Eddy have found in Christian Science other values than these.\nThey have passed, by a sort of saving instinct, beyond its\ncontradictions and half-truths to what is centrally best in the whole\nsystem. God, that is, has a meaning for life not hereafter but now, not\nin creeds but in experience, not alone in hard disciplinary ways, but in\nloving and intimate and helpful ways. True enough, this is no monopoly\nof Christian Science; Christianity holds this truth in fee simple. But\nunfortunately, in ways which it is perfectly possible to trace, the\ngreat emphases of Christianity have in the past been too largely shifted\nfrom this.\n\nThere has been and still is in most Protestant churches too much\nreticence about the meaning of God for the individual life and maybe too\ngreat hesitation in really using to the full the proffer of divine\npower. The accepted understandings of the place of pain and suffering in\nlife have been, as it were, a barrier between the perplexed and their\nGod; His love has not, somehow, seemed sufficiently at the service of\nmen, and though Christian Science secures the unchallenged supremacy of\nthe love of God by emptying it of great ranges of moral meaning and\nshutting away therefrom all the shadowed side of life, it has probably\njustified the love of God to multitudes who have, for one reason and\nanother, heretofore questioned it and they have discovered in this\nnew-found sense of God's love and presence, a reality and wealth of\nreligious experience which they had never known before.\n\n\n_It Exalts the Power of Mind But Ignores Too Largely the Processes by\nWhich Mind Realizes Its Ideals_\n\nThere is also in Christian Science practice and philosophy the\napprehension of a real truth which New Thought formulates much more\nclearly. Mind is creative. (Not alone mind with a capital \"M\" but our\nown every-day, human, small \"m\" mind.) The trouble is that Christian\nScience hopelessly short-circuits the creative process. Our human world\nis finally what we make it through our insight, our understanding and\nabove all by our sense of values, but the actual achievement of changed\npurposes in a changed world is a process whose immensity is not even so\nmuch as hinted at in \"Science and Health.\" Christian Science too largely\nignores and seems commonly to deny the whole disciplinary side of life\nwith its inevitable accompaniment of failure, fault and pain. Pain is no\ndelusion; pain is the sign of something gone wrong in the great business\nof normal physical life. Nor is sin only an unreality which \"seems real\nto human erring belief\"; sin is a sign that something has gone wrong in\nthe struggle for a normal, disciplined, moral life. Nor is the whole\nbody of evil simply a shadow to be dismissed as easily as one turns\none's back upon some darkness and faces toward the light; evil is the\nsign of something gone wrong, or something not yet attained in the\nmassive progress of a humanity which combines in itself so many\ndiscordant elements, which has so long a way to go and so much to learn\nand so many things to conquer as it struggles upward toward a happier\nstate.\n\nChristian Science cannot in the end be true to the great facts of\nexperience, which have a power beyond the force of any assertion to\ncountervail, unless it is false to Mary Baker Eddy's philosophy, nor can\nit be true to its philosophy without impoverishing moral and spiritual\nendeavour. It is hard to find a place in the system--taken rigidly--for\nsympathy or tenderness or the richest of human qualities, or for those\nelements of wealth in character contributed by pain bravely borne or\nsorrow uncomplainingly accepted. There is little place in Christian\nScience for the Beatitudes and less still for that fine courage which is\nitself the one assured victory which the hard beset may win on any field\nof battle. The writer believes that while this severe judgment is\njustified by \"Science and Health,\" it is not justified by the practical\noutcome of the cult in the lives of many of its disciples. They are in\ndevotion and kindness the equal of many in the Church and superior to\nsome. Their loyalty to their Church rebukes a good deal of orthodox\neasy-going. All of which proves at least that life is bigger than our\ntheories about it and in the end subdues those who would make the best\nof it, to communities of experience and understanding in which we are\nall strangely kin. For, after all, unpleasant things cannot be thought\nout; they must be fought out and dug out and lived out. The whole\nredemptive force of society in thoroughgoing and far-reaching ways must\nbe brought to bear upon the very sources of all the evil side of life,\nand the bare philosophy of Christian Science is not equal to this task.\n\n\n_Is Not Big Enough for the Whole of Experience_\n\nIt is doubtful if Christian Science has ever made an appreciable change\nin the mortality statistics of any city and yet if the Public Health\nDepartment were to permit for forty-eight hours the milk or water supply\nof a city to be polluted, statistics would disclose that within ten\ndays. This is only an illustration but it does illustrate. We must work\nif we are to dig up the roots of evil things and get a better growth in\ntheir stead and anything which attempts to substitute for this a denial\nof the reality of the evil, a mystical religious attitude and a mere\nformula of faith, no matter how oft repeated or how sincerely accepted,\nor indeed no matter how efficacious in certain selected regions among\ncertain selected groups, is on the whole not a contribution to human\nwell-being.\n\nVery likely Mrs. Eddy's followers in the practical conduct of their\nlives are already recognizing this and gradually, and maybe\nunconsciously, adapting themselves to it. There are already signs of\ncertain processes of conformity to the necessities of experience; these\nare likely to go farther. If Christian Science follows the history of\nsuch movements in the past, it will, after having made its own distinct\nassertion of whatever measure of truth it contains, be gradually swept\nback into the main current of religion and practice. It will maintain a\nnominal distinctness, but in the general conduct of life it will lose\nits more outstanding characteristics and become largely a distinction\nwithout a difference. Milmine, in her thoughtful criticism of Christian\nScience at the end of her history says that the future of Christian\nScience stands or falls with psycho-therapy.\n\nThat is true only on the one side. As far as Christian Science has true\nreligious insights and approaches it will go on in spite of what happens\nto psycho-therapy, though there is enough in psycho-therapy to assure\nits future within well-defined regions if that were all. Something\nbigger than psycho-therapy will finally judge and dismiss Christian\nScience to its own place--life and experience will do that--and it is\nsafe to say that in the end Christian Science will have to come to terms\nwith a truth bigger than its own, with a body of experience which cannot\nbe dealt with on the selective process of taking what you want and\ndenying the rest, and more than that, it will have to come to terms with\nthe whole great matter of an intellectual, moral and spiritual struggle\ngoverned by law and conditioned by the vaster world of which we are a\npart. This is not to deny that Christian Science and allied teachings\nhave made contributions of real value to our common problem. It is only\nto affirm that here is something not big enough for the whole either of\ntruth or experience.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nNEW THOUGHT\n\n\nNew Thought has been defined as \"an attitude of mind, not a cult.\" It is\nreally both. It is necessary to include it in this study because it is a\ncult; it is hard justly to appraise it because it is an attitude of\nmind. Attitudes of mind are as elusive as the play of light on running\nwater. We can estimate their force and direction only as we have an\nunderstanding of the main currents of thought by which they are carried\nalong and as far as New Thought goes these main currents are far older\nthan the cult itself.\n\n\n_New Thought Difficult to Define; \"An Attitude of Mind, Not a Cult\"_\n\nNew Thought has never had an apostolic succession or a rigid discipline\nor a centralized organic form. This has given to it a baffling looseness\nin every direction, but has, on the other hand, given it a pervasive\nquality which Christian Science does not possess. It has a vast and\ndiffuse literature and so merges into the general movement of\ncontemporaneous thought as to make it difficult to find anywhere a\ndistinct demarcation of channels.\n\nNew Thought is either a theology with a philosophic basis or a\nphilosophy with a theological bias. It is centrally and quite distinctly\nan attempt to give a religious content to the present trend of science\nand philosophy, a reaction against old theologies and perhaps a kind of\nnebula out of which future theologies will be organized. For a great\ntheology is always the systematic organization of a complex of forces, a\nmassive structure wrought through the years by manifold builders\nsubduing a rich variety of material to their purposes.\n\nThe teaching of the Scriptures, old traditions, the needs of worship and\norganization, political and social circumstances, changing moral ideals,\nthe trend of philosophies and sciences, the challenge of schisms and\nheresies, the sanctifying power of blind custom and the mystical\nauthority of the Church itself all combine to make a theology. Once a\ngreat theology is so constituted it possesses an immense power over\nlife. It shapes character and ideals and gives direction to faith,\norders effort and so becomes, as it were, a mould into which souls and\nsocieties are cast.\n\nTheologies may be changed, in fact they are always in the way of being\nchanged, but they yield slowly to transforming forces. Nothing is so\npersistent as organized faith and yet the very strength of a great\ntheology is always its weakness. It is never really anything else than a\ncrystallization of past forces. The experiences which voice themselves\nin theology have cooled and hardened down; the philosophy which is\nimplicit in theology is past philosophy; the science implicit in\ntheology is senescent science.\n\nThere is always in evidence, then, in the regions of theology a\ndisturbing pressure occasioned by the reaction of contemporaneous\nmovements in science and philosophy and understandings of life generally\nupon these old and solidly established inherited forms. Currents of\nthought are always, as it were, running past the great formulae since\nthought is free and formulae are rigid, and then returning upon them.\nFrom time to time this movement gathers great force. The old has been\nrigid so long, the new is so insistent that the conflict between them\nfills an age with its clamour, stresses souls to its travail, breaks\ndown ancient forms without immediately building up their equivalent, and\ncontributes uncertainties and restlessnesses everywhere in evidence.\n\nNow this is exactly what has been happening in the region of religion in\nthe last thirty years. An inherited order, strongly fashioned and\norganized and long essentially unchanged, has been compelled to take\naccount of the forces about it. Certainly theology is not so static as\nan earlier paragraph would seem to indicate, none the less the great\ntheological centralities do possess an immense power of resistance. We\nhave already seen how little Protestantism had changed since the\nReformation until it met the full impact of modern science and\nphilosophy. We have had really until our own time and still largely\ncontinue a theology with the Creation story of the ancient Hebrews, the\noutlook upon life of the age of the Apostles, the philosophy of the\nGreek fathers, St. Augustine's conception of human nature and the\nexpectation of the end of the world and the issues of history of the\nJewish apocalypse given a Christian interpretation.\n\nTrue enough, there are in all this precious and timeless qualities but\nthere is also through all the fabric of our formulated faith the\ninterweaving of such understandings as those who shaped our creeds had,\nof law and history and truth. Any far-reaching change, then, in\nphilosophy or science was bound to profoundly affect religion and even\nforty years ago far-reaching modifications of the old order were\noverdue.\n\nNew Thought is just one outcome of the tremendous impact of\ncontemporaneous thought upon our inherited theology; a detached fragment\nor rather group of fragments, for even as a cult New Thought, as has\nbeen said, is loosely organized and its varying parts have in common\nonly a common drift. Yet that drift is significant for it has beneath it\nthe immense force of a philosophy which has been gathering head for more\nthan a century. It is to this, therefore, that we ought to address\nourselves for any understanding of the changed outlook upon life which\nis carried, as it were, from the surface of profounder tides.\n\n\n_\"The Rediscovery of the Inner Life\"_\n\nJosiah Royce dismisses the whole of philosophy from Spinoza to Kant in\none single pregnant phrase. He calls it \"the rediscovery of the inner\nlife.\" It is along this line that modern philosophy and religion\napproach each other. Religion has always been the setting forth of the\ninner life in terms of its relationship to God and the proofs of the\nreality of religion have always been found in the experiences of the\nsoul. The mystic particularly made everything of the inner life; he\nlived only in its realities. For the sake of its enrichment and its\nempowerment he subjected himself to rigorous disciplines. Its\nrevelations were to him all sufficient, for having found God therein he\nasked for nothing beside.\n\nWherein, then, is this new mysticism, or better, this new cult of the\ninner life different from the old? It is not easy to answer that\nquestion in a paragraph, though it is easy to feel the answer in any\ncomparison of the great classics of mysticism--which are mostly\nspiritual autobiographies--and New Thought literature. To turn from St.\nAugustine to Dresser, or from St. Theresa to Trine is to change\nspiritual and intellectual climates. There is in the modern literature\nlittle reflection of such spiritual struggle as fills the great\nConfessions with the agony of embattled souls, nor any resolution of\nsuch struggle into the peace of a soul \"fully awake as regards God but\nwholly asleep as regards things of this world and in respect of\nherself.\" This testimony of St. Theresa is illuminating as a contrasting\nbackground for New Thought. There the soul is very much awake, both as\nregards things of this world and in respect of herself.\n\nThese new cults of the inner life are far more self-conscious than the\nold and far more self-analytical. They seek to discern the laws in\nanswer to which they act and utilize those laws in the practical conduct\nof life. They are always either appealing to underlying philosophies or\nelse trying to make a philosophy of their own. Mysticism made\neverything of God and nothing of itself. It plotted its mystic way but\nknew nothing of psychology. New Thought seeks to discover in psychology\na road to God. The centers of mysticism were emotional; the centers of\nNew Thought are intellectual. All these cults are far more akin to\nGnosticism than mysticism, though they are saved, yet not wholly, from\nthe lawlessness of Gnosticism by a pretty constant return to the\noutstanding conclusions of science and philosophy.\n\n\n_Spinoza's Quest_\n\nNow if we seek to discover the real genesis of the movement and trace\nits development we would better begin, so deep are the roots of things,\nwith Spinoza rather than Quimby. Here the deeper currents, upon the\nsurface of which New Thought moves, take their rise and here also we\nreturn to Royce's phrase--\"the rediscovery of the inner life\"--and the\nphilosopher who inaugurated the philosophic quest for just this\ndiscovery.\n\nSpinoza was one of the last of the mystics and the first of the modern\nphilosophers. He shared with the mystics of an earlier time a consuming\nsense of the futility of life save as life perfected itself in\ncontemplations of an eternal excellency and communion with something far\ngreater than itself. \"After experience had taught me,\" he says (and this\nis quoted from Royce's \"Spirit of Modern Philosophy\"), \"that all the\nusual surroundings of social life are vain and futile, seeing that none\nof the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good\nor bad except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally\nresolved to inquire whether there might be some real good which would\naffect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else, whether there\nmight be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me\nto enjoy continuous, supreme and unending happiness.\"\n\nNow there is in all this a strangely modern note--dissatisfaction with\nwhat is offered by the commonplace and the accepted, a great emphasis\nupon the mind as the key to the readjustments of life, a quest for some\nsingle formula which would offer \"continuous, supreme and unending\nhappiness.\" This is exactly what Mary Baker Eddy and all the other\nperplexed and bodily broken \"seekers\" who gathered about Quimby were\nreally wanting and this is what, for one reason or another, the\nproffered religious experiences of their time failed to secure them.\n\"This was, then,\" to quote Royce, \"the beginning of Spinoza's Pilgrim's\nProgress.\" (As indeed it is the beginning of every Pilgrim's Progress.)\n\"But now, for what distinguishes him from other mystics and makes him a\nphilosopher and not a mere exhorter, he has his religious passion, he\nmust reflect upon it ... the philosopher must justify his faith.\"\n\nWe have no need here to follow Spinoza along all the way, difficult and\nmisty enough, by which he sought to justify his faith. The outstanding\nfact is enough. He is a mystic who reasons his way through where the\nelder mystic has felt his way through, and the goal which he finally\nreaches, though it be the goal which the earlier mystics had found by\nother roads,--the loss of self in God--is none the less such an\nachievement of reason as Spinoza was able to compass.\n\n\n_Kant Reaffirms the Creative Power of Mind_\n\nSo this polisher of lenses bequeathed to the century which followed him\nits greatest inheritance and set for it its greatest task: the inner\nlife as the supreme concern of the philosopher and the discovery of its\nlaws and the interpretations of its realities the supreme task of\nphilosophy. Those who continued his work began far enough, apparently,\nfrom the point where he left off and went a road strangely remote from\nhis. Having taken the inner life for their study they sought to lay bare\nits very foundations. Nowadays, if we are so minded, we dictate to\nmachines which write our words curiously enough in shallow lines upon\nwax cylinders and when the cylinders are full shave off the fragile\nrecord and begin again.\n\nThis is what the eighteenth century did for the mind. It reduced it to a\nvirgin surface, it affirmed the reality of nothing except the\nimpressions thereupon registered by what sense supplied. We owe to\nexperience and to experience only \"all that vast store which the busy\nand boundless fancy of man has painted on it [the white paper of the\nmind] with an almost endless variety.\" We have nothing with which to\nbegin but sensation; we have nothing to go on with but reflection.\n\"These two, namely external, material things as the objects of\nsensation, and the operations of our own minds within as the objects of\nreflection, are the only originals from whence all our ideas take their\nbeginnings.\"[60] Such things as these are perhaps enough to begin with,\nbut they are not enough to go on with as our thinkers soon enough\ndiscover. Some way must be found to relate the material thus supplied\nand to build it up into a glowing, continuous, reasonable and conscious\ninner life.\n\n[Footnote 60: Locke, \"Essay Concerning the Human Understanding.\"]\n\nSo in turn the philosophers laboured at their problem. They made much\nnot only of reflection but of association; they found a place for memory\nand imagination; they discovered that we may as truly define experience\nin terms of ideas as of sensation; they discovered finally that by no\npossible process even of the most ingenious reasoning can you get the\nfull wealth of life out of a mind which was nothing more to begin with\nthan a piece of white paper, any more than you can get Hamlet (if we may\nsuppose Shakespeare to have used a dictaphone) out of a wax cylinder, a\nneedle and a diaphragm.\n\nSo Kant ended what Spinoza began, by reaffirming the creative power of\nthe mind itself. It does far more than passively receive, it interprets,\norganizes, contributes, creates. True enough, it is not an unconditioned\ncreator, it has laws of its own in obedience to which it finds both its\nfreedom and its power. It must take the material which experience\nsupplies and yet, in its higher ranges, in the regions of conduct and\nfaith, that is, where conscience has become the guide and the\nnecessities of the soul the law, we do possess the power in\nenfranchising obediences and splendid adventures of faith to make a\nworld rich in goodness, power and peace. And here, once more, there is a\nstrangely modern note. Life is a pilgrim's progress. We are set out to\ndiscover \"whether there might be some real good, the discovery and\nattainment of which would enable us to enjoy continuous, supreme and\nunending happiness.\" And we do possess the power within ourselves, if\nonly we may discover the controlling laws and release effective forces,\nto come at least a stage nearer our goal. All this makes for that\nexaltation of the creative self which is so marked a characteristic of\npresent-day attitudes and which is perhaps the distinctive affirmation\nof New Thought.\n\n\n_Utilitarianism, Deism and Individualism the Practical Outcome of a\nGreat Movement_\n\nBut it needed time for all this to work itself out. The philosophic\nbasis for it had been supplied but it is a far cry from philosophy to\nthe practical conduct of life. Kant's transcendental philosophy needed a\ndeal of working over before it became practicable for the man in the\nstreet. And to begin with what was deepest in the philosophy of the\nEnlightenment led in unexpected directions. \"While the practical\ntendencies of all speculative thought inevitably appear in the opinions\nand customs of a general public far removed from their sources, it is\nparticularly true of the philosophy of the Enlightenment, that its\ninfluences had no small part in shaping the popular point of view\nconcerning the moral, religious and political convictions of that\nage.\"[61] Utilitarianism, Deism and Individualism were, says Hibben, the\npopular and practical outcome of the whole movement,--Utilitarianism in\nEthics, Deism in Religion, Individualism in Politics. These three\ngrowths--and they have borne a deal of bitter fruit in the last one\nhundred years--grow out of one soil. In general they are due to Locke's\nsensationalism, Hume's skepticism, a new emphasis upon reason as opposed\nto revelation and the self-sufficiency of the individual. If conscious\nlife is nothing but sensation worked over and built up, then pleasurable\nsensations are the best we can aspire to, happiness is the end of the\nquest. So Utilitarianism defined goodness in terms of happiness and gave\nto conduct generally a grasping, greedy quality for which we have paid\nover and over again in the disappointments and disillusionments of an\nage, which, supposing itself to have discovered the true secret of\nwell-being, found too much of its seeming happiness only Dead Sea fruit.\n\n[Footnote 61: Hibben, \"The Philosophy of the Enlightenment,\" p. 253.]\n\n\n_They Bear a Bitter Fruit: the Reactions Against Them_\n\nDeism in its reaction against Religion as merely revelation and in its\nendeavour to find a rational basis for faith set God apart from His\nworld, detached, unheeding and offering no real recourse to a travailing\nhumanity between whom and Himself it built a rigid fabric of impersonal\nlaw. The Individualism of the eighteenth century was partly a reaction\nagainst old despotisms of Church and State--and a Declaration of\nIndependence. It was in part a pride of accomplishment and a new\naffirmation of the self-sufficiency of the questing reason. There was in\nit also a sound recognition of the worth of personality of which the\nworld then stood in need and which has since supplied a foundation for a\nsaving passion for education and human well-being. But Individualism as\npractically applied by the first three-quarters of the nineteenth\ncentury--unexpectedly reinforced as it was by aspects of\nDarwinism--stressed the right of the strong and the doom of the weak. It\nmade competition the law of economic development, the survival of the\nfittest the goal of a life of struggle.\n\nConsciously or unconsciously the politics, industry and religion of the\nnineteenth century were greatly influenced by these outstanding\nconceptions. No need to say how utterly they have broken down. They have\nmade for the deepening strife of classes and of nations, they have\nessentially defeated the bright promise of a time which seemed to have\nmore to hope for than almost any other great period of history.\n\nAnd yet they were never unchallenged. They were challenged by the\nessential spirit of Christianity; they were challenged by the poets who\nfound that they could shape no songs out of such stuff as this; they\nwere challenged by philosophers who sought to build for themselves and\nfor us a world more free and true; they were challenged by a group of\ngreat novelists who created out of the wealth of their imagination\ncharacters and situations in which love and human worth had their way\nin spite of a thousand obstacles. They were challenged by prophets of a\nbetter world, the Ruskins and Carlyles who soundly rated the ethics of\nselfishness and the political economies of competition and the politics\nof self-assertion and who stirred deeply the more sensitive of their\ntime. And finally they were challenged, and here we begin to approach\nagain the genesis of New Thought, by a philosophic movement which found\nits point of departure in certain great aspects of earlier thinking\nwhich had been much obscured by the difficult forms in which it had been\nstated: the supremacy, that is, of the soul over all its surroundings.\n\nNow this return to what we may call the creative and controlling power\nof spiritual forces is the key to the modern approach to life. We do not\nunderstand, it may be, the meaning of our own terms. Spirit is a vague\nenough word but we do know that the initiative is with desire and\npurpose and understanding. These are positive and masterful; they are by\nno means free; they are conditioned by the vaster order of which they\nare a part, none the less our human world is plastic to their touch and\nour material world as well. Carlyle has chanted all this gustily enough\nbut there is kindling truth in his stormy music. \"Thus, like some wild\nflaming, wild thundering train of heaven's artillery does this\nmysterious mankind thunder and flame in long-drawn, quick succeeding\ngrandeur through the unknown deep. Earth's mountains are levelled and\nher seas filled up in our passage. Can the earth which is but dead in a\nvision resist spirits which have reality and are alive?\"\n\n\n_New England Transcendentalism. Quimby Again and the Dressers_\n\nCuriously enough this quotation from a book which nowadays nobody likely\nreads save perhaps in some college course on early Victorian literature,\nbrings us within sight of the beginnings of New Thought. A little group\nof English and American thinkers, part philosophers, part poets, part\nrebels against the established order, anticipated trained students in\ntheir return upon the higher and more positive side of an older\nphilosophy. They made much of the inner life, its powers and its\npossibilities; they affirmed the creative power of the soul; they\nconceived life to lie plastic to the touch of vision and desire; they\nthought themselves to be standing upon the threshold of a new world.\nThey were impatient of discipline; they dreamed impossible things and\ngave their dreams the authority of reality. They were hard enough to\nunderstand and they sorely tried practical plodding folk, but they\nkindled their time and released forces which are yet in action.\n\nNew England, through a group of adventurous thinkers of whom Emerson was\nthe most distinguished, responded strongly to Transcendentalism. Another\ngroup, as has been said, responded strongly to mesmerism and spiritism,\nwhich were also a part of the ferment of the time in which Christian\nScience and New Thought (I use New Thought here in the technical sense)\nfind their source. And finally, Quimby, who is a rather unexpectedly\nimportant link in a long chain,--important, that is, to the student of\nmodern cults--reacted against mesmerism, felt and thought his way toward\nsome understanding of the force of suggestion in abnormal states,\napplied his conclusion to faith and mental healing and gathered about\nhim--as has been said before--a little group of disciples who have\nbetween them released far-reaching movements.\n\nMrs. Eddy and the Dressers were the outstanding members of this little\ngroup of disciples. Mrs. Eddy soon dissociated herself from the others\nand she supplied in \"Science and Health\" a distinctive philosophy to her\nmovement. She organized it into a church; she imposed upon it a\ndistinctive discipline. No little of the power of Christian Science is\ndue to this narrow rigidity which is itself the projection of the\npersonality of Mary Baker Eddy. But Christian Science did not carry with\nit the whole of the group which had come under Quimby's influence, nor\nindeed all of those who came under Mary Baker Eddy's influence. There\nwas during all the formative period of these modern cults a perpetual\nprocess of schism.\n\nWe have as a result, then, two divergent movements related in\nunderground ways, though as marked in difference as in resemblance, both\nof them beginning about the same time, both of them reactions against\naccepted religious forces and validations, both of them with a marked\ntherapeutic content, both of them adventures in the conduct of life.\n\nIn the summary which follows I am in debt to Dresser's recent \"History\nof the New Thought Movement.\" The name New Thought was chosen as the\ntitle of a little magazine devoted to mental healing, published in 1894\nin Melrose, Mass. \"The term became current in Boston through the\norganization of the Metaphysical Club in 1895. About the same time it\nwas used by Mr. C.P. Patterson in his magazine _Mind_ and in the title\nof two of his books.\" Other names were suggested--in England, Higher\nThought; in Boston, Higher Life; in New York the little group was for a\ntime known as the Circle of Divine Ministry; in the west the movement\nwas known as Divine Science or Practical Christianity. There were groups\nalso which called themselves the Home of Truth or the Society of Silent\nUnity.\n\n\n_New Thought Takes Form_\n\nNew Thought, as has been said, lacks the definite direction which\nChristian Science has always had. Its organizations have grown up\nquietly, more or less irregularly and have had always a shifting\ncharacter. \"The first New Thought Society with a regular leader and\norganization in Boston was the Church of the Higher Life established in\n1894.\"[62] The Metaphysical Club was an outgrowth of the New Thought\ngroup in Boston. Dresser gives a list of the original members, chiefly\nsignificant through the presence among them of some of Quimby's\ndisciples and others whose books have since held a high place in New\nThought literature. There were manifest connections between the\nmovement and liberal (particularly Unitarian) theology.\n\n[Footnote 62: All citations in this section are from Dresser's \"History\nof New Thought,\" unless otherwise indicated.]\n\nThe first New Thought convention was held in Boston in 1899 (there had\nbeen earlier conventions of the Disciples of Divine Science--a related\nmovement--in western cities) and the second in New York City in 1900.\nThe New York convention was the first to make any general statement of\nthe \"purposes\" of the League. We find on the New York program one Swami\nAbhedananda, lecturer on the Vedanta philosophy. Here is an early\nindication of the return of Eastern religions upon the West which is\nalso one of the marked characteristics of the religious development of\nour time. We do not need to follow through in detail the list of\nsuccessive conventions with their topics and their speakers. The group\nis not so large but that the same names reappear. There are marked\nattempts in the earlier conventions to associate leaders in recognized\nschools of philosophy and theology with the movement. One does not\ndiscover this tendency in the later convention lists.\n\nThe local groups throughout the country have had varying fortunes. They\nhave from time to time changed their names and naturally their leaders.\nThe west has responded perhaps more strongly than the Atlantic seaboard.\nThe movement is particularly strong on the Pacific Coast. There are no\navailable statistics and generalizations are of doubtful value. The\nCincinnati and Kansas City groups are offered by Dresser as typical\norganizations, but they seem on the whole to be exceptional rather than\ntypical. The strength of the New Thought movement is not in its\norganization but in its influence. \"In England as in America interest\nwas aroused by Christian Science, then came a gradual reaction and the\nestablishment of independent branches of the movement.\" \"It is\ndifficult,\" says Dresser, \"to obtain information pertaining to the\ninfluence of New Thought literature in foreign languages.\" The more\nsignificant New Thought books, however, have been variously translated\nand widely sold. New Thought leaders sometimes advise their disciples to\nretain their old church associations and the movement has naturally\ntended to merge in religious liberalism generally and to become only an\naspect of the manifold religious gropings of a troubled time.\n\nIn the Constitution and By-Laws of the New Thought Alliance, published\nin 1916, the purposes of the society are \"to teach the infinitude of the\nSupreme One, Divinity of Man and his Infinite possibilities through the\ncreative power of constructive thinking and obedience to the voice of\nthe Indwelling Presence which is our source of Inspiration, Power,\nHealth and Prosperity.\" We discover here the same tendency toward the\ndeification of capital letters which we have already noted in Christian\nScience.\n\n\n_Its Creeds_\n\nIn 1917 the International New Thought Alliance went further than at any\nother time before in the direction of a creed and set forth the\nfollowing series of affirmations: \"We affirm the freedom of each soul\nas to choice and as to belief, and would not, by the adoption of any\ndeclaration of principles, limit such freedom. The essence of the New\nThought is Truth, and each individual must be loyal to the Truth he\nsees. The windows of his soul must be kept open at each moment for the\nhigher light, and his mind must be always hospitable to each new\ninspiration.\n\n\"We affirm the Good. This is supreme, universal and everlasting. Man is\nmade in the image of the Good, and evil and pain are but the tests and\ncorrectives that appear when his thought does not reflect the full glory\nof this image.\n\n\"We affirm health, which is man's divine inheritance. Man's body is his\nholy temple. Every function of it, every cell of it, is intelligent, and\nis shaped, ruled, repaired, and controlled by mind. He whose body is\nfull of light is full of health. Spiritual healing has existed among all\nraces in all times. It has now become a part of the higher science and\nart of living the life more abundant.\n\n\"We affirm the divine supply. He who serves God and man in the full\nunderstanding of the law of compensation shall not lack. Within us are\nunused resources of energy and power. He who lives with his whole being,\nand thus expresses fullness, shall reap fullness in return. He who gives\nhimself, he who knows, and acts in his highest knowledge, he who trusts\nin the divine return, has learned the law of success.\n\n\"We affirm the teaching of Christ that the Kingdom of Heaven is within\nus, that we are one with the Father, that we should judge not, that we\nshould love one another, that we should heal the sick, that we should\nreturn good for evil, that we should minister to others, and that we\nshould be perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect. These are not\nonly ideals, but practical, every-day working principles.\n\n\"We affirm the new thought of God as Universal Love, Life, Truth, and\nJoy, in whom we live, move and have our being, and by whom we are held\ntogether; that His mind is our mind now, that realizing our oneness with\nHim means love, truth, peace, health and plenty, not only in our own\nlives but in the giving out of these fruits of the Spirit to others.\n\n\"We affirm these things, not as a profession, but practice, not in one\nday of the week, but in every hour and minute of every day, sleeping and\nwaking, not in the ministry of the few, but in a service that includes\nthe democracy of all, not in words alone, but in the innermost thoughts\nof the heart expressed in living the life. 'By their fruits ye shall\nknow them.'\n\n\"We affirm Heaven here and now, the life everlasting that becomes\nconscious immortality, the communion of mind with mind throughout the\nuniverse of thought, the nothingness of all error and negation,\nincluding death, the variety of unity that produces the individual\nexpressions of the One-Life, and the quickened realization of the\nindwelling God in each soul that is making a new heaven and a new\nearth.\"\n\nWe discover in this creed a more distinct recognition of ideals and\ntruths which inherited Christianity supplied than in the earlier\nstatements of purpose. In the annual address of the President there is\ndistinct reference to the relation of the New Thought gospel to the\nchurches. \"I am asked often: What is the relation of this movement to\nthe Church? This is not a new religion. It is not an institution seeking\nto build itself up for the mere sake of the institution. We do not ask\nanybody to leave the church. We ask them to become better members of\ntheir churches than before. New Thought is designed to make people\nbetter and more efficient in whatever relation of life they may find\nthemselves. In other words: 'New Thought teaches men and women only the\nold common-sense doctrine of self-reliance and belief in the integrity\nof the universe and of one's own soul. It dignifies and ennobles manhood\nand womanhood.' The main idea on which Christianity is founded is that\nof communion with God, that of worshipping God in spirit and in truth.\nThis is the very corner-stone of those modern movements that recognize\nmen and women as the living temples of the God within.... I predict that\nthis new interpretation and new understanding will become universal in\nthe new age which is now dawning.\"\n\nA further paragraph, however, reveals the synthetic character of the\nmovement. \"It is the realization in practical affairs of the teachings\nnot only of the Nazarene, but of every other great religious teacher\nsince the world began; for in their essence these teachings are\nfundamentally alike; and the New Thought and other new spiritual\nmovements are but the efforts to apply, in our relations one with\nanother, these simple and sublime truths.\"\n\n\n_The Range of the Movement_\n\nI have quoted at length from these programs, affirmations and this one\naddress to indicate the range of the movement as it has found official\nexpression. We must look, however, to the literature of the movement as\na whole for a full understanding of its reach and influence. The\nliterature in general falls into three classes: (1) books concerned\nmostly about healing; (2) books which instruct as to character,\nspiritual states and fullness of life; (3) what one may call success\nbooks which apply New Thought to business and the practical conduct of\nlife. The lines of demarcation between these three types of books is, of\ncourse, not clear and there is a material which is common to all of\nthem, but the distinction thus suggested is real.\n\nAs a principle of healing New Thought differs from Christian Science in\nalmost the whole range of its assumptions. It does not deny the reality\nof matter, not the reality of suffering, nor does it distinguish, as\ndoes Christian Science, between the Divine Mind and the mortal mind.\nThere are, according to New Thought, healing forces which may be trusted\nto do their remedial work in us, if only we surrender ourselves to them\nand let them have their way. There is nothing in New Thought which quite\ncorresponds to the \"demonstration\" of Christian Science. It would seem\nto an impartial observer that Christian Science asks of its disciples\nan intensity of positive effort which New Thought does not demand.\nDresser, for example, believes all suffering to be the result of\nstruggle. Directly we cease to struggle we cease to suffer, provided, of\ncourse, that our cessation is in the direction of relaxation and a trust\nin a higher power. In some regions, however, Christian Science and New\nThought as therapeutic agents work along the same line, but where\nChristian Science denies New Thought ignores. Here New Thought makes\nmore use of psychological laws; it follows James generally in its\npsychology, as it follows Emerson in its thought of the over-soul,\nthough in this region Emerson's detached serenity of faith is given body\nin an insistence upon the divine immanence for which New Thought is in\ndebt to the suggestions and analogies of modern science.\n\nNew Thought makes much of the shifting of attention and its disciplines\nare rather the disciplines of the mystic than the disciplines of the\nChristian Scientist. It seeks in substance to ascertain the laws of mind\nin action and then, through the utilization of this knowledge, to secure\nhealth, happiness and prosperity. It makes much, of course, of the\ncentrality of mind both in well-being and pain. It hardly goes so far as\nto say that pain is an error in belief, but it does say that pain is a\nmatter of consciousness and that as we are masters of consciousness we\nare masters of pain. It believes in thought transference and absent\ntreatment, but it is perhaps more conservative in the cases which it is\nwilling to undertake than Christian Science and recognizes the\nlimitations of the healer.\n\n\n_The Key-Words of New Thought_\n\nIts key-words are Harmony, Realization, Affirmation and Poise. Just here\nNew Thought is a strangely interwoven web. It makes much of \"vibration\"\nand \"friction.\" It is evidently under the spell of the wave theory of\nlight and heat. It is most dependable in its analysis and application of\nlaws of mental action, most undependable in trying to account for the\nrelation of mind to body and in its explanation of the physical\nphenomena of disease. Fatigue, for example, \"is evidently due to the\ncalling of power into a new direction. It [evidently the power] comes\ninto contact with dense matter, with an uncultivated portion of the\nbeing, physical as well as mental, and meeting with resistance friction\nof some sort is the natural result.\" One has only to compare a statement\nlike that with Cannon's careful study of bodily changes under emotional\nstates, to see the difference between speculation controlled by analogy\nand the illuminating experimental methods of modern science.\n\nWhen Dresser adds that \"we shall eliminate disease not by fighting it,\nnot by studying its causes, or doctoring its physical effects, but by\nseeing the wisdom of the better way,\" he is on dangerous ground, for if\nwe are not to study the causes of disease but to take as our guide the\nserene generalizations of a speculative mind we are shutting in our\nfaces one of the doors by which we enter into that knowledge of the mind\nof God, of which New Thought makes so much. How shall we know the mind\nof God except as we ask endless patient and careful questions of every\nrevelation of the divine method, whether in sickness or health?\n\nNew Thought, however, takes a far more constructive view of suffering\nthan Christian Science. For New Thought suffering is at least\ndisciplinary and instructive: it compels reflection: it brings us to a\nknowledge of the law. It is certainly, therefore, just and it may be\nkind. Indeed, New Thought occasionally goes so far as to say that\nsuffering is also a revelation of love and must be so accepted and\nentertained. Its general conclusions in this region are far more safe\nthan its insistence upon vibration and friction and its spacious\ntechnicalities.\n\nWhen Dresser says that there is a difference \"between ignoring a\ntrouble, between neglecting to take proper care of ourselves and that\nwise direction of thought which in no way hinders while it most surely\nhelps to remedy our ills,\" he is on perfectly safe ground. When he adds\nthat there is a strong reason for believing that \"there is a simple,\nnatural way out of every trouble, that kind nature, which is another\nname for an omniscient God, is ever ready to do her utmost for us\" he is\nspeaking with a wise and direct helpfulness, though here as generally\nNew Thought errs on the side of too great a simplification. There is a\nway out of every trouble but it is not always simple, it is often\nlaborious and challenging. We have accomplished marvels in the matter of\ntropical sanitation but the way out has been anything but simple. It has\ninvolved experimentations which cost the lives of physicians who offered\nthemselves for humanity as nobly as any soldier on any battlefield; it\ninvolved the sweat of hard driven labour digging drainage ditches, the\nrebuilding of the foundations of cities and a thousand cares and\nsafeguards. If New Thought wishes to dismiss such a process as this with\nthe single adjective \"simple\" it may do as it pleases, but this is not\nsimplicity as the dictionary defines it.\n\n\n_Its Field of Real Usefulness_\n\nAll that way of thinking of which New Thought is just one aspect is\nfatally open to criticism just here. It ignores the immense travail of\nhumanity in its laborious pilgrimage toward better things and it is far\ntoo ready to proclaim short-cuts to great goals when there never have\nbeen and never will be any short-cuts in life. None the less, trust and\nquietness of mind and soul and utter openness to healing, saving forces\nare immense healing agents and in its emphasis thereupon New Thought has\nrecalled us to that which in the very intensity of life's battles we are\nin the way of forgetting. And beyond doubt, in that obscure range of\ndiseases which are due to the want of balanced life--to worry, fear,\nself-absorption and over-strain--the methods of New Thought have a\ndistinct value.\n\nIn general, as one follows the history and literature of New Thought one\nfinds that, though it began with a group more interested in healing than\nanything else, healing has come to play a progressively less important\npart in the development of the movement and the larger part of its\nliterature deals with what one might call perhaps the laws of mental\nand spiritual hygiene. The principles implicit in New Thought as a\nhealing cult carry of their own weight into other regions. It is\nimportant enough to get well--that goes without saying--but it is more\nimportant to keep well. Good health on the whole is a kind of\nby-product. We suffer as distinctly from spiritual and mental\nmaladjustments as from physical. We suffer also from the sense of\ninadequacy, the sense, that is, of a burdening disproportion between our\nown powers and the challenge of life. New Thought has addressed itself\nincreasingly to such states and problems as this. Here it ceases to be a\ncult or a method of healing and has become a most considerable influence\nand here also it in general takes the direction of and is identified\nwith what is truest in the Christian religion, what is sanest and most\nclear visioned in present-day thinking. The typical books just here are\nTrine's \"In Tune with the Infinite\" and a similar literature.\n\n\n_Its Gospel of Getting On_\n\nAnother application of New Thought is in the direction of personal\nefficiency. There is a considerable literature in this region. It does\nnot specifically call itself New Thought but it is saturated with the\nNew Thought fundamentals and has distinctly the New Thought outlook.\nMarden is the most popular and prolific writer in this connection and\nthe titles of his books are suggestive--\"Keeping Fit,\" \"Selling Things,\"\n\"The Victorious Attitude,\" \"Training for Efficiency,\" \"Getting On,\"\n\"Self-Investment,\" \"Be Good to Yourself,\" \"He Can Who Thinks He Can,\"\n\"Character,\" \"Opportunity,\" \"An Iron Will.\" Something like this has, of\ncourse, been done before but the modern efficiency literature moves\nalong a wider front than earlier books and makes a fuller use of the new\npsychology. All this literature dwells strongly upon the driving power\nof a self-assertive personality strongly controlled by will, single\nvisioned and master of its own powers. It suggests lines of approach by\nwhich other people's wills can be overcome, their interest aroused or\ntheir cooeperation secured.\n\nQuotation is almost impossible--there is such an abundance of material\nand much of it is commonplace. It takes a deal of padding to make\nshelves of books out of the familiar and generally accepted truisms\nwhich are the \"Sermon on the Mount\" and the \"Beatitudes\" of this gospel\nof personal efficiency. Keep fit, keep at it, assert yourself, never\nadmit the possibility of failure, study your own strength and weakness\nand the strength and weakness of your competitor and success is yours.\nLook persistently on the bright side of every situation, refuse to dwell\non the dark side, recognize no realities but harmony, health, beauty and\nsuccess.\n\nIt is only just to say that success is generously defined and the\ndisciples of this New Thought are asked also to live in the finer\nsenses--the recognition of beauty and friendship and goodness, that\nis--but on the whole the ideal character so defined is a buoyant\noptimist who sells his goods, succeeds in his plans and has his own way\nwith the world. It is the apotheosis of what James called \"The Religion\nof Healthy-Mindedness\"; it all fits easily into the dominant temper of\nour time and seems to reconcile that serving of two masters, God and\nGetting On, which a lonely teacher long ago thought quite impossible.\n\nNaturally such a movement has a great following of disciples who\ndoubtless \"have their reward.\" So alluring a gospel is sure to have its\nown border-land prophets and one only has to study the advertisements in\nthe more generally read magazines to see to what an extent all sorts of\nshort-cuts to success of every sort are being offered, and how generally\nall these advertisements lock up upon two or three principles which\nrevolve around self-assertion as a center and getting-on as a creed. It\nwould be idle to underestimate the influence of all this or, indeed, to\ncry down the usefulness of it. There is doubtless a tonic quality in\nthese applications of New Thought principles of which despondent,\nhesitating and wrongly self-conscious people stand greatly in need.\n\n\n_The Limitations and Dangers of Its Positions_\n\nBut there is very great danger in it all of minimizing the difficulties\nwhich really lie in the way of the successful conduct of life,\ndifficulties which are not eliminated because they are denied. And there\nis above all the very great danger of making far too little of that\npatient and laborious discipline which is the only sound foundation upon\nwhich real power can possibly be established. There is everywhere here\nan invitation to the superficial and, above all, there is everywhere\nhere a tendency toward the creation of a type of character by no means\nso admirable in the actual outcome of it as it seems to be in the\nglowing pages of these prophets of success. Self-assertion is after all\na very debatable creed, for self-assertion is all too likely to bring us\ninto rather violent collisions with the self-assertions of others and to\ngive us, after all, a world of egoists whose egotism is none the less\nmischievous, though it wear the garment of sunny cheerfulness and\nproclaim an unconquerable optimism.\n\nBut at any rate New Thought, in one form or another, has penetrated\ndeeply the whole fabric of the modern outlook upon life. A just\nappraisal of it is not easy and requires a careful analysis and\nbalancing of tendencies and forces. We recognize at once an immense\ndivergence from our inherited forms of religious faith. New Thought is\nan interweaving of such psychological tendencies as we have already\ntraced with the implications and analogies of modern science. The God of\nNew Thought is an immanent God, never clearly defined; indeed it is\npossible to argue from many representative utterances that the God of\nNew Thought is not personal at all but rather an all-pervading force, a\ndriving energy which we may discover both in ourselves and in the world\nabout us and to which conforming we are, with little effort on our own\npart, carried as upon some strong, compelling tide.\n\nThe main business of life, therefore, is to discover the direction of\nthese forces and the laws of their operation, and as far as possible to\nconform both character and conduct, through obedience to such laws, into\na triumphant partnership with such a master force--a kind of conquering\nself-surrender to a power not ourselves and yet which we may not know\napart from ourselves, which makes not supremely for righteousness\n(righteousness is a word not often discovered in New Thought literature)\nbut for harmony, happiness and success.\n\n\n_It Greatly Modifies Orthodox Theology_\n\nSuch a general statement as this must, of course, be qualified. Even the\nmost devout whose faith and character have alike been fashioned by an\ninherited religion in which the personality of God is centrally\naffirmed, find their own thought about God fluctuating. So great a thing\nas faith in God must always have its lights and shadows and its changing\nmoods. In our moments of deeper devotion and surer insight the sense of\na supreme personal reality and a vital communion therewith is most clear\nand strong; then there is some ebbing of our own powers of apprehension\nand we seem to be in the grip of impersonal law and at the mercy of\nforces which have no concern for our own personal values. New Thought\nnaturally reflects all this and adds thereto uncertainties of its own.\nThere are passages enough in New Thought literature which recognize the\npersonality of God just as there are passages enough which seem to\nreduce Him to power and principle and the secret of such discrepancies\nis not perhaps in the creeds of New Thought, but in the varying\nattitudes of its priests and prophets. One may say, then, that the God\nof New Thought is always immanent, always force and law and sometimes\nintimate and personal. However this force may be defined, it carries\nthose who commit themselves to it toward definite goals of well-being.\nThe New Thought of to-day reflects the optimistic note of the scientific\nevolution of a generation ago. It is not exactly \"God's in His heaven,\nall's right with the world,\" but it is the affirmation of streams of\ntendency whose unfailing direction is toward happiness and success.\n\nIf an element of struggle be implied in the particular sort of salvation\nwhich New Thought preaches, it is not at least clearly brought out.\nThere has been amongst us of late a new and a very dearly bought\nrecognition of the element of struggle which seems to be implicit in all\nlife. The optimistic evolutionary philosophy in which New Thought roots\nitself is on the whole justified neither by history nor the insight of\nthose who have been most rich in spiritual understanding, nor, indeed,\nby the outcome of that philosophy in our own time. The happy confidence\nthat we do not need to struggle, but rather to commit ourselves to\nforces which make automatically for happiness and well-being, has only\ninvolved us more deeply in a struggle where in some ways the smug\nhappiness and well-being of representative New Thought literature seem\nmore remote than ever.\n\nThis elimination of the element of moral struggle and the need for\ndeliverance which has so greatly coloured the older theologies gives a\ndistinct character to New Thought theology. There is no place in it for\na scheme of redemption; there is no place in it for atonement, save as\natonement may be conceived as a vicarious sharing of suffering incident\nto all struggle for better things; there is no place in it for the old\nanthropologies of Christian theology. It has on the whole little to say\nabout sin. Says Allen, in a very thoughtful short article on New Thought\nin Hastings' \"Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics,\" \"New Thought\nexcludes such doctrines as the duality of man and God, miracles in the\naccepted sense, the forgiveness of sins and priestly mediation. It seeks\nto interpret the world and nature as science has recorded them, but also\nto convey their finer and esoteric meanings to the human understanding.\nThe fundamental purpose of religion and science is the same--namely, the\ndiscovery of truth.\" \"New Thought does not teach the moral depravity of\nman. Such thoughts demoralize and weaken the individual. Miracles, in\nthe accepted sense, New Thought does not conceive as possible in a\nuniverse of law. The only miracles are phenomena not understood, but\nnevertheless the result of law. It applies the pragmatic test to every\nreligion and philosophy. Are you true? What do you give to a man to\ncarry to his daily task?\" \"New Thought recognizes no authority save the\nvoice of the soul speaking to each individual. Every soul can interpret\naright the oracles of truth.\"\n\n\n_Tends to Become a Universal and Loosely-Defined Religion_\n\nWorship becomes, therefore, contemplation rather than adoration, and a\nvast deal of the liturgical material which Christianity specifically has\nheretofore supplied becomes useless for this cult. Christian hymnology\nwould need much editing before it would serve New Thought purposes; the\nwhole conception of prayer would need to be altered. Naturally, then, on\nits more distinctly religious side New Thought is at once fluctuating\nand incomplete. It is the proclamation, to quote one of its spokesmen,\nof a robust individualism and, in the individual, mind is supreme. Right\nthinking is the key to right living. New Thought affirms the limitless\npossibilities of the individual. Here perhaps it is more loose in its\nthinking than in any other region. It makes free use of the word\n\"infinite\" and surrounds itself with an atmosphere of boundless hope as\nalluring as it is vague.\n\nThe interest of New Thought is most largely in the present tenses of\nlife; its future in an eternal progress which should, of course, imply\nimmortality. New Thought is hospitable to truth from whatever source\nderived. It is particularly hospitable to the suggestions of oriental\nreligions and, as far as it has taken form as a distinct religious\nmovement, it is becoming more and more markedly a kind of syncretism, a\nputting together of religious elements drawn from widely universal\nsources and it patently seeks nothing less than a universal religious\nfellowship in which the values of all true faith are recognized and\nwhich is to be under the control of what science has to say about the\nworld without and psychology of the world within. In a sentence New\nThought is an outstanding aspect of the unconquerably religious in human\nnature, seeking to subdue to its own ends and inform with its own spirit\nthe new material which science, psychology and comparative religion have\nput at our service in the last two generations.\n\nIf New Thought diverges from the accepted Christian theology in many\nways, it runs parallel in other regions with what is enduringly true in\nthe Gospels, and it runs parallel also with not a little of that\nendeavour after theological reconstruction which is loosely known as the\nNew Theology. We are generally under a compulsion to reconstruct our\ncreeds and adapt our religious thinking to whatever is true about us in\nour understanding of our world and its history and its mechanism and the\nlaws of our own lives. Theology must take account of a creative\nevolution and a humanity which has struggled upward from far-off\nbeginnings along a far-flung front and the findings of Science and the\nintimations of Psychology.\n\nIt will need a deal of pioneering to find roads through these new\nregions and such adventurous souls as seek new paths, with a daring\ndisregard for ancient landmarks and a true passion to find religious\nmeanings in new facts and forces, are really serving us all. There is\nthe danger, however, that in the very freedom of their speculation they\nmay be too impatient of old experiences and hallowed certainties, for\nthese old experiences themselves are deeply rooted and testify to\nrealities which we may be compelled to let in by the window, once we\nhave put them out at the door.\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nTHE RETURN OF THE EAST UPON THE WEST\n\nTHEOSOPHY AND KINDRED CULTS\n\n\n_Historic Forces Carried Early Christianity West and Not East. The\nFar-Reaching Results of This Process_\n\nChristianity in its beginning belonged neither to the East nor the West;\nit was born where they met and its subsequent development was greatly\ngoverned by the direction of the dominant tides of historical\ndevelopment. But from the beginning of the Christian era the main\ncurrents of human action flowed West and they carried Christianity with\nthem. It is, therefore, outstandingly an occidental development. This is\nnot to minimize the influence of the East in the earlier phases of\nChristianity. There was doubtless a measure of give and take, some\nblowing of the winds of the spirit in changing directions across vast\nregions and a confused time, which carried the germinal forces from one\nreligion to another. But in the main, Christianity, to use Gardner's\nfine phrase, was baptized into the forms and forces of the West. I say\nin the main, for Asia Minor was in the time of St. Paul the meeting\nplace of manifold religions and his first Gentile converts brought with\nthem into their new faith a very great deal of what their old faiths had\nmade them.\n\nThere was, generally, in the Apostolic world a very great longing for a\nspiritual deliverance and a mystic temper which easily took over and\ntransformed those elements in Christianity which lent themselves to\nmystic interpretations. Something of this we discover in the Pauline\nEpistles themselves; Paul's use of the word \"mystery\" shows how he\nadapted his teaching to the understanding of those to whom he addressed\nhimself. To quote Gardner: \"In the growth and spread of popular\nsuperstition, if we may call them by so harsh a name, we may well\ndiscern a gradual preparation for Christianity.... These religions stand\ntoward Christianity, to continue my biological comparison, as the wings\nof a penguin stand toward those of an eagle, and it is surely no slight\non Christianity to say that it met the blind longings of a pagan nation\nand showed them a path toward which they had, for long generations, been\ntrying to find their way. The religious needs which were very\nimperfectly met by the initiations and ceremonies and prayers of the\ncults of the pagan saving deities found a complete and perfect\nsatisfaction from faith in an exalted Christ.\"[63]\n\n[Footnote 63: \"The Growth of Christianity,\" Gardner, p. 136. For fuller\ntreatment with suggestive detail see Fraser \"The Golden Bough,\" chapter\n37.]\n\nChristianity could not do this really very great thing without at the\nsame time being affected by that which it, in a measure, took over and\ncompleted. The influence of Asia upon Christianity is, therefore, a\nvery real influence. One can only wonder what would have happened had\nthe course of empire been East instead of West. Christianity might then\nhave been carried into India and China and through long centuries been\ngiven so distinctly an oriental content as to have taken on a character\nradically different from its Western form. But this did not happen. To\nfollow Gardner's figure still farther, it was baptized into Greek\nphilosophy and Roman imperialism and the power of the nascent nations of\nwestern Europe, and into the medieval spirit, and so we have become its\nheirs. More than that, the East took its own way, uninfluenced by the\nWest, until two entirely different types of culture, civilization,\nreligion and approach to reality had been developed, as far apart as the\nEast is from the West, and each, until almost our own time,\nsubstantially uninfluenced by the other.\n\n\n_The West Rediscovers the East; the East Returns Upon the West_\n\nGiven the contacts of the modern world this massive isolation of\ncultures could not continue. The East and the West were bound to meet\nand religion was bound to be affected by their meeting. Western\nChristianity has for more than a hundred years now been sending its\nmissionaries to the Orient and oriental religions are beginning to send\ntheir missionaries to the West. More justly the return of the East upon\nthe West is not so much in a missionary propaganda, though there is a\nmeasure of that, as in a more subtle indoctrination of Western\nspeculation by the fascination and mystery of the Eastern cults. It is\nnot possible to follow this process in detail but it has gone on long\nenough now for us to begin to see the outcome of it and to appraise its\nforce. It began with New Thought. One discovers oriental names on the\nprograms of New Thought conventions; the Vedanta Philosophy was\nexpounded by East Indian speakers at the Greenacre conference in Maine\nin the late nineties; B.F. Mills was lecturing on Oriental Scriptures in\n1907; and a lecture on the Vedanta Philosophy appears on the program of\nthe second convention of the International Metaphysical League held in\nNew York City in the year 1900. The New Thought movement in England\nnaturally reflected the same tendency to look for light to Eastern\nspeculation even more markedly than the American movement.\n\nAll this was natural enough because New Thought, once divorced from\ninherited Christianity and committed to pure speculation about the\nsources and meanings of life, was sure to find out that the Orient had\nbeen doing just this for a thousand years. Two things happened. First,\nNew Thought welcomed Eastern teachers to its conventions in the hope of\nreceiving thereby some measure of enlightenment, and second, many of\nthese seekers, finding that the East had a wealth of speculation\ncompared with which the West is poor indeed, took over the Eastern cults\nbodily, gave themselves up to their study and became their ardent\ndevotees and missionaries.\n\nGeneralizations are always dangerous and though the East has, until the\nWest began to exploit it, remained practically unchanged, the West has\nchanged so often that whatever one may say about it must immediately be\nqualified. But, on the whole, Eastern and Western life are organized\naround utterly different centers. The West in its present phase is\npredominantly scientific. Our laboratories are perhaps the\ndistinguishing hall-mark of our civilization. We are always asking\nquestions of the outside world; we are hungry for facts; we are always\nseeking to discover the law and direction of physical force; we have\ntaken small account, comparatively, of our own inner states, but we have\ntaken immense account of the universe of which we are a part and the\nforces which play around us. Our realities are what we touch and see. We\nhave given to our sight an immense increase of searching power through\nthe microscope and telescope, but we are slow to venture beyond what\nthey reveal to us. We have increased the sensitiveness of our touch\nthrough the instruments of our laboratories. We have organs to sensibly\nregister the vibrations of an etheric force and even to weigh light. But\nwe are slow to recognize any range of reality not thus revealed to us.\n\nWe have gained in such ways a really illuminating understanding of the\nphysical universe; we have formulated its laws, chronicled its sequence\nand made it in a marvellous way the instrument of our material\nwell-being. If we have speculated at all it has been rather in the\ndirection of the ultimate nature of matter and force, as these have\nsupplied us material for speculation, than in any other direction. We\nhave been generally and soundly suspicious of conclusions which cannot\nbe verified by the scientific method, and so have built about ourselves\nrestraining limitations of thought which we are wholesomely unwilling to\npass. We have found our real joy in action rather than meditation. Our\nscientific achievements have supplied material for our restless energy\nand our restless energy has urged us on to new achievement.\n\nTrue enough, there has been of late signs of a changing temper. We are\nbeginning to discover that science has marked limitations; there are\nranges of reality of which our laboratories can make no possible report\nwhich we are beginning to take into account. But in a large way the\nmatured Western outlook upon life has been conditioned by the scientific\ninterpretation of the universe.\n\n\n_Chesterton's Two Saints_\n\nThe East has taken an entirely different line; its laboratories have\nbeen the laboratories of the soul. The East has had little concern about\noutside things; it has had an immense concern for its own inner life.\nThe East has made little attempt to master outer forces; it has been\ngenerally content to let them have their way with it, realizing, maybe,\nthat after all what the outside world can do for the inner life is\nnegligible compared with what the soul can do for itself. Race and\nclimate and the sequence of history have all conspired to produce this\ntemper. The history of the East is a strange combination of drive and\nquiescence; its more vigorous races have had their periods of conquest\nand fierce mastery, but sooner or later what they have conquered has\nconquered them and they have accepted, with a kind of inevitable\nfatalism, the pressure of forces which they were powerless to subdue to\ntheir own weakening purposes. They have populated their lands to the\nlimit and accepted the poverty which a dense population without\nscientific resource, on a poor soil and in a trying climate, inevitably\nengenders. The more helpless have fallen back upon fate and accepted\nwith a pathetic resignation their hard estate, asking only to be freed\nfrom the weariness of it. \"It is better,\" says an Eastern proverb, \"to\nsit than to stand, it is better to lie than to sit, it is better to\nsleep than to lie, and death is the best of all.\"\n\nThere is an immensity of weariness and disillusionment in such an\ninterpretation of life, which needs no comment. But the Eastern mind is\nsubtle and speculative, possessing a peculiar penetrating power; and,\nfor the want of any other field in which to act, it turned in upon\nitself.\n\nChesterton has both hit and missed the immense difference between the\nEast and the West in one of his brilliant paragraphs.[64] \"No two ideals\ncould be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and\na Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every\npoint; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist\nsaint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has\nthem very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious\nbody, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The medieval saint's\nbody is wasted to crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There\ncannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced\nsymbols so different as that. Granted that both images are\nextravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real\ndivergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist\nis looking with a peculiar intentness inwards; the Christian is staring\nwith a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we\nshall find some interesting things.\"\n\n[Footnote 64: \"Orthodoxy,\" p. 243.]\n\nBut to follow Chesterton's own method, the saint with the open eyes may\nstill be blind while the saint with his eyes shut may really see a vast\ndeal, and the East has seen much. Whether what it sees be true or not,\nis another matter, but there is no denying the range of his conjecture.\nThe Eastern saint has sought to answer for himself and in his own way\nthose compelling questions which lie behind all religion--Whence? and\nWhither? and Why? He, too, has sought to come into right relations with\nthe power which manifests itself in the universe and he has sought, with\nan intensity of effort to which the West is strange, for a real\ncommunion with the power he has discovered. And above all, he has sought\ndeliverance.\n\n\n_Why the West Questions the East_\n\nHe has not been so conscious of the need of forgiveness, since\nforgiveness plays no great part in his understanding of the sequences of\nlife, but he is anxious enough to be set free from pain and weariness\nand at his best he has traced the relation of moral cause and effect far\nmore analytically than his Western brother. He has, indeed, introduced\ngreatly speculative elements in his balancing of life's accounts, but\nthe West has done that also, for the accounts of life persistently\nrefuse to be balanced unless something beyond ordinary experience is\ntaken into account. The longing of the East for deliverance has, on the\nwhole, however, been less theological and more simple than the longing\nof the West. The West has been led to turn to the East for teaching and\ndeliverance through a combination of forces. I have noticed already the\nvery direct way in which New Thought, once committed to free speculation\nabout life and God, found congenial guidance in the Eastern cults, but\nother elements enter. The West has begun to share something of the\ndisillusionment of the East; so many things which promised to deliver us\nhave seemingly failed us. Our sciences have immeasurably enlarged our\nknowledge and increased our power; they have added to our material\nwell-being; they have worked their miracles for us; but they have\nbrought us neither peace nor true happiness. They have instead added\ntheir own disturbances to our other perplexities and they have\nultimately simply extended the frontiers of the mysterious and given a\nnew and vaster quality to our problems.\n\nOur democracies and our humanitarian movements have shown us that the\nkeys both to liberty and progress are still in human nature and not in\nforms of organization and government. As our civilizations have grown\nolder and particularly as they have wasted themselves in war, some\nshadow of the age-old weariness of the East has begun to fall across our\nWestern world. We have also reacted strongly against materialism in\nthought and life; we have begun to see, as has been said, how the need\nand force of personality have the right to assert themselves against the\ndominance of things. We are beginning to recognize the right of religion\nand philosophy to suggest terms to science, and all these tendencies\nhave combined to produce a considerable group of people who, having\nfound, for one reason or another, no real satisfaction in their\ninherited Christianity, have welcomed the Eastern solution of the\nproblems of life, or else have positively turned to the East in the hope\nof discovering what Western Christianity has not been able to give them.\nOne should add also that the pure love of speculation which is one of\nthe phases of modern thought has made an opening in the West for the\nEast. If unlimited speculation is the main business of life, the East\nhas certainly everything to offer us, and for warning, as we shall\npresently see, as well as for guidance.\n\n\n_Pantheism and Its Problems_\n\nThe older Eastern religions are, to begin with, Pantheistic. We have\nseen how religion generally in its development takes form and content\nfrom its governing conception of God. We have seen also that there are\nthree governing conceptions of God: He is conceived as Transcendent or\nImmanent, or else He is simply identified with the range and force of\nthe universe. Pantheism is generally the creation of brooding wonder and\nuncritical thought; Pantheism feels rather than thinks; it accepts\nrather than seeks to explain. It may be devout enough but its devotion\nis passive rather than active. Pantheism is never scientific in the\naccepted sense of that term; it has little concern for law; it explains\nby personalizing the forces with which it has to deal; it is akin to the\ntemper which finds some animating spirit in all natural phenomena. The\nflow of waters, the growth of things, the drift of clouds across the sky\nare all, for Pantheism, simply the revelation of the action of some\nindwelling spirit or other, without which they could neither exist nor\ngo on.\n\nAt its worst Pantheism issues in a grotesque mythology and an\ninconceivable multiplication of divinity; the gods in the Hindu Pantheon\nare numbered by the thousands. At its best Pantheism issues in a kind of\nmystic poetry and creates a devotee sensitive as Tagore to the fugitive\ngleams of beauty through the murk of things, voicing his prayers and\ninsights in rare phrases which are, on the whole, in arresting contrast\nto the actuality of life about him. Western devotion has been caught by\nthe mystic and poetical character of Pantheism and is, on the whole,\nstrangely blind to its actual outcome in the life of its devotees.\n\nWe all feel the suggestion of it in certain of our tempers. If we should\ntake out of much of our finest poetry suggestions akin to the\nsuggestions of Pantheism at its best, we should leave even Western\npoetry strangely poor, and we have beside, particularly in the\ncontemplation of rare natural beauty, a feeling of kinship with the\nspirit which clothes itself in dawn and twilight, or speaks through the\nrhythmic beat of sea waves, or lifts itself against the skyline in far\nblue mountain summits, which helps us to understand this old, old faith.\nAnd if modern cults had done nothing more than appropriate the poetry of\nPantheism they would have lent only a touch of oriental colour to the\nsomberness of Western life.\n\nBut Theosophy and kindred cults have gone farther, since Pantheism\nitself must go farther. Directly you have identified creation and the\ncreative power so intimately as Pantheism does, then you are under\nbonds, if you have any curiosity at all or any speculative force, to try\nto explain the ways in which a God, who is just to begin with all that\nthere is, has managed to reveal Himself in such an infinitude of minute\nand sometimes ungodlike ways. So Pantheism has its own scheme, not of\ncreation, for there is no place in Pantheism for creation, but rather of\nemanation. Eastern thought substitutes for the cosmogony of the Old\nTestament which simply carries the world back to a creative God and\nseeks to go no farther, and for the methods of Western science which\ncarries creation back to ultimate force and is unable to go any farther,\nan entirely different system.\n\n\n_How the One Becomes the Many_\n\nA paragraph in Mrs. Besant's \"The Ancient Wisdom\" (page 41) may help us\nhere. \"Coming forth from the depths of the One Existence, from the One\nbeyond all thought and all speech, a Logos, by imposing on Himself a\nlimit, circumscribing voluntarily the range of His own Being, becomes\nthe manifested God, and tracing the limiting sphere of His activity thus\noutlines the area of His universe. Within that sphere the universe is\nborn, is evolved, and dies; it lives, it moves, it has its being in Him;\nits matter is His emanation; its forces and energies are currents of His\nlife; He is immanent in every atom, all-pervading, all-sustaining,\nall-evolving; He is its source and its end, its cause and its object,\nits centre and circumference; it is built on Him as its sure foundation,\nit breathes in Him as its encircling space; He is in everything and\neverything in Him. Thus have the Sages of the Ancient Wisdom taught us\nof the beginning of the manifested worlds.\"\n\nIt is not, of course, fair to say that here is something entirely\ndifferent from the line of Western scientific and philosophic thought or\nwholly alien to elements in modern Christianity.[65] The real problem of\nmodern Theism is to connect what science discovers with what faith\nassumes. The broader generalization of science resolves action and\nexistence into the unities of an underlying and self-conserving force\nwhich grows more and more subtle and tenuous as we follow it from\nmolecules to atoms, from atoms to eons and electrons, and even discern\nbeneath these something more impalpable than themselves, and there must\nbe some way in which a creative power conceived by faith in terms of\npersonality has released the forces which have built themselves into the\nuniverse. The difference is, however, that Christian Theism refuses\ncompletely to identify God and His universe.\n\n[Footnote 65: Indeed this is a better commentary on the prologue to the\nGospel of John and certain passages of Colossians than most of the\northodox theologies, and the self-limitation of God is the key to the\nmoral freedom of the individual.]\n\nThere is, after all, a profound distinction between creating and\nbecoming. Theosophy undertakes to explain for us how \"the One beyond all\nthought and all speech\" has become us and our universe. It attempts also\nto provide a way by which we, who are entangled, to our pain and sorrow,\nin the web of things thus woven, may escape from it and lose ourselves\nagain in the One. It takes the wheel for its symbol in more senses than\none. Everything is a turning and returning and we ourselves are bound\nupon the wheel, carried down or up and finally to be set free, only by\nthe acceptance of a certain discipline of life.\n\nTheosophy, then, is both speculative and practical. Its speculations\ntake an immense range necessarily; it is no simple thing to follow the\nOne from the depths of His hidden existence to our earth-born lives and\nthe forces which flow about them. Only an expert deeply versed in\nEastern literature would be able to say whether Mrs. Besant follows her\nEastern masters faithfully in reporting their conclusions, but she has\nplainly availed herself of many of the terms and suggestions of modern\nscience in interpreting them to us. If one could use a figure borrowed\nfrom electricity, the One is \"stepped-down\" through a series of planes\nand manifestations. Theosophy makes much of sevens--no use to ask\nwhy--and bridges the gulf between ultimate and present realities by a\nseries of seven planes in which what is coarsest in the plane above\nbecomes the germ of what is finest in the plane beneath. Even so, the\nOne does not directly touch even the highest of these seven planes.\n(Theosophy is, first of all, a study in descents and not in ascents;\nascent comes later.) There are between the One and the topmost plane\nthree emanations (but perhaps we would better let Mrs. Besant speak to\nus herself): \"The self-unfolding of the Logos in a threefold form: the\nfirst Logos the root of all being, from Him the second manifesting the\ntwo aspects of life and form, then the third Logos, the universal mind,\nthat in which all archetypically exists, the source of beings, the fount\nof fashioning energies.\"[66]\n\n[Footnote 66: \"The Ancient Wisdom,\" p. 41.]\n\n\n_Evolution and Involution_\n\nIt would seem to the uninitiated that all this is a kind of smoke-screen\nof words to conceal our real ignorance of what we can never know and\nreally have no need to know. It is evidently just an attempt to bridge\nthe abyss between the immaterial and the material. If Theosophy wishes\nto bridge this abyss with conjecture, well and good, but its conjectures\nreally leave us more deeply perplexed than we should be if we frankly\nrecognized and accepted the limitations of our ignorance. Once within\nsight of the topmost of her seven planes, Mrs. Besant goes on a little\nmore definitely though she confesses \"of what occurs on the two higher\nplanes of the universe, the seventh and the sixth, we can form but the\nhaziest conception.\" Each plane has what she calls its own \"spirit\nmatter\"; this spirit matter becomes coarser as we descend; each plane is\nan emanation from the plane above it and the spirit matter of each plane\nwinds one more veil around those emanations of the immaterial One in\nwhom or which the whole process took its beginning.\n\nTheosophy does not speak of evolution as it attempts to account for our\nmaterial world, it speaks of involution. Here it reverses what is most\ndistinctive in modern Western religious thought as far as modern Western\nreligious thought has accepted evolution. For us evolution, if we seek\nto give it a Theistic content, is God making manifest, in the vast\nascent of form and existence, an always fuller revelation of Himself.\nOur familiar phrase \"the self-revelation of God\" posits a power which\ncan never for a moment be contained in all that is, but which may always\nbe more clearly known as we follow His creative record from stage to\nascending stage. A grass blade is a richer revelation than a crystal, a\nbird than a grass blade; personality is almost infinitely richer than\nthe lower forms, some personalities are more perfectly the instruments\nof the divine self-revelation than others, and Christian faith accepts\nin Jesus Christ the supreme self-revelation of God in terms of human\nexperience.\n\n\n_Theosophy Undertakes to Offer Deliverance to the Entangled Soul_\n\nBut Theosophy reverses all this. As the One comes down from emanation to\nemanation and from plane to plane He is always more deeply entangled in\nthe veil of things, until on our last and lowest plane He is seven times\nenwrapped and smothered. We must not, however, confuse this last and\nlowest plane with our little world, or even our universe; these are but\nsensible aspects of it and they are really the manifestation of the\ndeeply enwrapped Divine trying to struggle up and out again and so\nbuilding our realities about us and eventually bringing us, with all our\nconscious powers, into being. (Here the theosophist has more in common\nwith the evolutionist than one or two of the preceding paragraphs would\nseem to indicate.) If we follow the figure of the wheel our present\nplane, the last and lowest of them all, is really the turning point of\nthe wheel; now it begins to turn back upon that from which it descended,\nand according to Theosophy our practical human task is so to avail\nourselves of its upward movement as to be carried back with it toward\nthe high planes of perfect being.\n\nTheosophy undertakes to account for personality as it accounts for our\nsensible universe and along much the same line of speculation. Just as\nthe whole physical plane on which our world exists has really somewhere\ndeep wrapped up within it some emanation of the One from whom everything\nflows out, so our true selves, which have really come down from the One\nand should thence return, are wrapped up so deeply as also to be near\nlost and smothered with, nevertheless, the power to get themselves\nunwrapped. Our wrappings are our bodies, but we do not begin to\nunderstand Theosophy if we think of body in the ordinary sense; our\nphysical body is only one and that the coarsest of the seven veils, for\nthere are seven here also, in which the true soul is enmeshed. We have\nreally seven bodies and we are not any one of them though each of them\nis useful and each one of them puts us in touch with a certain order of\nexistence. Some of these bodies are mortal, others of them belong to the\ntruly enduring order.\n\nNow we are lost here unless we recognize the profound difference between\nall our usual ways of thinking or talking and the wisdom of Theosophy.\nTheosophy begins at the top and comes down, at least until it reaches\nour present world; it also begins at the inside and works out. We think\nof our physical bodies as the instruments, on one side at least, through\nwhich the physical world communicates with us, but for the theosophist\nthey are only instruments through which we communicate with the world.\nNot quite so, however, for Theosophy recognizes the give and take of\nexperience. The soul may slip out of the physical body in sleep and\nit--our physical body--is at the best a stupid, imprisoning, misleading\nsort of a husk which has its practical uses but ought by no means to be\ntaken too seriously.[67] Its coarse matter may be refined by discipline\nand diet and apparently the physical body of a vegetarian is a finer\ninstrument than the physical body of one who feeds on the flesh of\nanimals.\n\n[Footnote 67: For a striking modern phrasing of this see Edward\nCarpenter's Free Verse \"The Stupid Old Body.\"]\n\n\n_But Becomes Deeply Entangled Itself_\n\nThe physical body has also an etheric double which duplicates in a more\nsubtle way the constitution of the physical body. This is the vehicle of\nthe life force, whatever that means. The physical body and its double\nare in a rough way the vehicles of the give and take of physical\nexistence, but for the experiences of pain and pleasure and for the\ndwelling place of the passions, desires and emotions, we have an astral\nbody. Here the theosophist makes much use of vibrations and colours, and\napparently our changing play of emotion is reflected in a play of colour\nwhich puts the chameleon to shame and makes us in our most excited\nmoment rivals of the rainbow itself. The astral body shows upon occasion\nbrowns, dark reds and greens and their combinations, lit from time to\ntime with flashes of scarlet. Our better feelings reveal themselves in\nfiner colours; rose indicates love, blue, religious feeling, yellow,\nintelligence, and violet, spirituality. The Theosophist believes that we\ncan be trained to see all this and illustrates it in coloured plates\nwhich are, to the uninitiated, not over convincing. Beside the body of\nphysical existence and the astral body we possess also a mental body.\nThis is the seat of thought and mental action. In a sentence, maybe, the\ntheosophist is trying to say that we have a body for each phase of\npersonality through which we come into contact with the finer realities\nof the ascending planes of existence, and that the matter of these\nbodies is more subtly refined as we pass from mere sensation to higher\nspiritual states.\n\nSo within the astral body there is the mental body which, says Mrs.\nBesant, is of finer material than the astral as the astral is finer than\nthe physical. This is the body which answers by its vibrations to our\nchanges of thought. The mental body may be refined by fitting\ndisciplines as it is coarsened by evil thoughts. These thoughts may\nbecome \"veritable diseases and maimings of the mental body incurable\nduring its period of life.\" These bodies we discard in due time, the\nphysical at death and the astral when ready to enter the heaven world.\nWhat becomes of the mental body Mrs. Besant does not say.\n\nBeyond these are bodies which belong to man's timeless existence,\ncuriously named and obscurely defined. There is apparently a causal body\nwhich is possibly the vehicle of will and, more involved still, a\nsuper-spiritual body which is the reality of God deep within us, and the\ncarrier and vehicle of our supreme and enduring personal values. All\nthis is a curious enough mingling of psychology, a subtle materialism,\nand unbounded speculation; it is equally beyond proof and denial, though\nfor the proof of it the theosophist offers the testimony of those whose\nsenses are so refined by peculiar disciplines as to see in and about\nphysical form a play of light and colour which are themselves the\nrevelation of mental and emotional states. We literally go about,\naccording to this testimony, \"trailing clouds of glory\" or of gloom.\nWhile for the denial of it there is the deep-seated protest of Western\nreason, that personality, complex as it is, cannot possibly be so\nbafflingly complex as this.\n\n\n_The West Accepts Suffering as a Challenge and Looks to Personal\nImmortality for Victory_\n\nWe are, therefore, according to the theosophist, emanations from the\nDivine; deeply enveiled and much enshrouded within us is a timeless and\nchangeless self descended from the mysterious All which lies back of all\nthings and under high compulsion to seek again, in some vast turning of\nthe wheel of Being, that from which we sprang. Theosophy becomes more\nunderstandable in its practical reaction upon life, for this many veiled\nself is deeply involved in forces and states to which it is not really\nakin, and since it suffers greatly in being so involved the end of\nexistence is, in discipline and ascent, to be set free from the pain and\nweariness of conscious existence, and to be absorbed in the changeless\npeace of that ultimate reality out of which we have issued and back\nagain to which we are destined to go. We cannot be insensible to the\nvast scope of such a speculation as this for in one form or another\nthere are, in all religion and in the deeper yearnings of life, elements\nakin to it.\n\nThe order of which we are a part bears hard upon the soul. No one who\nmeditates deeply upon the strangeness of human destiny can fail to\nrecognize the arresting estate of sensitive personality enmeshed in laws\nand forces which drive on with so little apparent consideration for\nthose who are caught in the turning of their wheels, or ridden down in\ntheir drive. Western faith has generally seen in this situation a\nchallenge to personality to assert its own supremacy over the impersonal\nand subject its encompassing order to the high purposes of the soul. If\nwe are wounded in the fight we take our wounds as good soldiers; if the\nforces which face us are challengingly strong we fall back upon our\ndeeper resources and in the end assert our own vaster powers.\n\nWe accept the conditions of the struggle as a part of the discipline of\nlife and in our braver moments win from the fight itself those elements\nof personal steadfastness which, matured in character, give moral\nmeaning to the endeavour, and though we anticipate an ultimate release\nand blessed compensation for the present travail of our souls, we find\nthat release and those compensations in a personal immortality which\nattends the termination of the individual life in the present order, and\ncontinues that life conscious, free and triumphant in an immortal order,\nand even there we ask neither to be released from effort nor denied\nprogress. We challenge the fortunes of the Unknown in the poet's phrase,\nand seek \"other heights in other lives, God willing.\"\n\n\n_The East Balances the Accounts of Life in a Series of Reincarnations_\n\nBut just as the East casts the glamour of its speculation over the\nprocesses by which we have come to be where and what we are, so it casts\nthe glamour of its speculation over the process of our release. The\nWest stakes everything on the issue of one individual life even if death\nends it, or else it assumes a conscious continuity of life rich in\nmemory and persistent in individuality in whatever progress lies beyond\nthe grave. Those whom Dante saw ascending from terrace to terrace of the\nMount of Purgation were in all stages continuously and truly themselves.\nThey knew the faults for which they made atonement and looked back with\nunclouded vision along all the stages by which they had climbed. The\nEast makes little of the continuity of individual life and everything of\nthe sequence of individual lives. It offers for the solution of our\nproblem of ultimate destiny and also for its solution of the problem of\npain and sorrow and manifest inequality in human states, two simple and\nunescapable laws--the law of moral consequence and the law of\nreincarnation. The East and the West both believe that \"whatsoever a man\nsoweth that shall he also reap\" but the West believes he gathers his\nharvests of pain or punishment in a continuity of conscious existence,\nthe vaster part of which is lived beyond death, with no rebirth and with\nno travelling again the light or shadowed ways of earth and time. The\nChristian West believes also in redemption which is just that sharing of\nGod in the process which makes faith and repentance definite and saving\nelements in the struggle of the soul.\n\nThe East believes in a series of reincarnations, each reincarnate state\ntaking its character from the quality of the life before. The fact that\nthe doors of recollection are shut and locked between each incarnate\nexistence makes no difference to the East. If a man has lived well and\njustly and followed his light, he will hereafter be born higher up; if\nhe has loved darkness because his deeds are evil, he will be born into\nsome low estate; he may descend into the beast or ascend into the saint.\nHe will pay for present injustice with future suffering--\n\n          \"Or reach a hand through time to catch\n          The far-off interest of tears\"\n\neven though he have no conscious remembrance of the faults for which he\natones, or the sorrow for which he is recompensed. If he is steadfast\nthrough countless rebirths, the slow turning wheel will bear him higher\nand higher until he begins to ascend the successive planes, discovering\nin each plane for which he has fitted himself a new wealth and reality\nof existence, until at last he is lost in the Infinite Existence and his\nstruggle is ended.\n\nPerhaps the word \"struggle\" as here used is wrong. Deliverance for the\nEast is not so much struggle as acquiescence. For the theosophist desire\nis the master mischief maker. Desire leads us in wrong directions,\ncomplicates our spiritual problems and thrusts us against the turn of\nthe wheel. We are rather, according to the theosophist, to reduce desire\nto its simplest terms, thereby freeing ourselves from restlessness,\nabove all taking care not to hurt or embitter others.\n\n\n_Theosophy Produces a Distinct Type of Character_\n\nThere is no denying that here is a faith capable of producing a\ndistinctive type of character. It tends at its best toward an extreme\nconscientiousness and an always excessive introspection; it creates also\na vast and brooding patience. \"In countries where reincarnation and\nkarma [the law of Cause and Effect] are taken for granted by every\npeasant and labourer, the belief spreads a certain quiet acceptance of\ninevitable troubles that conduces much to the calm and contentment of\nordinary life. A man overwhelmed by misfortunes rails neither against\nGod nor against his neighbours, but regards his troubles as the result\nof his own past mistakes and ill-doings. He accepts them resignedly and\nmakes the best of them.... He realizes that his future lives depend on\nhis own exertions and that the law which brings him pain will bring him\njoy just as inevitably if he sows the seed of good. Hence a certain\nlarge patience and philosophic view of life tending directly to social\nstability and to general contentment.\"[68]\n\n[Footnote 68: \"The Ancient Wisdom,\" Besant, p. 273.]\n\nIf such a faith as this be informed with humaneness and be deeply\ntempered with the principle of sacrifice, it may, and does, result in a\ndistinct type of real goodness. It is possibly a good faith for helpless\nand more or less despairing folk, though it likely creates many of the\nevils from which it desires to escape. The very reach and subtlety and\neven splendour of its speculation will make a strong appeal to minds of\na certain type.\n\nTwo elements in the whole system doubtless account for what hold it has\nupon the Western mind. It does offer, to begin with, a coherent\nexplanation of the problem of pain and sorrow. As we have seen more than\nonce in this study, Western Christianity has been deficient just here.\nThe accepted explanations of the shadowed side of life have not been\ngreat enough to meet the facts. Practically every cult we have studied\nhas found its opportunity just here. Christian Science solves the\nproblem by denying the essential reality of pain and disease. New\nThought believes in an underlying and loving good to which life may be\nso attuned as to bring us generally into the current of health and\nhappiness. Theosophy accepts pain, sorrow and all unhappy forces and\nexplains them as the inevitable result of wrong action either in this or\na previous existence.\n\n\n_Theosophy a \"Tour de Force\" of the Imagination_\n\nChristian Science saves the justice and affirms the love of God by\nmaking Him just a God with apparently no concern for and no\nparticipation in the shadowed side of life. New Thought saves the love\nand justice of God by discovering in pain and unhappiness our lack of\nharmony with Him. Theosophy meets the whole shadowed order along its\nfull front and explains everything in terms of compensation. Now there\nis much in this to appeal to our modern temper. Directly we recognize\nthe scales in which the consequences of our actions are weighed as being\nso sensitive that not even a thought can be thrown in the one balance\nwithout disturbing the equilibrium, directly we recognize ourselves as\ninvolved in a sweep of law from whose consequences there is no possible\nescape, we have at least a consistent scheme in which there is room for\nno evasion, and if we balance the manifold inequalities of one life by\nwhat has been done or left undone in some previous life, we are always\nable to add weight enough to the scales to make them hang level. True\nenough, there is nothing to guide us here but imaginative ingenuity, but\nit is always possible to imagine some fault in a previous existence\nwhich we pay for in pain or loss or disappointment, or some good deed\ndone in a previous existence which accounts for our happy fortune in\nthis. And so justice is saved if only by a tour de force of the\nimagination. (Mrs. Besant, for example, explains the untimely death of a\nchild as a penalty due the parents for unkindness to a child in an\nearlier incarnation.)\n\nThe speculative aspects of Theosophy also appeal to tempers which love\nto dream without accepting the laborious discipline of a truly reasoned\nspeculation. To quote a phrase of Macaulay's quoted in turn by William\nJames in one of his letters, there is a type of mind \"utterly wanting in\nthe faculty by which a demonstrated truth is distinguished from a\nplausible supposition,\" and there has been amongst us of late a marked\nincrease of this type of mind. There has been up to our own time no\ngreat amount of such speculation as this in the West. It is not native\nto the occidental temper and it has been held in control by our\nscientific approach to the facts of our world and our experiences\ntherein. We have demanded for our speculations generally the\ndemonstration of fact and this has heretofore held us to a rather\nnarrow range, but that widening of the frontiers of the possible which\nhas attended the new psychology with its emphasis upon the subconscious,\nalong with the rather baffling character of psychic phenomena, has\nopened the flood gates and released a tide of speculation which goes far\nbeyond the proved fact and accepts no limits but its own ingenious\naudacity. We have already seen how evident deficiencies in the\ndiscipline of present-day education and the loose state of mind too much\nin evidence amongst us has contributed to all this. There are everywhere\na great number of perplexed people who want to believe something and\nfind it far easier to believe in dreams and guesses and cloud-built\nsystems than in restraining facts or even the rather clearly\ndemonstrated realities of the moral order, and such as these have found\na wealth of material in Eastern speculation.\n\n\n_A Bridge of Clouds_\n\nIn trying to appraise the truth of Theosophy we have to disentangle the\nsystem and the needs and the seekings which lead its adherents to accept\nit. These needs and seekings are, after all, near and familiar; they are\nonly our old questions Whence? and Whither? and Why? Theosophy is at\nleast the attempt to really answer some of the questions which Western\nscience is either content or compelled to leave unanswered. The creative\npoint of contact between personality and matter and force is deeply\nenwrapped in mystery. Orthodox Christianity has been content to affirm\nthe facts of creation without asking any questions at all as to its\nmethods. It has affirmed the omnipotence of the Creator and has found in\nHis omnipotence a satisfactory resting place. God is great enough to do\nwhat has been done and the detail of it is rather an affair for God than\nman. Scientific speculation generally has gone back as far as it can go\nin the resolution of its forces and laws and recognized its own\nlimitations, leaving the rest to the theologian and the philosopher. The\nresult has been a gap which has not been bridged over. Theosophy has\nundertaken to bridge that gap. But, examined more carefully, one sees\nthat the abyss has been crossed by nothing more solid than a fabric of\ncloudy speculation. True enough these speculations are ingenious and\ntouched with suggestive light, but they are strangely insubstantial.\nAfter all they do absolutely nothing more than our Western affirmation\nof the immanence of God in life and force and law, and our Western\nthought has the advantage alike in simplicity, in scientific basis and\nreverent self-restraint.\n\nWe might as well recognize, and be done with it, that there are\nquestions here which in all human probability are insoluble. There are\nelements of mystery in life and the universe beyond our present and\nlikely our future power to definitely resolve. In the end faith can do\nnothing more than rest in God and accept as an aspect of life itself the\nnecessary limits of our position. Our organized knowledge all too\nquickly brings us to regions where faith and faith alone completes the\ninquiry. But on the other hand, a faith which too far outruns either in\nthe reach or audacity of its speculation those elements which organized\nknowledge supplies and reason validates, loses itself in futilities or\nelse misleads us altogether. Eastern speculation is too far beyond\neither ordered knowledge or right reason to be of any practical use in\nthe fruitful conduct of life. Believing too much does just as much harm\nas believing too little.\n\nTheosophy's seven planes and ascending emanations and sevenfold veils\nand all the rest really explain nothing. On the other hand they tempt\ntheir faithful to take conjecture for reality; they create a credulous\nand uncritical temper; they are hostile to that honest dealing with fact\nwhich is just one condition of getting on at all. A brave confession of\nignorance is often more truly reverent than knowing too many things\nwhich are not so. As we approach more nearly the reality of things as\nthey are we find them always unexpectedly simple. The burden of proof is\nalways upon the murky and the complex. Those who try to escape the\ndifficulties in which our deeper understanding of the world order and\nour own personalities involve us, by taking refuge in Eastern occultism\nare on the wrong line.\n\n\n_The Difficulties of Reincarnation_\n\nThe same criticism holds true of Reincarnation. It is involved in\nhopeless difficulties. There are apparent injustices and inequalities in\nlife--so much is beyond debate--but we have in general, if we are honest\nenough to follow it through, the clue to even these. We are all parts\nof a struggling and, we trust, ascending order, an order which on the\nwhole is not so greatly concerned for the individual as we are concerned\nfor ourselves. We are hampered by our ignorance and we are deeply\ninvolved one with the other. The orthodox theology which blames\neverything upon sin as an abstraction is not convincing, but sin as the\nprojection of wrong desires, through self-will, into the field of human\naction is a fact to be constantly reckoned with. The individual and\nsocial consequences of it are enormous, nor can they be confined either\nto one individual or one generation. Heredity continues weakness as well\nas strength. A vast deal of our bitter reaping is due to the wrong or\nfoolish sowing of others, though fortunately we share the good as well\nas the bad. The laws of heredity will account for a vast deal in any one\ngeneration; the laws of social action and reaction for a great deal of\nthe rest, and there is finally not a little for which we ourselves are\nresponsible. A good many of our problems ought to be approached from the\npoint of view of the well-being of humanity generally and not our own\nindividual destiny.\n\nWe may safely trust our individual destiny to brave and unselfish\nliving. I ought not to test what I do or leave undone by its effect upon\nme in some future reincarnation; I ought to test it by the effect which\nit has now upon the world of which I am a part, upon the generation\nwhich is to follow me and upon the quality of my own present life. True\nenough, the theosophist and myself find ourselves here in substantial\nagreement as to many of the things which a man ought practically to do\nto secure a happier future, but I maintain that the motives just named\nare far more solid and worthy motives than the camouflaged selfishness\nof Theosophy, and they are certainly in far deeper accord with the\nascertained facts of life. If we recognize that the more shadowed side\nof life is partly the result of social and individual development\nconditioned by weakness, ignorance and sin, if we recognize that the\npresent reaps what the past has sown, if we recognize that we suffer for\nthe faults of others and that no one of us may hope to climb far until\nhis neighbour climbs with him, if we recognize that pain and suffering\nare disciplinary, illuminating, educative, and finally, if we recognize\nthat we do possess the power to take all the more difficult elements in\nexperience and subdue them to an increased wealth of personality, we\nhave really all the elements in hand for the solution of the problem of\npain and sorrow in terms of action and understanding, and we do not need\na series of reincarnations to help us out.\n\nReincarnation really explains, as it claims to explain, neither the\nexceptional individual nor the apparently unmerited sufferings of the\nindividual, and it has beside inescapable difficulties of its own. It\nhas to parallel the course of human existence with a range of supernal\nexistence for which there is absolutely no proof; it has to numerically\nequalize birth and death--and these are not equal in an increasing\nterrestrial population--or else it has to assume, as it does of course,\non other planes a storehouse of souls from which to draw. And more than\nthat, it involves itself in a perfect tangle of heavenly bookkeeping.\nHere is the best Mrs. Besant can do to explain the difficulties of\nreincarnation. \"We have seen that man during his passage to physical\ndeath loses, one after the other, his various bodies.... These are all\ndisintegrated and their particles remixed with the materials of their\nseveral planes.... At this stage, then, only the man himself is left,\nthe labourer who has brought his harvest home and has lived upon it till\nit is all worked up into himself. The dawn of a new life begins.\"[69]\n\n[Footnote 69: \"The Ancient Wisdom,\" p. 202--passim.]\n\nTo condense, he now proceeds to build up for himself a new body for his\ncoming life on the lower mental level. \"This again exactly represents\nhis desire nature, faithfully reproducing the qualities he evolved in\nthe past; ... thus the man stands fully equipped for his next\nincarnation.... Meanwhile action external to himself is being taken to\nprovide him with a physical body suitable for the expression of his\nqualities.... All this is done by certain mighty spiritual Intelligences\noften spoken of as the lords of Karma because it is their function to\nsuperintend the working out of causes continually set going by thoughts,\ndesires and actions. They hold the threads of destiny which each man has\nwoven, and guide the reincarnating man to the environment determined by\nhis past. The race, the nation, the family thus determined, what may be\ncalled the mould of the physical body ... is built within the mother's\nwomb by the agency of an elemental, the thought of the Karmic lords\nbeing its motive power.\" The difficulties which this statement evades\nare enormous, its conjectures are even more enormous.\n\nThis is the subversion of all the facts of biology and heredity to a\ncapricious scheme, built up just to answer a few practical\nquestions--Why do we differ? Why do we suffer? Why are we happy? Surely\nthere are far more simple and reasonable answers to these questions than\nthe answer of Theosophy, and the willingness of so many people to rest\nin such an answer as this can prove only one of two things--the capacity\nof the mind for credulity or the arresting failure of those whose\nbusiness it is to interpret life to the perplexed, to have even begun\ntheir task.\n\n\n_Immortality a Nobler, Juster and Simpler Balancing of Life's\nAccount-Book_\n\nIf there be a want of opportunity in our present existence for a true\nbalancing of the scales of justice, and if some future existence be\nneeded to make things right, then the Christian doctrine of immortality\nhas an immense advantage over the reincarnations of Theosophy. We have\nno right to underestimate the difficulties of a reasonable faith in\nimmortality, but they are simplicity itself as compared with the\ndifficulties of reincarnation, for reincarnation must answer every\nquestion which the possibility of immortality raises and answer even\nmore difficult questions of its own. It is far simpler to believe that\nhaving survived the shock of death we go on with the same essential\nindividuality we had before death, than to believe that having survived\nwe are sent back again through the gates of birth and are really\nreincarnated in another individuality. More than that, the Christian\nbelief in immortality is more ethical. The action and reaction of life\nhave real meaning for me only as I know and remember. No theosophic\nevasion can take the force out of this.\n\nIf I consciously connect to-day's pain with yesterday's pain with the\nfolly or fault of a previous existence of which I am really unconscious,\nthe chain has been broken and no speculative question can supply the\nmissing link. Very likely the accepted Christian doctrine of the\nfinality of life after death has given Theosophy an opportunity in the\nWest. Protestantism particularly has allowed absolutely no place after\ndeath for repentance, has offered no new chance to the adventuring soul;\nits Hell and its Heaven have been final states. Catholicism has eased\nthe strain of this with purgatory, a belief wholly without Scriptural\nbasis, but nevertheless evolved in answer to great necessities of life.\nWe need neither purgatory nor reincarnation; we need only the\nrecognition of what is so centrally a part of any conception of\nimmortality as to make one wonder why we have so greatly missed it; the\nreasonable confidence, that is, that we really go on very much as we\nleft off here.\n\nIf there be in a future existence--and there must be if there be a\nfuture existence--any room for repentance born of a clearer recognition\nof fault and new and holier purposes born of a clearer understanding of\nthe true values of life, then we shall go on in a truly moral process of\ngrowth, availing ourselves always of the teachings of experience and\nworking toward the true well-being of our souls, and if the mercy and\njustice of God be not the figment of our imagination those who have been\nhardly dealt with here will be given new opportunity, the deficient and\nthe handicapped released from what weighed them down will find a new\ndeparture, and the justices of eternity complete what time began. All\nthis will be accomplished not in a series of existences, separated one\nfrom the other by abysms of forgetfulness, but in a remembered\ncontinuity of life deepening through endless growth. If this be only\nfaith and speculation it is at least a far more reasonable faith and\nspeculation than the alternative which Theosophy offers. Theosophy is a\nside issue in the real solution of the problems of life.\n\n\n_Pantheism at Its Best--and Its Worst_\n\nFinally, though this is possibly unfair, Eastern Pantheism generally\nmust be tested by its fruits. We ought not, if we are to deal justly\nwith it, to ignore its better side. The East at its best has been strong\nin a type of life wanting in the West; the East has been rich in\npatience and gentleness and in consideration for every kind of life,\neven the ant in the dust or the beast in the jungle. The East at its\nbest has weighed conduct in delicate balances and traced the play of\ncause and effect in character far, far beyond the West; it has been\ncontent with simple things and found its true wealth in the inner life.\nIt has willingly, for the sake of truth and goodness, subjected itself\nto disciplines, some of which are admirable, others of which are\nloathsome. It has at its best ventured everything for the well-being of\nthe soul, even when it has misconceived that well-being. It has had\nlittle of the hard driving quality of the West. Not a little of the\nteaching of Jesus fits in better with the temper and devotion of the\nOrient than the competitive materialism of the Occident. It is easily\npossible to pass not a little of the Gospels through the interpretation\nof Eastern mysticism and find therein arresting correspondences. For\nexample, a little book called \"At the Feet of the Master\" by a young\nIndian student, has in it a wealth of insight and an understanding of\nthe balanced conduct of life which is wanting in a good many of the\nWestern interpretations of life, but none the less, things must be\njudged by their massed outcome and the massed outcome of Eastern\nPantheism does not commend itself.\n\nThe larger part of the religious literature of the East is upon a\ndistinctly lower level than those parts of it which are brought to us by\nits devotees, and when Pantheism--and the basis of all Eastern\nspeculation is Pantheistic--comes down from its high places and begins\npractically to express itself in worship and the conduct of the crowd,\nthen it is such as to give us pause. What Kipling calls \"the sculptured\nhorrors\" of the carved fronts of the temples in Benares are no accident;\nthey are simply the logical outcome of a faith which lifts the whole to\nthe level of the divine and has nothing beyond to correct what is by\nwhat ought or ought not to be. Almost inevitably Pantheistic religions\nunduly exalt those powers which make for fertility of field and the\nincrease of life. As they do this they have on their side the elemental\nforces in human nature. When we begin to make gods of what after all\nmust be sternly subordinated to higher things, and the East has done\nthis in spite of its mystics and its dreamers, then we are not only in\ndanger of sculpturing symbolic horrors on the fronts of our temples but\nof setting up therein strange altars to strange gods who are best\nworshipped by strange rites. All this, inevitably enough, has given to\nEastern worship a more than earthly character, and has invested with the\nsanction of religion forces which it must always be the business of\nreligion to subordinate and control.\n\nAlong with all this has gone a grotesque mythology and an inconceivable\nmultiplication of divinity. Since no one but an expert can hope to\nunderstand the complexities of a faith like this, the East has developed\na priestly class which bears harder upon its devotees and at the same\ntime more contemptuously separates itself from them than perhaps any\npriestly class in the world. If the East is to return upon the West in\nsubstituting a refined and more or less mystic Pantheism for the sterner\nforms of Western faith, we ought at least to understand what it is\nwhich, with all its implications, is beginning to set up its altars\namongst us. No one can follow the theosophic religion of the West\nwithout recognizing how largely Western Theosophy avails itself of\nWestern science and informs itself with what Christianity has given to\nthe West. If these were taken out of it it would be hopeless. Since,\ntherefore, its speculations carry us beyond reason or science, since its\nsolution of the problems of life is far too complex, since whatever is\ngood in it may be found more richly and simply in what we already\npossess and since the practical outcome of it in the East itself is an\narrested civilization which has many depths but few heights, one must\ninevitably conclude that Theosophy has no real meaning for those who\npossess already the knowledge which we have so laboriously gained and\nthe faith and insight which Christianity has brought us.\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nSPIRITUALISM\n\n\nPractically all the newer cults are quests in one general direction but\ndown more or less specific roads. Christian Science and New Thought are\nendeavours after health and well-being and the endeavour also to\nreconcile the more shadowed experiences of life with the love and\ngoodness of God. Theosophy and kindred cults are quests for illumination\nand spiritual deliverance along other than the accepted lines of\nChristian \"redemption.\" Spiritualism is practically the quest for the\ndemonstration of immortality through such physical phenomena as prove,\nat least to those who are persuaded by them, the survival of discarnate\npersonality.\n\nAll these movements involve in varying degrees the abnormal or the\nsupernormal. They imply generally another environment for personality\nthan the environment which the ordered world of science supplies, and\nother laws than the laws of which it takes account. They are one in\naffirming the mastery of the psychical over the physical. They either\naffirm or imply faculties which do not depend upon the senses for their\nmaterial; they suggest a range of personality which, if the facts which\nthey supply are sound, demands a very considerable recasting of our\naccepted beliefs about ourselves.\n\nChristian Science and New Thought confine themselves largely to the\npresent term of life, though Christian Science affirms strongly enough\nthat death is an error of the mortal mind. New Thought places a shifting\nemphasis upon immortality. Spiritualism centers wholly upon the\nphenomena of the discarnate life, upon the power of the discarnate to\ncommunicate with us and upon our power to receive and interpret their\ncommunications.\n\nSpiritualism, or Spiritism, the name its adherents prefer, is, however,\nby no means so simple as this definition of it. It may be anything from\nthe credulity which accepts without question or analysis the trick of a\nmedium, to the profound speculation of Meyer or Hyslop or the new\nadventures in psychology of Emile Boirac and his French associates. It\nmay be a cult, a philosophy or an inquiry; it may organize itself in\nforms of worship and separate itself entirely from the churches. It may\nreinforce the faith of those who remain in their old communions.\nSpiritism has a long line of descent. The belief that the spirit may\nleave the body and maintain a continued existence is very old. Mr.\nHerbert Spencer finds the genesis of this belief in dreams. Since\nprimitive men believed themselves able, in their dreams, to wander about\nwhile the body remained immobile and since in their dreams they met and\nspoke with their dead, they conceived an immaterial existence. The\nspirit of a dead man, having left the body, would still go on about its\nbusiness. They, therefore, set out food and drink upon his grave and\nsacrificed his dogs, his horses or his wives to serve him in his\ndisembodied state. All this is familiar enough and perhaps the whole\nmatter began as Mr. Spencer suggested, though it by no means ends there.\n\nThe animism which grew out of this belief characterizes a vast deal of\nearly religion, penetrates a vast deal of early thinking. Primitive man\nlived in a world constantly under the control of either friendly or\nhostile spirits and the really massive result of this faith of his is\nregistered in regions as remote as the capricious genders of French\nnouns and the majestic strophes of the Hebrew Psalms, for the genders\nare the shadowy survivals of a time when all things had their spirits,\nmale or female, and the Psalms voice the faith for which thunder was the\nvoice of God and the hail was stored in His armoury. It would take us\nfar beyond the scope of our present inquiry to follow down this line in\nall its suggestive ramifications. Animism, medieval witchcraft and the\nconfused phenomena of knocks, rappings and the breaking and throwing\nabout of furniture and the like reported in all civilized countries for\nthe past two or three centuries, supply the general background for\nmodern Spiritualism. (The whole subject is fully treated in the first\nand second chapters of Podmore.)\n\n\n_The Genesis of Modern Spiritualism_\n\nModern Spiritualism does not, however, claim for itself so ancient an\nancestry. In 1848 mysterious knockings were heard in the family of John\nD. Fox at Hydesville, N.Y. They appeared to have some purpose behind\nthem; the daughters of the family finally worked out a code: three raps\nfor yes, one for no, two for doubt, and lo, a going concern was\nestablished. It is interesting to note that mysterious noises had been\nabout a century before heard in the family of the Wesleys in Epworth\nRectory, England. These noises came to be accepted quite placidly as an\naspect of the interesting domestic life of the Wesleys. It has usually\nbeen supposed that Hattie Wesley knew more about it than she cared to\ntell and, as far as the illustrious founders of Methodism were\nconcerned, there the matter rests.\n\nBut the Fox sisters became professional mediums and upon these simple\nbeginnings a great superstructure has been built up. The modern interest\nin Spiritualism thus began on its physical side and in general the\nphysical phenomena of Spiritualism have become more bizarre and complex\nwith the growth of the cult. Raps, table tiltings, movements of articles\nof furniture, playing upon musical instruments, slate writing, automatic\nwriting, of late the Ouija Board, materialization, levitation, apparent\nelongation of the medium's body, are all associated with Spiritism. It\nwas natural that the voice also should become a medium of communication,\nthough trance mediumship belongs, as we shall see, to a later stage of\ndevelopment.\n\nIncidentally the movement created a kind of contagious hysteria which\nnaturally multiplied the phenomena and made detached and critical\nattitudes unduly difficult. For reasons already touched upon, America\nhas been strongly predisposed to phases of public opinion which in their\nintensity and want of balance have the generally accepted\ncharacteristics of hysteria. Some of them have been religious, great\nawakenings, revivals and the like. These in their more extreme form have\nbeen marked by trances, shoutings and catalepsy and, more normally, by a\npopular interest, strongly emotionalized, which may possess a real\nreligious value. Other religious movements have centered about the\nsecond coming of Christ and the end of the world. Many of these peculiar\nexcitements have been political. The whole offers the psychologists a\nfascinating field and awaits its historian.[70] Yet the result is always\nthe same. The critical faculty is for the time in abeyance; public\nopinion is intolerant of contradiction; imposture is made easy and\ncharlatans and self-appointed prophets find a credulous following.\nMovements having this genesis and history are in themselves open to\nsuspicion.\n\n[Footnote 70: Sidis has a resume of Social Epidemics in part three of\nhis work on the \"Psychology of Suggestion.\"]\n\n\n_It Crosses to England and the Continent_\n\nThe American interest in Spiritualism from 1848 to 1852 belongs\ndistinctly to this region. The Fox sisters have been generally\ndiscredited, but what they began carried on. In 1852 a Mrs. Hayden and a\nlittle later a Mrs. Roberts introduced raps and table turnings to\nEngland. There, and more particularly on the Continent, Spiritualism met\nand merged with a second line of development which in turn reacted upon\nAmerican Spiritualism, and, in America, released movements on the\nsurface wholly unrelated to Spiritism. In France to a degree and in\nGermany strongly Mesmerism lent itself to spiritistic interpretations. I\nquote Podmore, who is commenting upon the trance utterances of a Mrs.\nLindquist: \"It is to be noted that the ascription of these somnambulic\nutterances to spirit intelligences was in the circumstances not merely\neasy but almost inevitable. The entranced person was in a state\nobviously differing very widely from either normal sleep or normal\nwakefulness; in the waking state she herself retained no recollection of\nwhat happened in the trance; in the trance she habitually spoke of her\nwaking self in the third person, as of some one else; the intelligence\nwhich manifested in the trance obviously possessed powers of expression\nand intellectual resources in some directions far greater than any\ndisplayed by the waking subject. Add to this that the trance\nintelligence habitually reflected the ideas in general and especially\nthe religious orthodoxy of her interlocutors; that on occasion she\nshowed knowledge of their thoughts and intentions which could not\napparently have been acquired by normal means; that she was, in\nparticular, extraordinarily skillful in diagnosing, prescribing for, and\noccasionally foretelling the course of diseases in herself and\nothers--the proof must have seemed to the bystanders complete.\"[71]\n\n[Footnote 71: \"Modern Spiritualism,\" Podmore, Vol. I, p. 77.]\n\n\n_The Beginnings of Trance-Mediumship_\n\nWe have here plainly enough the beginnings of trance mediumship. It\nneeded only unstable personalities, capable of self-induced trance\nstates, so to widen all this as to supply the bases of spiritistic\nfaith and the material for the immensely laborious investigation of the\nSociety for Psychical Research. In the main, however, French interest in\nMesmerism and animal magnetism took a more scientific turn and issued in\nthe brilliant French studies in hypnotism. Spiritualism has made little\nheadway in Catholic countries. The authority of the Church is thrown so\nstrongly against it as to prohibit the interest of the credulous and the\npenetrating minds of the southern European scientists have been more\nconcerned with the problems of abnormal personality than the continued\nexistence of the discarnate.\n\nThe interest in Germany took another line. There was less scientific\ninvestigation of hypnotism and trance states as abnormal modifications\nof personality and far more interest in clairvoyance and spirit\nexistence. Men whose names carried weight accepted the spiritistic\nexplanation of phenomena ranging from broken flower pots to ghosts. Very\nlikely the German tendency toward mysticism and speculation explains\nthis. Jung followed Swedenborg and the mystics generally in affirming a\npsychic body, but was a pioneer in associating it with the luminiferous\nether in a range of speculation which in our time supplies an\nhypothetical scientific basis for the environment of the discarnate. (So\nSir Oliver Lodge.) Podmore concludes that the foundations of modern\nSpiritualism were laid by the German magnetists of the first half of the\nnineteenth century.\n\nThe movement developed along these lines till 1875. Once broadly in\naction it touches at one point or another the whole region of the\noccult. Many spiritualists found in Theosophy, for which existence is\nthe endless turning of a wheel, a cycle of death and rebirth, a\npseudo-philosophic support for their belief. Spiritualism appealed\nnaturally to the lovers of the mystic and the unusual and it associated\nitself, to a degree, with extreme liberalism in the general development\nof religion. (On the whole, however, as far as religion goes,\nSpiritualism has created a religion of its own.) Its advocates were\nlikely to be interested in phrenology, advanced social experiments, or\nmodification of the marriage laws. Spiritualistic phenomena themselves\nbecame more varied and complex; trance mediumship became a profession\nwith a great increase of performers; slate writing was introduced and\nfinally materialization was achieved. All this might mean that the\nspirits were growing more adept in \"getting through,\" the mediums more\nadept in technique, or else, which is more likely, that latent abnormal\naspects of personality were being brought to light through suggestion,\nimitation and exercise. But no concerted effort was made by trained and\nimpartial observers to eliminate fraud, collect data and reach\ndependable conclusions. This has been finally attempted by the Society\nfor Psychical Research and the results of their laborious investigations\nare now at the service of the student of the occult.\n\n\n_The Society for Psychical Research Begins Its Work_\n\nThe weight which attaches to the names of many English and some\nAmerican members of the Society, the carefully guarded admission of some\nof them that there is in the whole region a possible residue of\nphenomena which indicate communication between the living and the\ndiscarnate and the profoundly unsettling influence of the war, really\naccount for the renewed interest in Spiritualism in our own time. In\n1875 a few Englishmen, one of them a famous medium--Stainton\nMoses--formed a Psychological Society for the investigation of\nsupernormal phenomena. (In general all this account of the history of\nSpiritualism is greatly condensed from Podmore and Hill and the reader\nis referred to their works without specific reference.)\n\nThis first group dissolved upon the death of one of its members--though\nthat would seem to have been a good reason for continuing it--and in\n1882 Professor (afterward Sir) William Barrett, who had already done\nsome experimenting and had brought hypnotism and telepathy to the notice\nof the British association for the advancement of science, consulted\nStainton Moses with the view of founding a society under better auspices\nand the Society for Psychical Research was organized, with Professor\nHenry Sidgwick as first president. The Society undertook, according to\nits own statement:\n\n     1. An examination of the nature and extent of any influence which\n     may be exerted by one mind upon another, otherwise than through the\n     recognized sensory channels.\n\n     2. The study of hypnotism and mesmerism, and an inquiry into the\n     alleged phenomena of clairvoyance.\n\n     3. A careful investigation of any reports, resting on testimony\n     sufficiently strong and not too remote, of apparitions coinciding\n     with some external event (as for instance a death) or giving\n     information previously unknown to the percipient, or being seen by\n     two or more persons independently of each other.\n\n     4. An inquiry into various alleged phenomena apparently\n     inexplicable by known laws of nature, and commonly referred by\n     Spiritualists to the agency of extra-human intelligences.\n\n     5. The collection and collation of existing materials bearing on\n     the history of these subjects.[72]\n\n[Footnote 72: \"Spiritualism,\" Hill, p. 100.]\n\nThey sought also \"to approach these various problems without prejudice\nor prepossession of any kind and in the same spirit of exact and\nunimpassioned inquiry which has enabled science to solve so many\nproblems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated.\"\n\nAs a matter of fact the region is the most obscure which inquiry has\never been called to enter. A noble rationality pervades the whole normal\nmaterial order, causes can be controlled, effects anticipated, laws\nformulated and above all, the hypotheses of science are, if true, always\ncapable of a luminous and splendid verification. The disciplined\nintellect moves through it all with a sense of \"at-homeness\" which is\nitself a testimony to profound correspondences between the human mind\nand the order with which, during its long, long unfolding, it has been\nassociated in intimacies of action and reaction too close to be\nadequately set forth in words. But the mind does not rest easily in the\nregion which Spiritism claims for its own.\n\n\n_The Difficulties It Confronts_\n\nOf course this is to beg the whole question. The more scientifically\nminded spiritualists might fairly enough answer that they are attempting\nto discover the laws of the occult and reduce an anarchical system to\norder, that our feeling of strangeness in these regions is only because\nof our little contact with them. There are, they claim, undeveloped\naspects of personality which we have had as yet little occasion to use,\nbut which would, once they were fully brought into action, give us the\nsame sense of rapport with a super-sensible order that we now have in\nour contact with the sensible order. The crux of the whole contention is\nprobably just here and in view of what has heretofore been accomplished\nin discovering and formulating the laws of the physical universe and in\nreducing an immense body of apparently unrelated facts to order, there\nis doubtless possible a very great systematization of psychical\nphenomena, even the most obscure. Nor may we readily set bounds to the\nmeasure of human development. But at any rate the statement with which\nthis paragraph began is true. The region which the Society for Psychical\nResearch set out to explore is obscure and is, as yet, so far from\nyielding to investigation that the investigators are not even agreed as\nto their facts, let alone the conclusions to be drawn from.\n\nThe proceedings of the Society literally fill volumes (thirty-two); it\nwould require a specialist to follow them through and an analysis here\nimpossible, rightly to evaluate them. When such careful investigators as\nHill and Podmore, dealing with the same body of fact, differ constantly\nand diametrically in their conclusions, it is evident that the facts so\nfar collected have not cumulative force enough to establish in the\ngenerality of disciplined minds a substantial unanimity of conviction.\nThere are far too many alternatives in the interpretation of the facts\nand, in general, the personal equation of the investigator colours the\nconclusions reached. Of course this is, in a measure, true in every\nfield of investigation, but it is outstandingly true in psychical\nresearch.\n\n\n_William James Enters the Field_\n\nFor some years the Society was mainly occupied with hypnotism and\nthought transference, with occasional reports on \"apparitions, haunted\nhouses, premonitions, automatic writing, crystal vision and multiple\npersonality.\" Professor William James' experiment with Mrs. Piper\ncarried the Society over into the field of trance mediumship. James had\na sound scientific interest in every aspect of the play of human\nconsciousness and was earlier than any of his contemporaries awakened to\nthe psychological value of abnormal mental states. He also loved fair\nplay. He made his first report on Mrs. Piper in 1886. He was unable, he\nsaid, \"to resist the conviction that knowledge appeared in her trances\nwhich she had never gained by the ordinary waking use of her eyes, ears\nand wits.... What the source of this knowledge may be, I know not, and\nhave not a glimmer of explanatory suggestion to make, but from admitting\nthe fact of such knowledge I can see no escape.\"\n\nIn a letter to Flourney dated August 9, 1908, James says of later\ninvestigations: \"It seems to me that these reports open a new chapter in\nthe history of automatism.... Evidently automatism is a word that covers\nan extraordinary variety of fact.\" The reports of Mrs. Piper's sittings\nfill a large place in the Society's records. Dr. Richard Hodgson and\nProfessor Hyslop were finally led to accept her trance utterances and\nwritings as spiritistic revelations. Podmore, after a most careful\nanalysis, concludes that \"Mrs. Piper's trance utterances indicate the\npossession of some supernormal power of apprehension, at least the\ncapacity to read the unspoken and even unconscious thoughts and emotions\nof other minds.\"[73] He is willing to admit that if any case in the\nwhole history of Spiritualism points at communication with the spirits\nof the dead, hers is that case, but he adds, \"to other students of the\nrecords, including the present writer, the evidence nevertheless appears\nat present insufficient to justify the spiritualistic view even of a\nworking hypothesis.\" \"I cannot point to a single instance in which a\nprecise and unambiguous piece of information has been furnished, of a\nkind which could not have proceeded from the medium's own mind, working\nupon the materials provided in the hints let drop by the sitter.\"[74]\n\n[Footnote 73: \"Modern Spiritualism,\" Podmore, Vol. II, pp. 342-343.]\n\n[Footnote 74: \"Modern Spiritualism,\" Podmore, Vol. II, p. 345.]\n\n\n_The Limitations of the Scientist in Psychical Investigation_\n\nIt is impossible in this study to follow through the records of the\nSociety. A representative group of its members, some of them men whose\nnames carry weight in other regions, have been led by their\ninvestigations to adopt the spiritistic hypothesis. Significantly,\nhowever, it is generally the scientist and not the psychologist who\ncommits himself most strongly to Spiritism. He is strongly impressed, as\nwas Sir William Crookes, by phenomena of one sort or another which do\nnot come under his laws, and he assigns to them causes which lie\naltogether out of his field. Indeed the temper and training of the\nscientist handicap him in all psychical investigations. He has only one\nof two alternatives: to explain what he sees in terms of what his\nlaboratories have told him, or else in terms of forces with which he is\nnot familiar. His training in careful experimentation may fit him to\ntest and isolate physical phenomena, but if they cannot be explained in\nterms of the forces and laws with which he is familiar his conclusions\nare no more authoritative than the conclusions of any other reasonably\nintelligent man. He may, therefore, lend the weight of a great name to\nconclusions--or conjectures--entirely outside his own province. The\nelement of trickery in the ordinary professional seance is\nnotorious.[75] The ordinary physical phenomena of spiritism have almost\nwithout exception been duplicated by conjurers--many of whom have\nmystifying tricks of their own no medium can duplicate and even the most\nunusual phenomena, such as Home's apparent ability to handle fire\nunburnt and his levitation can be paralleled in savage rites or the\nperformance of Indian fakirs, to which no professedly spiritistic\nexplanation is attached. In many instances a trained conjurer would be\nfar more apt to detect fraud than a trained scientist. He would at least\nknow where to look for a probable explanation.\n\n[Footnote 75: Carrington, \"The Psychical Phenomena of Spiritualism,\" pp.\n6 and 7.]\n\n\n_The Society for Psychical Research Gives Intellectual Standing to Their\nInvestigations_\n\nIf the explanations of the whole group of phenomena is not in the known\nresident forces about us it is presumably in powers or aspects of\npersonality not yet fully known. Here the psychologist is a better\nwitness than the scientist and it is significant that psychologists have\nbeen slower to accept the spiritistic hypothesis than the scientist.\nHyslop is an exception but the extent to which Hyslop has of late gone\nin some of his reported utterances would seem to indicate that he has\npassed far beyond the bonds of the scientific. And indeed, the whole\ntendency of those who let themselves go strongly with the spiritistic\ntide is exactly in this direction. It ought, however, to be said that\neven these members of the S.P.R. who have become spiritistic have\ngenerally been savingly conservative in their conclusions.\n\nAt any rate, the work of the Society for Psychical Research has given\nintellectual standing to what was before a sort of hole and corner\naffair under suspicion twice: first, because of the character of those\ninvolved, second, because of the character of what they revealed. It is\ndifficult for one not predisposed toward the occult and even strongly\nprejudiced against it to deny in alleged spiritistic phenomena a\nchallenging residuum which may in the end compel far-reaching\nmodifications in the conclusions both of science and psychology. By one\nset of tests this residuum is unexpectedly small. One of the canons of\nthe S.P.R. is to reject the work of any medium once convicted or\nstrongly suspected of fraud. There is a vast literature in this region\nthrough whose outstanding parts the writer has for a good while now been\ntrying to find his way, often enough ready to quote the Pope in the Ring\nand the Book.\n\n          \"I have worn through this sombre wintry day\n          With winter in my soul ...\n          Over these dismalest of documents\"\n\nThe reports of sittings cover weary pages of murky statement; the\ndescriptions of the discarnate life are monotonously uniform and\ngoverned almost without exception by old, old conceptions of planes and\nspheres. There is always a preponderance of the trivial--though the\nadvocates of spiritism claim, and the justice of this claim must be\nallowed, that this is inevitable and that only through the veridical\ncharacter of the inconsequential can the consequential be established.\nMoreover, the impartial student working over the records should at least\nrecognize the pathetic importance which those, believing themselves to\nbe in touch with their own dead, naturally attach to even the most\ntrivial instances. This sense of really being in touch, itself entirely\nsubjective, probably carries over ninety-nine out of every hundred who\nfinally become spiritists. It would be foolish to ignore the\ncontributive force of this sense. In one form or another it is the last\nelement in our recognition of our friends, and it never can be judged\nexternally. But on the other hand a recognition of the unwarranted\nlengths to which--with lonely longing behind it--it may carry even the\nbest poised minds, must give us pause in accepting any conclusion thus\nreached.\n\n\n_The Very Small Number of Dependable Mediums_\n\nSpiritistic literature is endlessly diffuse, but on the other hand the\nmore dispassionate students rest their case on an unexpectedly small\nbody of undiscredited evidence. Mrs. Piper, Home and Stainton Moses are\nthe mediums with whom the case of the S.P.R. really stands or falls.\nHome was never detected in fraud and was non-professional. Sir William\nCrookes' experiments in these physical phenomena were carried on with\nhim as medium. His work, however, was generally done for a small group\nof already convinced followers and their testimony, while sincere and\ngenerally consistent, may often have been influenced in ways of which\nthey themselves were not conscious. Podmore thinks them to have been\nunduly suggestible and offers hallucinations as an alternative\nhypothesis. Stainton Moses was respected in his private life, a teacher,\na clergyman and a private tutor. His specialties were the introduction\nof a great variety of articles--apports as they are called--at his\nsittings, levitation, table-tipping and automatic writing and the direct\nvoice. His control was known as \"Imperator\" and this ghostly commander\nfills a large place in the S.P.R. literature. \"Imperator\" had a strong\nhomiletic instinct (remember that Moses was a clergyman) and\ncommunicated first and last through automatic writing, a considerable\nexposition of the spiritualistic creed, the larger part of which could\nhave been preached from any liberal pulpit with no other effect on the\nhearers than to win their assent to blameless commonplaces--or,\npossibly, put them to sleep.\n\nMrs. Piper affords the strongest evidence of what Podmore calls \"Some\nsupernormal power of apprehension\" in the entire history of trance\nmediumship. She was for years under the constant observation of a\ncapable group by no means unanimously sympathetic with the spiritistic\nhypothesis, and has never been detected in fraud. She contributed a very\ngreat amount of information to her sitters which she apparently could\nnot and did not obtain from known sources. There are no physical\nphenomena in connection with her work. The records of her seances fill a\nlarge place in the proceedings of the S.P.R. and the case for spiritism\ncould be more safely rested with her than any other medium.\n\nBut the point here is that these three--Home, Moses and Mrs.\nPiper--supply the larger part of material which the really trained\ninvestigators of the last forty years are at all willing to take\nseriously. If there have been only three mediums in forty years who have\ncommanded the general confidence--and Podmore does not feel absolutely\nsure of Home--of the group whose judgment the rest of us have to depend\nupon, we have a situation in which the average untrained seeker dealing\nwith the average medium can have no sound confidence at all. The whole\nregion is shot through and through with uncertainties, deceits and\nalternative hypotheses.\n\n\n_Spiritism a Question of Testimony and Interpretation_\n\nIt is all fundamentally a matter of testimony. We have, or we have not,\na body of fact for which we are in debt to observation. The observation\nmay be first hand--as in Sir Oliver Lodge's sittings where he reports\nwhat he saw and heard. It may be second hand as the cases reported in\nthe larger part of the authoritative literature of psychic phenomena.\n(Second hand, that is, for the authors and those who depend upon them.)\nTrustworthy observation is probably more difficult here than in any\nregion of investigation. The whole situation is unfavourable; low lights\nand high emotion, the instinctive tendency to read into the facts a\ndesired content even in watching them, the possibility of hallucinations\nand forms of hypnosis, all combine to render human testimony unreliable\nand introduce errors of observation. Nowhere can we be less sure of our\nfacts and even when the facts are admitted the interpretation of them\nstill remains, and here the room for difference is equally great. At\nbest we are dealing with forces not yet subdued to law, phenomena for\nwhich normal experience supplies no parallel. It is all a region of\nintimations and possible permissions, but never for a moment of\ninevitable conclusions. One must go slow enough in offering any opinion\nat all. The writer recognizes and accepts, to begin with, a\npreponderance of dependable testimony for physical phenomena not to be\nexplained in terms of any force with which science is now familiar.\n\nIn this he goes beyond Podmore who would eliminate all physical\nphenomena from the problem, and fully as far as Carrington. But Sir\nWilliam Crookes never admitted entire error in this region,[76] and the\nconclusions of Geley (though he cites in part Eusapia Palladino, who is\nmore or less discredited) point in the same direction. His studies of\nmaterialization are so vivid as to be uncanny and his photographs a\nseries of documents which still await explanation.[77] There would seem\nto be a possible exercise of personal force not dependent upon muscular\npull or pressure, bodily movements operating against known laws and even\nthe building of this mysterious force into complete or fragmentary\nbody-like forms.\n\n[Footnote 76: See Carrington, \"The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism,\"\np. 377.]\n\n[Footnote 77: Geley, \"From the Unconscious to the Conscious.\"]\n\nOn the psychical side there is dependable evidence for information\nconveyed by supernormal means across considerable spaces--possibly long\ndistances and the power to secure and report information not gained in\nany normal way. These are bare statements capable of great\namplification. But they cover the ground.\n\n\n_Three Possible Explanations of So-Called Spiritistic Phenomena_\n\nAdmitting the facts, there are three possible explanations. First, the\nDaimonistic. There are, according to this theory, in the unseen\nworld--wherever and whatever that may be--an order of beings akin to\nourselves, either less or more highly developed, mischievous or benign.\nThis is an old, old belief; it has pervaded animistic religions,\nfathered witchcraft, persisted in the belief of demoniac control,\nenriched folk lore, filled the friendly silences of the night with\nterror and haunted humanity. Now it has found its renaissance in the\nfull blaze of Twentieth Century Science.\n\n\"It seems not improbable,\" says Sir William Barrett, \"that many of the\n_physical_ manifestations witnessed in a spiritualistic seance are the\nproduct of human-like but not really human intelligence--good or bad\ndaimonia they may be, _elementals_ some have called them, which\naggregate round the medium; drawn from that particular plane of mental\nand moral development in the unseen which corresponds to the mental and\nmoral plane of the medium.\"[78] This is, with little enough alteration,\nthe very point from which we set out in the remote dawn of our endeavour\nto interpret the mystery of the world about us. The only difference is\nthat Sir William has his daimon for a tipping table and the savage had\nhis for a flowing spring. Sir William may be right but primitive man was\nwrong. The whole trend of science heretofore has been to eliminate\ncapricious and isolated elements from observed phenomena and include\nthem in a sweep of law for whose operation the resident forces in the\nuniverse and human personality are seen to be sufficient. The\ndaimonistic hypothesis has always up to this time been proved not only\nunnecessary but positively misleading. It belongs to a region where\nproof and disproof are equally impossible, but the weight of experience\nand especially all our truer understandings of ourselves and our world,\ndearly bought through the intellectual travail of our race, are against\nit. To accept it is really to turn back the clock and populate the\nunseen again with the creation of our fears or our fancies. It is at the\nbest the too easy solution of a challenging problem, at the worst an\naspect of that renaissance of superstition which is one of the strangest\ncharacteristics of our own time.\n\n[Footnote 78: \"On the Threshold of the Unseen,\" p. 113.]\n\nThe second explanation is spiritistic. There are unseen presences but\nthey are the discarnate who seek in the more trivial phenomena to bring\nthemselves to our attention and in the more important to assure us of\ntheir continued existence and satisfy their longing and ours in renewed\npersonal contacts. Given a faith in immortality, this explanation is\nnatural enough--even inevitable. If the discarnate still live they must\nremember and desire. Death does not end affection on our side. It should\nnot end affection on their side. There must be, moreover, what one may\ncall a discarnate status--an order, that is, of relationships and\nactivities in which discarnate personality realizes and expresses\nitself. Our racial curiosities about the state of the dead are\nquenchless. Every religion has its creeds, its dreams, its assurances.\nFrom the Nirvana of the Buddhist to the ardent paradise of the\nMohammedan, faith and longing have built their structure and peopled it\nwith their dead. Great ranges of literature are coloured by such\nspeculations. Christian hymnology is instinct with them and not a little\nof our noblest poetry. We have set our hells over against our heavens\nand opposed their terror to celestial splendours. Modern Spiritualism\nhas to head it the whole drive of such speculations as these. For if the\ngenerality have been content to leave the solution of the very great\ndifficulties which any faith in immortality involves, to the\ndemonstrations of eventual experience, and rest in what is really the\npoetry of their faith, others either more curious or more credulous seek\nthe testimony of the senses. Such as these naturally find what they seek\nin the phenomena of trance mediumship. They believe that the discarnate\nare constantly seeking to penetrate the veil between their order and\nours and avail themselves of every opportunity to recall themselves to\nthe memory of the incarnate.\n\n\n_Myers' Theory of Mediumship_\n\nF.W.H. Myers undertakes to describe how this may be done from the point\nof view of the spirit. \"Seeking then for some open avenue, it discerns\nsomething which corresponds to a _light_--a glimmer of translucency in\nthe confused darkness of our material world. This 'light' indicates a\n_sensitive_--a human organism so constituted that a spirit can\ntemporarily _inform_ or _control_ it, not necessarily interrupting the\nstream of the sensitive's ordinary consciousness; perhaps using a hand\nonly, or perhaps, as in Mrs. Piper's case, using voice as well as hand,\nand occupying all the sensitive's channels of self-manifestation.\"\n\nThere are, naturally, in all this unescapable elements of speculation.\nAs a matter of fact anything which we may imagine about the discarnate\nlife may be almost unbelievably wide of the mark. Memory more than\nanything else is the binding force in personality. We know ourselves to\nbe in the morning what we were when we went to sleep the night before,\nsimply because memory reassembles immediately the continuing elements of\nour individual existences. More than that, we are greatly helped by our\nsurroundings; everything which meets us in the morning has associations\nby which memory is served and, therefore, by the almost automatic\nprocess of putting together what we remember and surrendering ourselves\nto the suggestions of what we see and meet we find our places in a\nwaking, working world and go about our business.\n\nIf we were to awake in a totally strange world where nothing was in any\ndegree at all similar to the world in which we went to sleep, we might\nfind ourselves so sadly puzzled as to doubt our own identity, even\nthough memory persisted in its identifying suggestion. And if in\naddition to this we found ourselves without the contribution of physical\nsensation to which we have always been used--sightless, soundless,\ntouchless--one can easily imagine a shock in the face of which even the\nmost strongly centered personality would give way. And yet such changes\nas this probably only faintly indicate the adjustments which the\ndiscarnate are called upon to meet. It is as if we were asked to argue\nor to imagine from one dimension to another.\n\nThese are difficulties, of course, which attend any conception of\nimmortality, but we usually escape them by refusing to follow through\nwhat they involve and taking refuge in a free poetic imagination\nsustained by faith and enriched by tradition. In the face of all this\nMyers' supposition, ingenious as it is, can do no more than repeat the\nmore prosaic assumption which is the basis of spiritism, and that is\nthat the discarnate naturally desire to communicate with those whom they\nhave left, one hardly dares say behind them for even that simple word\nintroduces suppositions which may have no meaning at all, and would\nnaturally avail themselves of any possible opportunity. The whole\nprocess, if it be a process, must lie in the region of suggestion. If\nthere be a telepathy between the living it is not impossible that there\nshould be a telepathy between the living and the discarnate.\n\n\n_Telepathy: Between the Living or the Living and the Discarnate?_\n\nThere might be thus a kind of eager pressing of the departed against\nthe doors which had been shut and not quite locked behind them, taking\nthe form of more or less obscure suggestion to which the medium would be\nsensitive and so recreate in ways at which we can only guess some hint\nof the voice or presence of the discarnate. The suggestion would come\nfrom the other side. The form in which it is given to our world would be\nthe contribution of the medium. As far as there is any possible\nexplanation of the facts of trance mediumship as a revelation from the\ndead it is somewhere here.\n\nTelepathy between the living is fairly well enough established to make\nthis a not impossible hypothesis, and even materialization might be\naccounted for in the same way. Sir Oliver Lodge is inclined to discover\nin the luminiferous ether an environment in which discarnate personality\ncould function. But this is pure supposition, though others have adopted\nit. Walker, for example, in his extremely suggestive work on Monism and\nChristian Theism. But he suggests the ether only as a help to the\nimagination in meeting the difficulties of an immortal existence--the\nold Heaven and Hell having been made astronomically and geologically\nimpossible. But if Einstein should upset the hypothesis of the ether all\nthis would go the way of the Heaven and Hell of Dante.\n\nWe cannot eliminate, however, in a supposition so vague as this the\ncontributive elements supplied by the friends themselves to whom the\ncommunication is supposed to be addressed and by whom it is certainly\ninterpreted, for if the trance medium is open to suggestion from the\ndiscarnate side, the medium must be equally open to suggestion from the\nliving, a suggestion likely to be very much stronger, more distinct,\nmore compelling.\n\nThe real crux of the whole problem is the disentanglement of these\npossible lines of suggestion and the assignment of them to their true\nsources. We may, the writer believes, eliminate as far as their\nevidential value is concerned, all physical phenomena. In doing this we\nneed not necessarily deny the reality of some of the physical phenomena\nbut the larger part of the residue which might possibly be left after\nthe elimination of fraud on the part of the medium and unintentional\nmisrepresentation on the part of the witnesses is so utterly meaningless\nas to have no value at all. The only physical phenomena which can have\nany direct bearing on spirit communication are the tappings and table\ntippings which can by a deal of ingenuity be made to spell out a message\nor answer questions yes or no. The same question as to the source of the\nsuggestion enters here. Even if we admit the taps to spell out a\nmessage, we have still to decide from whom the message comes and the\nmessages alleged to be contributed through the voice are so much more\nfull and intelligible as to leave the whole question standing or falling\nwith the credibility of voice trance mediumship.\n\n\n_Controls_\n\nThe usual machinery of a seance creates suspicion. Most mediums have\ncontrols. Nothing is more capricious than these controls. They may be\npeople who really never existed at all. The genesis of Mrs. Piper's\ncontrol, Dr. Phinuit, is suggestive. \"It would appear that Mrs. Piper in\n1884 had visited for advice a professional clairvoyant whose leading\ncontrol claimed to be a Frenchman named Finne, or Finnett.\"[79] When\nMrs. Piper was later seen by William James, a French doctor had\nsucceeded in obtaining almost exclusive control and his name was\nreported to be Phinuit. Beyond debate, as far as name goes, here is a\nkind of transmuted suggestion. The Finnett of the French clairvoyant,\nwho may or may not have really lived, becomes the Phinuit of Mrs. Piper,\nfor whose existence there is apparently no testimony at all.\n\n[Footnote 79: Podmore's \"Modern Spiritualism,\" Vol. II, p. 333.]\n\nThe controls have sometimes been Indians and indeed almost any one may\nappear as a control--Longfellow, for example, or Mrs. Siddons, or Bach\nor Vanderbilt. In a region where disproof and proof are equally\nimpossible this element of capricious control is suspicious. It is much\nmore likely to be some obscure casting up of the medium's mind, through\nlines of association of which the medium is utterly unconscious, than to\nrepresent the personalities so named. In Raymond the control is one\nMoonstone, or a little Indian girl called Freda or Feda, who speaks of\nherself in the third person and who reports a great many silly things in\na very silly way.\n\nIt is possible, of course, to say that these thus named are spirit\nmediums as necessary for the transfer of suggestion from the discarnate\norder as mediums seem to be in the incarnate order, and that abnormal\npersonalities are as much needed on one side as the other through the\nabnormality of the whole process. But this is patently to beg the\nquestion. There is room in the whole process for the trivial, even the\ninconsequential. As the advocates of spiritism have urged,\nidentification very often turns on apparently trivial things but it is\ndifficult to justify the very great element of the capricious and\nactually foolish which enters so largely into the records of all\nsittings. It would seem as if death robbed grave personalities of their\ngravity, the strong of their force and the wise of their wisdom, and\nthis is so hard to believe as to make us wonder whether we are not\nreally dealing with something which belongs to an entirely different\nregion and is open to an entirely different line of explanation.\n\nBut beyond such considerations as these, which may or may not have\nforce, there remains the graver question still--the question of the\nidentification of the sources from which the intelligible residue of\ncommunications is received. If we fall back upon suggestion there are\nalways two general sources of suggestion--the incarnate and the\ndiscarnate, and among the incarnate themselves there are manifold\nsources of suggestion. The sitter may be unconsciously supplying the\nmaterial which the medium is receiving, recasting and giving back again,\nor the medium may be reporting what is received from other incarnate\nsources than the sitter. (This, of course, when we have eliminated all\nthat might possibly be contributed by the medium.)\n\n\n_The Dilemma of Spiritism_\n\nAnything, therefore, which is known to the living may be the source of\nthe medium's information. Only those things, therefore, which are\nutterly unknown to the living anywhere, which cannot possibly have been\nknown by the medium himself or herself, can be finally and conclusively\na testimony to communications from the dead. But unless the information\nthus received is known to the living, its truth or falsity can never be\nproved or disproved. This is the dilemma which spiritism is finally\nbrought to face and from this dilemma there is absolutely no escape. It\ndoes not forbid the conclusions which may be drawn from a seeming\npreponderance of evidence, but it does forbid absolute certainty, for,\nto repeat, if the information is to be verified it must be verified by\nthe living, which proves that some one does possess it and may have\ncommunicated it--if we assume such communication to be possible--to the\nmedium. On the other hand, if no one at all possesses the information,\nthen we may never be sure that it is real information, or anything else\nthan a creation of an excited imagination.\n\nThere is one test here which, if it were really made under absolutely\ndependable conditions, conditions, that is, in no wise open to suspicion\nor misunderstanding, might be final. If a message written before death\nand so sealed as to be unknown to any one save the one who wrote it,\ncould be correctly reported, it would have, everything else being\nright, an immense force. (Though even here clairvoyance--for which, on\nthe whole, there is a pretty dependable evidence--might afford the true\nexplanation.) F.W.H. Myers left such a message as this. In January,\n1891, he sent Sir Oliver Lodge a \"sealed envelope, in the hope that\nafter his death the communication contained in the envelope would be\nable to be given by means of a medium. Many different messages obtained\nby a well-known medium, Madame Verrall, and coming supposedly from\nFrederick Myers, led them to believe that they represented this\ncommunication. The envelope was opened in December, 1904, and 'it was\nfound that there was no resemblance between its actual contents and what\nwas alleged by the script to be contained in it.'\"[80] If there is any\nauthentic case of this final test being successfully maintained, the\nwriter does not know it. There are instances of hidden articles\ndiscovered, but these tests by no means possess the same force of\ntestimony.\n\n[Footnote 80: Boirac, \"The Psychology of the Future,\" p. 278.]\n\nWe may assume, then, that we have no absolute demonstration of spirit\ncommunication. We have only a very complex group of phenomena capable of\nvarying explanations. Any fair-minded student of the whole subject must\nrecognize that men who have had ample opportunity for first hand\ninvestigation, not hasty in their conclusions and in some instances of\nvery great intellectual force, have taken an opposite view. They have\nfelt the testimony to be both sound and sufficient. There is an\nunescapable personal equation here which probably finally determines\ndivergent attitudes. As has been said before, those generally who have\naccepted the spiritistic explanation have been led to do so through\ncommunications in which they discovered some personal note or touch, to\nwhich they themselves would be hospitably susceptible and which would\nhave far less weight with those whose affections and previous\nassociations were not thus involved. This does not necessarily prove\ntheir conclusions to have been false. Perhaps just this personal element\nis necessary to give final meaning to what otherwise is so perplexing\nand even contradictory. The dogmatism which shuts the door squarely in\nthe face of spiritism is as unreasonable, as unscientific, as the\ncredulity which opens the door wide and accepts everything which comes\nthrough.\n\n\n_The Influence of Spiritism Upon Its Adherents_\n\nThere are other considerations which bear more or less indirectly upon\nthis difficult matter, but which have their weight. In general, those\nwho have whole-heartedly accepted spiritism have been unable thereafter\nto maintain the balanced detachment which they urge upon others. They\ntend to become unduly credulous; they force their explanation beyond its\nnecessary limits; they tend to become persons of the idee fixe type;\nthey become sponsors for extravagant stories, and, in general, lead\nthose who are influenced by their position or name far beyond the limits\nwhich impartial investigation, even on the part of those sympathetic,\nhas as yet justified. Those descriptions of the discarnate state,\nmoreover, which reach us through mediums are undependable.\n\nThere is a machinery of planes and spheres and emanations and\nreincarnations which is not at all peculiar to spiritism but belongs to\nthe fringes of the occult in every manifestation of it, which is\nperpetually recurrent in modern spiritualistic literature. We are on the\nfrontiers of a region where the reason which steadies us in the\npractical conduct of life and guides us in an order with which we are\nfamiliar through age-old inheritances, has no value at all. Our very\nterminology ceases to have any meaning. A generous creative imagination\nmay build for itself what cities it will of habitation, furnish them as\nit desires and try to conceive, as it has power, the experiences and\nprogressions of the discarnate, but to invest these imaginations with\nevidential accuracy is to break down all the limits between the\ndependable and the undependable.\n\nAnd finally, though this is rather a commonplace observation than an\naspect of our investigation, there is little to be gained in the\nnecessary business of solid living by such an interweaving of the two\nworlds as spiritism carries with it. One life at a time is plainly\nenough all that we are equal to. Those who surrender themselves to such\nconclusions and inquiries are in very great danger of being so detached\nfrom the actualities of the present order as to become themselves errant\nand eccentric spirits, finding their true interests in endless seances\nand investigations which have no practical bearing upon life as it now\nis.\n\n\n_The Real Alternative to Spiritism_\n\nThe writer's observation of the effect of much going to mediums upon\nthose whom he has personally known leads him to distrust the whole\nmatter and possibly to react too strongly against it. A discriminating\ncritic has said that Spiritualism is not Spiritualism at all, but a\nsubtle materialism, in that it is the effort to verify the reality of\nthe spiritual in terms of the material. It is, therefore, just one more\nunexpected aspect of the hard skepticism of the time, which trusts\nnothing it cannot hear, or see, or touch. A faith which is not solidly\nestablished in reason, which does not continue and complete in its own\nregions what we know and understand, is a cloud-built faith, but a\nfaith, on the other hand, which refuses to adventure beyond the limits\nof the senses is a faith too largely empty of any noble content.\n\nIf the phenomena under examination, then, cannot be explained in terms\nof animism and if the spiritistic hypothesis is gravely open to\nquestion, what explanation is left? In what follows the writer has been\ngreatly influenced by the suggestion of the students of abnormal\npersonality generally, and partly by the work of certain Frenchmen who,\nwith French logic and brilliancy of insight, are working toward\nfar-reaching psychological restatements and even to recasting of the\naccepted scientific understandings of matter and force. Maeterlinck says\nsomewhere in substance that our universe is as tightly sealed as a\nsphere of steel and that whatever happens inside must be explained in\nterms of its own resident forces, and, in general, the whole of science\nand the weight of experience are on Maeterlinck's side. Of course this\nassumes that a good many things have been put inside this sphere to\nbegin with. Speaking in terms of religion, this does not shut God out of\nthe world, but it does shut up life and experience to conformity with\ntheir own laws and forces them to explain their phenomena in terms of\ntheir own content.\n\nIn a sentence, just as the resident forces of the outside world have\nbeen heretofore sufficient, in the measure that we have been able to\ndiscover them, to explain all the phenomena of the outside world, it is\nreasonable to believe that the content of personality is sufficient to\nexplain all personal phenomena, whether normal or abnormal, and that it\nis to ourselves and not to the discarnate that we have to look for the\nexplanation of the phenomena of alleged spiritism.\n\n\n_The Investigations of Emile Boirac_\n\nThe men who are working along this line, particularly Geley and Emile\nBoirac, by no means deny the phenomena, but they offer another solution.\nBoirac, particularly, finds his point of departure in hypnotism and\nsuggestibility. Now here is a continuation of the line of approach and\ninterpretation which cleared up the whole confused matter of mesmerism.\nWe have already seen how the French investigators found the explanation\nof what Mesmer and those who followed him have been able to accomplish,\nnot in magnetic influence or any such thing, but in the remarkable\nchanges produced in personality by exterior or autosuggestion, and just\nas this was the key to the phenomena of mesmerism, it is more likely\nthan anything else to prove the key to the explanation of the phenomena\nof spiritualism, for these are really nothing more than simply aspects\nof the trance state, however induced.\n\nIt is not necessary to follow, in this connection, Boirac's analysis of\nthe phenomena attendant upon the trance state, or to consider his\ntheories as to hypnosis itself. He believes that there are in our\npersonalities hidden forces which, in the normal conduct of life, are\nnot brought into action. They are no necessary part of our adjustment to\nour working environment; on the whole they complicate rather than\nsimplify the business of living and they are best--though this is not\nhis statement but the writer's conclusion from the whole matter--they\nare best left unawakened. What we are normally is the outcome of the\nadjustment of personality to those creative and shaping forces in\nresponse to which life is most happily and usefully carried on. But when\nthe waking self and normal self is for the moment put in abeyance and\nnew forces are evoked from the \"vasty deep\" of our souls, we are capable\nof an entirely different set of manifestations. First of all, those\nusually associated with the hypnotic state which do not need to be\nfurther considered here--a great docility to suggestion, unconsciousness\nto pain and the like. We have also the possibility of powers which\nBoirac calls magnetoidal. \"These appear to involve the intervention of\nforces still unknown, distinct from those that science has so far\ndiscovered and studied, but of a physical nature and more or less\nanalogous to the radiating forces of physics: light, heat, electricity,\nmagnetism, etc.\"[81]\n\n[Footnote 81: Boirac, \"The Psychology of the Future,\" p. 24. Some recent\nFrench investigations seem to indicate that this force--Myers'\nTelekinesis--operating through barriers, changes the magnetic properties\nof that through which it passes. Carrington, the most skeptical student\nin this region, is inclined to admit its existence. See \"The Physical\nPhenomena of Spiritualism,\" p. 359.]\n\nUnder this general head he considers Animal Magnetism, what is known\ngenerally as mesmerism, the power, that is, to create hypnotic states in\nothers; the phenomena of Telepathy \"comprising numerous varieties, such\nas the transmission or penetration of thought, the exteriorization of\nthe sensitiveness, psychometry, telepathy, clairvoyance or lucidity,\netc.,\" and finally states \"where physical matter appears to exert over\nanimate beings, especially human beings, an action that does not seem to\nbe explicable by any physical or chemical properties already known.\" He\nbelieves also that there is in human beings a radiating influence\nsusceptible of being exercised at a distance over other animate beings\nor else upon inanimate objects. He finds in trance mediumship all the\nelements which enter into any hypnotic state. \"The trance is produced\nand developed spontaneously, without the intervention of any visible\noperator, under the sole effect of the nervous and mental conditions in\nwhich the medium is placed, and among which the _belief in spirits_ and\nthe expectation of their intervention would appear to play a\nconsiderable part.\"[82] The italicized words \"a belief in spirits\" are\nextremely significant. In the entranced personality there is the\nsuggestion, already strongly established, that whatever is experienced\nduring the trance will be due to spirit intervention or revelation. This\nintroduces the element of expectant attention. We know on the physical\nside of what expectant attention is capable. It becomes a real factor in\nall faith healing; it may produce, either for the better or the worse,\nfar-reaching changes in physical states and it is perfectly possible for\nsuch an expectant attention once fully in action in the trance--given of\ncourse, to begin with, the attitude and interests of the medium in a\nwaking state--to create all the machinery of controls, revelation and\nthe like, which characterize trance mediumship.\n\n[Footnote 82: Boirac, \"The Psychology of the Future,\" p. 271.]\n\nBoirac finds, therefore, in spiritism a complex determined by certain\nparticular nervous and mental states into which there enter, in one form\nor another, almost all the facts of abnormal psychology and he believes\nthat science, faithful to the principle of economy, should consider the\nalleged phenomena of spiritism, until proved to the contrary, reducible\nto facts of the preceding orders. He does not call the spiritistic\nhypothesis impossible; he does believe it ought not to be called in\nuntil every other explanation has been examined and found inadequate and\nhe is not inclined to believe that we have as yet exhausted other\npossible explanations.\n\nOne man's authority here is by no means final. F.W.H. Myers has taken\ninto consideration many of the facts upon which Boirac dwells and on the\nwhole has reached a different conclusion. But, in general, the more\ndeeply we advance into the region of abnormal personality and the\nphenomena of hypnotic and related states, the more reason there seems to\nbe for believing that there are resident in human personality powers\nwhich, if at once evoked and released, are sufficient to account for all\nmediumistic revelations without assuming that they come from the\ndiscarnate.\n\n\n_Geley's Conclusions_\n\nGeley has gone much farther in some directions here than any one else.\nHe is more concerned with the physical phenomena. He has a striking\nseries of photographs of materialization, the authenticity of which it\nis difficult to doubt. He finds an ascending series in abnormal\npsychology from neuropathic states to mediumship with gradations which\nintensify the abnormal or the supernormal, but in which the continuity\nof development is never broken. His analyses here are both keen and\nsuggestive and tend to confirm the conclusions of other students that we\nhave resident in human personality elements which are adequate to the\nexplanation of any phenomena which have been as yet presented.\n\nAs far as the physical phenomena go, he cites experiments which seem to\nreveal \"threads of substance and rigid rods, sometimes visible,\nsometimes invisible, proceeding from the fingers of the medium\" and\nserving as a real mechanism for the movement of distant and sometimes\nquite heavy articles. He argues from this that there is a possible\nexteriorization of power which may itself be governed by ideas and\nbelieves also that such facts as this will eventually compel us to\nrecast our conceptions of matter and force and profoundly affect biology\nand all evolutionary theories. The whole matter is necessarily obscure,\nbut such studies do give a new direction and a larger significance to\nour whole subject matter.\n\nIn substance the spiritistic hypothesis is inadequate; it is too simple,\ntoo easy. We are evidently only upon the threshold of the whole subject.\nAll conclusions are necessarily inconclusive; there is no region in\nwhich one has less right to be dogmatic. The bearing of it all upon\nimmortality seems to the writer to be not at all where the spiritists\nplace it. If human personality has in itself such latent powers, if\nthere are these extensions of a mysterious force which operate beyond\nour normal mechanism, if there are contacts of consciousness deeper than\nconsciousness itself in which information is given and received outside\nnormal methods of communication, we are led to conceive that what for\nwant of a better name we call spirit has an unexpected range and force.\nWe are by no means so shut in by the walls of the material and the\nsensible as we have heretofore supposed. There is a transcendence of\nspirit over matter and materially imposed conditions which must give us\npause. If, in the murky ways which have been brought to our attention,\nspirit can transcend matter, we have at least one more reason for\naffirming its supremacy and one more suggestion of a force or a reality\nwhich may be able to survive even the dissolution of matter itself. In\nother words, here is a line of testimony, richly suggestive, though by\nno means clear, to the power of the soul to make its own conditions, and\nwhat is immortality but just this?\n\nThe phenomena of so-called spiritism, while not as yet justifying\nSpiritualism, certainly make a dogmatic materialism increasingly\ndifferent. Those of us who are as anxious for a sustaining faith in\nimmortality as any of our comrades in the great quest may possibly be,\nbut who are as yet unwilling to accept their conclusions, may\nnevertheless find in this subject matter which is common both to us and\nto them, the permission to believe that that which is most distinctly\nourselves possesses enduring possibilities. If it may from time to time\nbreak through in curious ways the walls which now shut it in, may it not\nin some very real way pass through the gate which Death opens and still\ncontinue in such a richness of consciousness and identity as to organize\nfor itself another life beyond the grave?\n\n\n_The Meaning of Spiritism for Faith_\n\nFaith may find its permissions and witnesses in many regions. The writer\nbelieves that faith in immortality finds an added permission in this\nregion also. Beyond debate, there are laws which we now but dimly\ndiscern and possible forces which only now and again touch the coasts of\nour present experience, as tides which sweep in from distant and\nmysterious seas. Beyond debate, we may not confine the interplay of mind\nwith mind to purely physical channels, and under exceptional\ncircumstances effects may be produced whose causes we have not yet been\nable to tabulate. Our conscious lives are rooted deeper than we dream.\nThey reach out in directions which we do not ourselves know. It may well\nbe, therefore, that they ascend to heights whose summits we do not see,\nand possess a permanence independent of the body which they inhabit, or\nthe things of seeming sense which surround them, and it may be also that\nwhat is now occult and perplexing and capricious may in the future\nbecome as truly an organized science as the alchemy and the astrology of\nthe Middle Ages have become the chemistry and astronomy of our own time.\nBeyond this one may assert the wholesome commonplace that the main\nbusiness of living is in the region of the known and the normal. It is\nfor our own well-being that the veil hangs dark between this world and\nthe next. An order in which there was constant passing and repassing\nwould be impossible. It would be either one thing or the other. It does\ndemoralize us to be always searching after the secrets of the unseen.\nMight it not demoralize those who have passed through the veil to be\nalways trying to come back? Surely the most fitting preparation for what\nawaits us hereafter is the brave conduct of life under those laws and\nconditions which are the revelation of the whole solid experience of our\nrace. Beyond this it is difficult to go and beyond this it is not\nnecessary to go.\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nMINOR CULTS: THE MEANING OF THE CULTS FOR THE CHURCH\n\n\n_Border-land Cults_\n\nThe cults which we have so far considered are the outstanding forms of\nmodern free religious movements, but they do not begin to exhaust the\nsubject matter. Even the outstanding cults have their own border-lands.\nNew Thought is particularly rich in variants and there are in all\nAmerican cities sporadic, distantly related and always shifting\nmovements--groups which gather about this or that leader, maintain\nthemselves for a little and then dissolve, to be recreated around other\ncenters with perhaps a change of personnel. The Masonic Temple in\nChicago is said to be occupied on Sundays all day long by larger or\nsmaller groups which may be societies for ethical culture or with some\nsocial program or other, or for the study of Oriental religions. One\nwould need to attend them all and saturate himself far more deeply than\nis possible for any single investigator in their creeds or their\ncontentions to appraise them justly. Their real significance is neither\nin their organization, for they have little organization, nor in their\ncreed, but in their temper. They represent reaction, restlessness and\nthe spiritual confusion of the time. They can be explained--in part at\nleast--in terms of that social deracination to which reference has\nalready been made. They represent also an excess of individualism in the\nregion of religion and its border-lands.\n\nAn examination of the church advertisement pages in the newspapers of\nNew York, Detroit, Chicago or San Francisco reveals their extent, their\nvariety and their ingenuity in finding names for themselves. On Sunday,\nFebruary 25th, the Detroit papers carried advertisements of Vedanta,\nSpiritist and Spiritualist groups (the Spiritist group calls itself \"The\nSpirit Temple of Light and Truth\"), The Ultimate Thought Society, The\nFirst Universal Spiritual Church, The Church of Psychic Research, The\nPhilosophical Church of Natural Law, Unity Center, The Culture of\nIsolan, Theosophy, Divine Science Center, and Lectures on Divine\nMetaphysics. Their leaders advertise such themes as: The Opulent\nConsciousness, The Law of Non-Attachment, Psychic Senses and\nSpirituality, The Continuity of Life, The Spiritualism of Shakespeare,\nThe Voiceless Code of the Cosmos, The Godlikeness of Divine Metaphysics\nin Business. Their themes are not more bizarre, it must be confessed,\nthan some of the topics announced for the orthodox churches. (Indeed the\nchurch advertisement page in cities whose churches indulge generously in\ndisplay advertisements is not altogether reassuring reading.) But, in\ngeneral, this list which can be duplicated in almost any large city is\ntestimony enough to a confusion of cults and a confusion of thought. As\nfar as they can be classified, according to the scheme of this study,\nthey are variants of New Thought, Theosophy and Spiritualism. If they\nwere classified according to William James' \"Varieties of Religious\nExperience\" they would be seen as mystical rather than rational,\nspeculative rather than practical.\n\nFort Newton, who speaks of them perhaps more disrespectfully than they\ndeserve as \"bootleggers in religion,\" finds in these lesser movements\ngenerally a protest against the excessively external in the life of the\nChurch to-day and a testimony to the quenchless longing of the soul for\na religion which may be known and lived out in terms of an inner\nexperience. But this certainly is not true of all of them.\n\n\n_Bahaism_\n\nThere is, however, one other larger and more coherent cult, difficult to\nclassify, which deserves a more extended notice. That is Bahaism, which,\nas it is now taking form, is a leaven rather than a cult. It is an\nattempt after spiritual unity and the reduction of religion to very\nsimple and inclusive forms and a challenge to the followers of religions\nwidely separated on the surface to be more true to what is deepest in\ntheir faith. It has a long and stirring history and curiously enough is\ndrawn from Mohammedan sources. Its basal literatures are Arabic and\nPersian, \"so numerous and in some cases so voluminous that it would\nhardly be possible for the most industrious student to read in their\nentirety even those which are accessible, a half dozen of the best known\ncollections in Europe.\"\n\nWe find its genesis, historically, in certain expectations long held by\nPersian Mohammedans akin to Jewish Messianic expectations held before\nand at the time of Christ. There has been, we know, a tradition of\ndisputed succession in Mohammedanism ever since the death of the\nprophet. Persian Mohammedans believed the true successor of Mohammed to\nhave been unjustly deprived of his temporal supremacy and they trace a\nlong line of true successors whose divine right would some day be\nrecognized and reestablished. Perhaps we might find a parallel here\namong those Englishmen who believe that the true succession of the\nEnglish throne should be in the house of the Stuarts, or those royalists\nin France who champion the descendants of one or the other former\nreigning houses. But the Persian faithful have gone farther than that.\nThey believe that the last true successor of Mohammed who disappeared in\nthe tenth century never died, but is still living in a mysterious city,\nsurrounded by a band of faithful disciples and \"that at the end of time\nhe will issue forth and 'fill the earth with justice after it has been\nfilled with iniquity.'\" A parallel here would be the old stories of\nFrederick Barbarossa who waits in his cave for the proper time to come\nforth and reassert his imperial power. This curious Persian belief has\nworked itself out in a time scheme much like the time schemes of other\nApocalyptic beliefs, the detail of which is difficult enough.\n\nBut in substance this hidden and true successor of the prophet has had\nfrom time to time those through whom he reveals himself to the faithful\nand makes known his will, and these are known as Babs or gates; \"the\ngate, that is, whereby communication was reopened between the hidden one\nand his faithful followers.\" The practical outcome of this would be that\nany one who could convince Persian Mohammedans that he was the Bab or\n\"gate\" would possess a mystic messianic authority. Such a confidence\nactually established would give him an immense hold over the faithful\nand make him a force to be reckoned with by the Mohammedan world.\n\n\n_The Bab and His Successors_\n\nAs far as our own present interest is concerned, the movement dates from\n1844 when a young Persian merchant announced himself as the Bab. If we\nare to find a parallel in Christianity he was a kind of John the\nBaptist, preparing the way for a greater who should come after him, but\nthe parallel ends quickly, for since the Mohammedan Messiah did not\nappear, his herald was invested with no little of the authority and\nsanctity which belonged to the hidden one himself. The career of the\nfirst Bab was short--1844 to 1850. He was only twenty-four years old at\nthe time of his manifestation, thirty when he suffered martyrdom and a\nprisoner during the greater part of his brief career. The practical\noutcome of his propaganda was a deal of bloody fighting between\nantagonistic Mohammedan factions. The movement received early that\nbaptism of blood which gives persistent intensity to any persecuted\nmovement. His followers came to regard him as a divine being. After his\nexecution his body was recovered, concealed for seventeen years and\nfinally placed in a shrine specially built for that purpose at St. Jean\nd'Acre. This shrine has become the holy place of Bahaism.\n\nDuring one period of his imprisonment he had opportunity to continue his\nwritings, correspond with his followers and receive them. He was thus\nable to give the world his message and we find in his teachings the germ\nof the gospel of Bahaism. Before his death he named his successor--a\nyoung man who had been greatly drawn to him and who seemed by his youth,\nzeal and devotion to be set apart to continue his work. To this young\nman the Bab sent his rings and other personal possessions, authorized\nhim to add to his writings and in general to inherit his influence and\ncontinue his work. This young man was recognized with practical\nunanimity by the Babis as their spiritual head. Owing to his youth and\nthe secluded life which he adopted, the practical conduct of the affairs\nof the Babi community devolved chiefly on his elder half-brother\nBaha'u'llah. What follows is a confused story of schism, rival claimants\nand persecution but the sect grew through persecution and the control of\nit came in 1868 into the hands of Baha'u'llah.\n\nDuring the greater part of his life Baha'u'llah was either an exile or a\nprisoner. From 1868 until his death in 1892 he was confined with seventy\nof his followers in the penal colony of Acca on the Mediterranean coast.\nMeanwhile the faith which centered about him changed character; he was\nno longer a gate or herald, he was himself a \"manifestation of God\"\nwith authority to change all earlier teaching. He really universalized\nthe movement. Beneath his touch religion becomes practical, ethical,\nless mystic, more universal. He was possessed by a passion for universal\npeace and brotherhood. He addressed letters to the crowned heads of\nEurope asking them to cooperate in peace movements. It has been\nsuggested that the Czar of Russia was influenced thereby and that we may\nthus trace back to Baha'u'llah the peace movement which preceded the\nwar.\n\nPilgrims came and went and through their enthusiasms the movement\nspread. After his death there was the renewal of disputes as to the\nproper succession and consequent schisms. The power came finally into\nthe hands of Abdul-Baha who was kept under supervision by the Turkish\ngovernment until 1908. He was freed by the declaration of the New\nConstitution and carried on thereafter with real power a worldwide\npropaganda. He had an unusual and winning personality, spoke fluently in\nPersian, Arabic and Turkish and more nearly than any man of his time\nfilled the ideal role of an Eastern prophet. He died in November, 1921,\nand was buried on Mt. Carmel--with its memories of Elijah and\nmillenniums of history--his praises literally being sung by a most\ncatholic group of Mohammedans, Jews and Eastern Christians.\n\n\n_The Temple of Unity_\n\nBahaism as it is held in America to-day is distilled out of the writings\nand teachings of Baha'u'llah and Abdul-Baha. Naturally enough, in the\npopularization of it its contradictions have been reconciled and its\nsubtleties disregarded. What is left fits into a variety of forms and is\nin line with a great range of idealism. The twelve basic principles of\nBahaism as announced in its popular literature are:\n\n     The Oneness of Mankind.\n     Independent investigations of truth.\n     The Foundation of all religions is one.\n     Religion must be the cause of unity.\n     Religion must be in accord with science and reason.\n     Equality between men and women.\n     Prejudice of all kinds must be forgotten.\n     Universal Peace.\n     Universal Education.\n     Solution of the economic problem.\n     An international auxiliary language.\n     An international tribunal.\n\nA program inclusive enough for any generous age. These principles are\nsubstantiated by quotations from the writings of Abdul-Baha and the\nteachings of Baha'u'llah. Many things combine to lend force to its\nappeal--the courage of its martyrs, its spaciousness and yet at the same\ntime the attractiveness of its appeal and its suggestion of spiritual\nbrotherhood. Since the movement has borne a kind of messianic\nexpectation it adjusts itself easily to inherited Christian hopes. There\nare real correspondences between its expected millennium and the\nChristian millennium.\n\nHow far its leaders, in their passion for peace and their doctrine of\nnon-resistance and their exaltation of the life of the spirit, are in\ndebt to the suggestions of Christianity itself, or how far it is a new\nexpression of a temper with which the Orient has always been more in\nsympathy than the West, it would be difficult to say, but in some ways\nBahaism does express--or perhaps reproduces--the essential spirit of the\nGospels more faithfully than a good deal of Western Christianity as now\norganized. Those members of Christian communions which are attracted to\nBahaism find in it a real hospitality to the inherited faith they take\nover. It is possible, therefore, to belong to the cult and at the same\ntime to continue one's established religious life without any very great\nviolence and indeed with a possible intensification of that life.\n\nIt is difficult, therefore, to distinguish between Bahaism as it is held\nby devout groups in America, so far as ethics and ideals go, from much\nthat is distinctive in the Christian spirit, though the influence of\nBahaism as a whole would be to efface distinctions and especially to\ntake the force out of the Christian creeds.\n\nChicago, or rather Wilmette, is now the center of the movement in\nAmerica and an ambitious temple is in the way of being constructed\nthere, the suggestion for whose architecture is taken from a temple in\nEskabad, Russia. This is to be a temple of universal religion,\nsymbolizing in its architecture the unities of faith and humanity. \"The\ntemple with its nine doors will be set in the center of a circular\ngarden symbolizing the all-inclusive circle of God's unity; nine\npathways will lead to the nine doors and each one coming down the\npathway of his own sect or religion or trend of thought will leave at\nthe door the dogmas that separate and, under the dome of God's oneness,\nall will become one.... At night it will be brilliantly lighted and the\nlight will shine forth through the tracery of the dome, a beacon of\npeace and unity rising high above Lake Michigan.\"\n\nThis study has led us into many curious regions and shown to what\nunexpected conclusions the forces of faith or hope, once released, may\ncome, but surely it has revealed nothing more curious than that the old,\nold controversy as to the true successor of Mohammed the prophet should\nat last have issued in a universal religion and set the faithful to\nbuilding a temple of unity on the shores of Lake Michigan.\n\nIf this work were to be complete it should include some investigation of\nthe rituals of the cults. They are gradually creating hymns of their\nown; their public orders of service include responsive readings with\nmeditations on the immanence of God, the supremacy of the spiritual and\nrelated themes. In general they dispense with the sacraments; they have\nno ecclesiastical orders and hardly anything corresponding to the\nCatholic priesthood or the Protestant ministry, though the Christian\nScience reader has a recognized official place. They meet in\nconferences; they depend largely upon addresses by their leaders.\nSpiritualistic movements organize themselves around seances. They use\nsuch halls as may be rented, hotels, their own homes; they have not\ngenerally buildings of their own save the Christian Science temples\nwhich are distinctive for dignity of architecture and beauty of\nappointment in almost every large city.\n\n\n_General Conclusions; the Limitations of the Writer's Method_\n\nIt remains only to sum up in a most general way the conclusions to which\nthis study may lead. There has been a process of criticism and appraisal\nthroughout the whole book, but there should be room at the end for some\ngeneral statements.\n\nThe writer recognizes the limitations of his method; he has studied\nfaithfully the literature of the cults, but any religion is always a\nvast deal more than its literature. The history of the cults does not\nfully tell their story nor does any mere observation of their worship\nadmit the observer to the inner religious life of the worshippers. Life\nalways subdues its materials to its own ends, reproduces them in terms\nof its own realities; there are endless individual variations, but the\noutcome is massively uniform. Religion does the same thing. Its\nmaterials are faiths and obediences and persuasions of truth and\nexpectations of happier states, but its ultimate creations are character\nand experience, and the results in life of widely different religions\nare unexpectedly similar. Both theoretically and practically the truer\nunderstanding or the finer faith and, particularly, the higher ethical\nstandards should produce the richer life and this is actually so. But\nreal goodness is everywhere much the same; there are calendared saints\nfor every faith.\n\nThere is an abundant testimony in the literature of the cults to rare\ngoodnesses and abundant devotion, and observation confirms these\ntestimonies. Something of this is doubtless due to their environment.\nThe Western cults themselves and the Eastern cults in the West are\ncontained in and influenced by the whole outcome of historic\nChristianity and they naturally share its spirit. If the churches need\nto remember this as they appraise the cults, the cults need also to\nremember it as they appraise the churches. Multitudes of Catholics and\nProtestants secure from a religion which the cults think themselves\neither to have corrected or outgrown exactly what the cults secure--and\nmore. Such as these trust God, keep well, go happily about their\nbusinesses and prove their faith in gracious lives. There is room for\nmutual respect and a working measure of give and take on both sides.\n\nThe writer is inclined to think the churches at present are more\nteachable than the more recent religious movements. For a long\ngeneration now the churches have been subject to searching criticism\nfrom almost every quarter. The scientist, the sociologist, the\nphilosopher, the publicist, the discontented with things as they are and\nthe protagonist of things as they ought to be, have all taken their turn\nand the Church generally, with some natural protest against being made\nthe scapegoat for the sins of a society arrestingly reluctant to make\nthe Church's gospel the law of its life, has taken account of its own\nshortcomings and sought to correct them. The cults are as yet less\ninclined to test themselves by that against which they have reacted. But\nthis is beside the point. The movements we have been studying can only\nbe fairly appraised as one follows through their outcome in life and\nthat either in detail or entirety is impossible. But it is possible to\ngain from their literature a reasonable understanding of their\nprinciples and interrelations and this the writer has sought to do.\n\n\n_The Cults Are Aspects of the Creative Religious Consciousness of the\nAge_\n\nCertain conclusions are thus made evident. These movements are the\ncreation of the religious consciousness of the time. They are aspects of\nthe present tense of religion. Since religion is, among other things,\nthe effective desire to enter into right relationships with the power\nwhich manifests itself in the universe there are two variants in its\ncontent; first, our changing understanding of the power itself and\nsecond, our changing uses of it. The first varies with our knowledge and\ninsight, the second with our own changing sense of personal need. Though\nGod be the same yesterday, to-day and forever, our understandings of Him\ncannot and ought not to be the same yesterday, to-day and forever. Our\nfaith is modified by, for example, our scientific discoveries. When the\nfirmament of Hebrew cosmogony has given way to interstellar spaces and\nthe telescope and the spectroscope plumb the depths of the universe,\nresolving nebulae into star drifts, faith is bound to reflect the change.\nThe power which manifests itself in the universe becomes thereby a\nvaster power, operating through a vaster sweep of law. Our changed\nunderstandings of ourselves must be reflected in our faith and our\nethical insights as well. And because there is and ought to be no end to\nthese changing understandings, religion itself, which is one outcome of\nthem, must be plastic and changing.\n\nWhat we ask of God is equally subject to change. True enough, the old\nquestions--Whence? Whither? and Why? are constant. As we know ourselves\nto be living in a world which is less than a speck in an immensity\nwherein the birth and death of suns are ephemeral, we may rightly\ndistrust our own value for the vaster order. We shall, therefore, the\nmore insistently ask Whence? and Whither? and Why? But, none the less,\nthere is always a shifting emphasis of religious need. Our own time is\nmanifestly more concerned about well-being in the life that now is than\na happy issue in the life which is to come. Temperament also qualifies\nexperience. The mystic seeks conscious communion with God as an end in\nitself; the practical temper asks the demonstration of the love of God\nin happy material conditions. In general, action and reaction govern\nthis whole region. The Puritan was supremely concerned about his own\nsalvation and the struggle consequent thereto; his descendants were\nchiefly interested in the extension of knowledge and the conquest of the\nphysical order and we react against this in a new return upon ourselves\nand the possibilities of personality.\n\nNow these changing understandings of the power which manifests itself in\nthe universe on the one side and our own changing senses of need on the\nother, give to religion a constantly fluctuating character and what is\nmost distinctively religious in any period must be the outcome of the\ncombination of these two variants. What an age asks of the God whom it\nknows colours the whole of its religious life. These cults and movements\ndo not wholly represent the creative religious consciousness of our\ntime, of course; a great deal of that same creative religious\nconsciousness has given new quality to the organizations and orthodoxies\nof the churches. But within the frontiers of historic Christianity it\nhas been rather the working over of the deposit of faith than an actual\nadventure in the making of religion. The cults and movements have not\nbeen thus limited. They have challenged old understandings, broken away\nfrom the older organizations and taken their own line, using such\nmaterial as seems proper for their purpose.\n\nThey are not wholly independent of the past; some of them have taken the\nimmemorial speculations of the East for their point of departure though\nintroducing therein a good many of the permissions or conclusions of\nmodern science and something of the spirit of Christianity itself. Those\ntaking their departure from Christianity have claimed rather to\nreinterpret and modernize it than to supplant it by their own creations.\nYet when all this is recognized these cults and movements are\nparticularly the creation of our own time. So accepted, they reveal\nstrongly the persistence of religion. All these conjectures and\nconfidences and reachings through the shadows are just a testimony that\nfew are content to go on without some form of religion or other.\n\nAll religion has, in one phase or another, gone through much the same\nprocess. There has been for every religion a time when it took new form\nout of older elements, a time when the accepted religions had little\nenough sympathy for and understanding of what was taking place about\nthem while those committed to new quests were exultant in the\nconsciousness of spiritual adventure and discovery and heard the morning\nstars sing together for joy. What is thus begun must submit always to\nthe testimony of time. In the end a religion is permanent as it meets\nthe great human needs and adjusts itself to their changing phases. It is\nimperial and universal as it meets these needs supremely. If in addition\nit be capable of organization, if there be within it room for expansion,\nand if, on the whole, it justifies itself by the outcome of it in life\nand society it will persist, and if it persists through a long period of\ntime and creates for itself literatures, dogmas and authorities, it\nbecomes as nearly fundamental as anything can be in this world. It\ncreates cultures, shapes civilizations, colours art, establishes ideals\nand fills the whole horizon of its devotees.\n\nIf a religion is to endure it must meet a wide range of need; it must be\nplastic and yet invest itself with the sanctions of History. For the\nconservative it must possess the note of authority and at the same time\npromise freedom to the liberal. It must persuade the forward-looking\nthat it holds within itself the power to meet changing conditions. It\nmust offer a satisfying experience to the mystic and the practically\nminded and deliverance to the despairing. It must be able to build into\nits structure new sciences and philosophies and yet it must touch the\nwhole of life with some sense of the timeless, and above all, it must\ninclude the whole of life, nor depend upon particularized appeals or\npassing phases of thought. Historic Christianity has more nearly met all\nthese tests than any other religion, for though under the stress of\nmeeting so great a variety of needs and conditions it has organized\nitself into forms as different as Latin Catholicism and the Society of\nthe Friends, so losing catholicity of organization, it has secured\ninstead a catholicity of spirit and a vast elasticity of appeal which\nare the secret of its power and the assurance of its continuing and\nenduring supremacy.\n\n\n_Their Parallels in the Past_\n\nNow by such tests as these what future may one anticipate for such cults\nas we have been studying? Are they likely to displace the historic forms\nof Christianity, will they substantially modify it, or will they wear\naway and be reabsorbed? Evidently one of these three things must happen.\nThis is not the first time in the Western world that historic and\nauthoritative Christianity has been challenged. We should have, perhaps,\nto go back to the fourth century to find an exact parallel and then we\nshould find in the vast and confused movement of Gnosticism an\nunexpected parallel to a great deal of what is happening about us.\nGnosticism was the effort of a reason excessively given to speculation,\nundisciplined and greatly unrestrained by any sense of reality to\npossess and transform the Church. Various forces combined to build its\nfabric of air-born speculation and though for the time it gave the\npatristic Church the hardest fight of its existence, the discipline of\nthe Church was too strong for it. Its own weaknesses proved eventually\nits undoing and Gnosticism remains only as a fascinating field of study\nfor the specialist, only a name if even so much as that for the\ngenerality of us and valuable chiefly in showing what speculation may do\nwhen permitted at will to range earth and sky, with a spurious\nrationalism for pilot and imagination for wings.\n\nThere have been, beside, in the history of the Church many other\nmovements possessing a great staying power and running in some cases for\ngenerations alongside the main current of religious development, until\nthey finally disappeared with the changing centuries. Arguing from such\nhistorical precedents as these one might easily assume a like fate for\nthe Gnosticism of our own time, and yet a note of caution is needed here\nfor there are divisive religious movements which have as yet neither\nfailed nor been absorbed in that from which they took their departure.\nThe expectation of the Catholic Church that Protestantism will spend its\nforce and be lost again in the majestic fabric of Latin Catholic\nChristianity as it is continued amongst us, is as far from realization\nto-day, or farther, than at any time in the last 300 years. We need to\nremember also that conditions change. The right of individual initiative\nand judgment once secured in the region of religion is not likely ever\nto be lost. A good many divergent movements have literally been whipped\nback into line or else put out in fire and blood. Nothing of that sort\nis likely to happen now.\n\nNo student of history should be blind to the sequence of action and\nreaction. A period of excessive dependence upon authority may follow a\nperiod of undue self-assertion, but it is not likely that we shall ever\nfind recreated exactly the conditions of the past or that religion can\nhereafter be held, as it has heretofore, in relatively well marked\nchannels under the stress of accepted authorities. Prophecy is hazardous\nbusiness but it is safe to assume that these modern religious cults and\nmovements represent the beginnings of a freer, more diffused, less\nformal religious faith. The peculiar cults themselves may reach their\nterm but the temper which produced them is likely to continue and with\nother groupings of forces produce something in the future which will at\nleast be their parallel.\n\n\n_The Healing Cults Likely to be Adversely Influenced by the Scientific\nOrganisation of Psycho-therapy_\n\nAs far as the fortunes of the distinctive cults themselves go, one's\nconclusions may be less tentative. For the most part the foundations\nupon which they are built are not big enough to carry an ample and\nsecure structure. They have been made possible not only by marked\nlimitations in historic religion itself, but also by contemporaneous\ntempers which, one may sincerely hope, are self-limiting, and this is\nsaid not through undue prejudice against the cults themselves, but\nsimply because one is loath to believe that the want of critical\nfaculty which has made some of these cults possible will not in the end\nyield to experience and a really sounder education. Since, moreover,\nsome of them--and Christian Science, preeminently--depend upon faith and\nmental healing, whatever helps us to a clearer understanding of the\nnature and limits of psycho-therapy will greatly affect their future.\nAll faith healing cults have heretofore depended very greatly upon the\natmosphere of mystery with which they have been able to surround\nthemselves. The fact that they have been able to secure results with no\nvery clear understanding of the way in which the results have been\nsecured has invested them with awe and wonder, so essential to every\nreligion.\n\nBut as psycho-therapy itself becomes organized, works out its laws,\ndevelops its own science and particularly as the knowledge of all this\nis extended and popularized, they will lose their base of support. For\nthis reason the writer believes that the final explanation of all faith\nand mental healing in terms of some form of suggestion which is just now\nstrongly in evidence will prove a distinct service to us all.\n\nThe intimate association of religion and healing has, on the whole, been\ngood neither for religion nor health. Of course, this statement will\nprobably be sharply challenged but it is maintained in the face of\npossible challenge. As far as religion goes it has withdrawn the\ninterest of the religious, thus influenced, from the normal expressions\nof the religious life to border-land regions; it has stressed the\nexceptional rather than the sweep of law, and the occult rather than the\nluminously reasonable. Where it has failed in individual cases, as it\nis bound to fail, it has left those thus disillusioned without any sound\nbasis for their faith and generally has driven them away from religion\naltogether. It has tempted religious teachers to win a hearing by signs\nand wonders. Even the Founder of the Christian religion grew weary of\nthis, as the records show plainly enough, in that He saw His true work\nto be thereby not helped but hindered, and if this be true of the\nFounder it is by so much the more true of His followers.\n\nOn the scientific side this temper has hindered honest thinking,\nlaborious investigation and that specialization which is absolutely\nnecessary to the furtherance of any great division of human effort.\nMedicine made little progress until it got itself free of the Church.\nSpecifically the average minister is neither by training nor temperament\nfitted for healing work and those laymen who have assumed that office\nhave generally been wanting in balance and self-restraint. This is not\nto deny the reality of a power not ourselves making for health and\nwell-being generally, or the power of faith, or the efficacy of prayer.\nLeast of all is God, upon this understanding, to be shut out of life.\nBut the power not ourselves which makes for faith and healing is best\nknown through laborious investigation, the discovery of methods and\nobediences to ascertained law. When we have clearly come to see the\nnature of psycho-therapy, the occult authority of healing cults will in\nthe end yield to this understanding and the cults themselves be greatly\nweakened or displaced.\n\nOne must recognize, on the other hand, the staying power of any\nwell-established religious system. Through nurture and those profound\nconservatisms which hold more tenaciously in the region of religion than\nanywhere else, it is possible to continue from generation to generation\nthe unreasonable or the positively untrue, and this holds in the Church\nas well as outside it. None the less, the most coherent systems must\nreckon with their own weaknesses. Christian Science may have before it a\nlong period of solid going or even marked growth, but its philosophy\nwill at last yield to the vaster sweep of a truer philosophic thought.\nIts interpretations of historic Christianity will come up again and\nagain for examination until their fallacies become apparent and its\nforce as a system of psycho-therapy will be modified by simpler and more\nreasonable applications of the same power.\n\n\n_New Thought Will Become Old Thought_\n\nNew Thought is likely to take a different course but it also will have\nto reckon with changing sciences and philosophies. What is New Thought\nto-day will be old thought to-morrow; it will be challenged by new\nexpressions of the spirit which begot it. It will endure, therefore,\nonly as it is open, flexible and possesses a great power of\naccommodation. But as long as understandings and ideals are fluid, as\nlong as religion is under bonds to take account of all the elements\nwhich must be incorporated in it in order to enlarge and continue it, as\nlong, in short, as the human spirit outgrows fixed forms in any region\nthere is likely to be in religion itself something corresponding to the\nNew Thought of to-day, but this will be true only as New Thought is not\na cult at all but something larger--a free and creative movement of the\nhuman spirit.\n\nOf all these cults it has made the soundest contribution to religion as\na whole. It is also more easily assimilated, more easily absorbed. Its\nown distinct field will be limited by the increasing hospitality of\nChristian thought to contemporaneous truth. A wholly open-minded church\nwill go a long way toward taking from New Thought its raison d'etre. Its\nfuture depends, therefore, very largely upon the open-mindedness of the\nolder and more strongly established forms of religion.\n\nThe future of Spiritualism is greatly open to conjecture. We have\nalready seen the alternatives which Spiritualism is called upon to face\nand the uncertainties which attend its conclusions. A fuller\nunderstanding of the possibilities of abnormal personality and the reach\nof automatism are likely to work against Spiritualism. If we find\nascertainable causes for its phenomena resident within personality\nitself there will be no need of calling in the other world in order to\nexplain what is happening in this. On the other hand, if there should\nevidence an increasing and tested body of facts which can be explained\nonly in terms of spiritistic communications, Spiritualism will naturally\nmake headway. But we are certainly standing only upon the threshold of a\nscientific interpretation of spiritistic phenomena and until the whole\nregion has been very much more carefully worked through and far more\ndependable facts are in hand, one can only say that Spiritism is a\nhypothesis which may or may not be verified, and attend the outcome.\n\nIt is hard to believe that Theosophy and kindred speculation will ever\nget a strong hold upon the practical Western mind. It owes what force it\nhas either to an excessive love of the speculative on the part of a few,\nor else to that particular temper which always wants something else and\nsomething new, or else to wearinesses and misunderstandings of the more\nshadowed side of life. Theosophy is greatly at the mercy of the\npositive, practical temper; it will always find a prevailing competitor\nin the Christian doctrine of immortality. Whatever, moreover, explains\nthe apparent inequalities of life in more simple and reasonable terms\nwill cut the roots of it. The movement toward religious syncretism of\nwhich Bahaism is just now the expression will not be so easy to dispose\nof. There will always be a temper impatient of the past, eager for\nunity, anxious for something big and interpenetrating. Historically this\ntemper has from time to time emerged, particularly in the latter phases\nof Roman paganism, and there is likely to be a larger interchange of\nreligious faith and understanding in the future than there has been in\nthe past.\n\nIn general, this desire for a universal religion, simple and wanting in\ndistinctive characters, follows a weakening of conviction, a loss of\npassion for accepted forms. If anything should deepen again amongst us\nin religion what corresponds just now to the passion for nationality\nthese more general religious quests would suffer. A strong feeling for a\nchurch or a creed or one's own movement would displace them. They have,\non the other hand, in their favour the general tendency of all religion\ntoward simplicity, the reduction of faith, that is, to a few broad and\ngenerally shared elements. But there is no reason to anticipate a speedy\nbreakdown of what one may call particularist religion and the\nsubstitution therefor of a faith built up out of many diverse elements\nand held in common by widely separated tempers.\n\n\n_There is Likely to be Some Absorption of the Cults by a Widening\nHistoric Christianity_\n\nIf the past supplies analogy or suggestion there will be some tendency\nfor the cults and movements to be reabsorbed by the dominant religious\nforms from which they have broken off. A careful analysis of this\nstatement would involve the consideration of a finality of Christianity\nas now held in the Western world. That is impossible in the range of a\nstudy like this. Any general statement is of course coloured by the\ntemper of the one who makes it and to a certain extent begs the whole\ngreat question. But a careful and dispassionate examination of\npresent-day cults would seem to indicate that they really have nothing\nto offer which the dominant Christianity does not possess either\nexplicitly or implicitly. There is a solidity of human experience behind\nits forms and creeds which cannot be lightly left out of account. They\nrepresent the travail of twenty centuries and have behind them far\nolder confidences and hopes. If Christianity should widen itself to the\nfull limit of its possibilities, it would leave little room for that\nwhich seeks to supplant it and would meet the needs which have begotten\nthe cults in far richer and more reasonable ways.\n\nAs far as the cults are mistakenly distinctive, as far as they cannot\nstand a careful examination, they represent what must be corrected and\ncannot be absorbed. Christianity can absorb New Thought far more easily\nthan Christian Science. Theosophy in its extremer forms it cannot absorb\nat all. It is more hospitable to the quest for a universal religion for\nit seeks itself to be a universal religion and can never achieve its\nideal unless it takes account of the desire for something big enough to\ninclude the whole of life, East as well as West, and to make room within\nitself for a very great variety of religious tempers.\n\n\n_But Christianity is Being Influenced by the Cults_\n\nIf Christianity is not to reabsorb the cults in their present form, it\nmust, as has been said over and over again, take account of them and it\nis not likely to go on uninfluenced by them. Already it has yielded in\nsome directions to their contentions. If it feels itself challenged by\nthem it must meet that challenge not so much by intolerance as by the\ncorrection of conditions which have made them possible, and here its\nmost dependable instruments are education and self-examination. There is\nneed of a vast deal more of sheer teaching in all the churches. The\nnecessity for congregations and the traditions of preaching conspire to\nmake the message of the Church far less vital than it ought to be.\nPreaching is too much declamation and far too much a following of narrow\nand deeply worn paths.\n\nThe cults themselves represent a craving for light, especially in the\nregions of pain and loss. Historic Christianity has lost out because it\nhas made religion too self-centered, not that the cults are a corrective\nhere, for they are even more self-centered--that is one of their great\nfaults. The individual is not the center of the world; he is part of a\nlarger order concerned for great ends for which his life can only be\ncontributory. The Church and the cults together have forgotten too\nlargely that life is sacred only as we lose it. We need in the churches\ngenerally a braver personal note and a very much larger\nunself-centeredness.\n\nIt is interesting to note that the movement of the cults, with the\npossible exception of New Thought, has been away from rationalism rather\nthan in the direction of it. This is a consideration to be taken into\naccount. It would seem on the surface of it to indicate that what people\nare wanting in religion is not so much reason as mysticism and that for\nthe generality religion is most truly conceived in terms not of the\nknown but of the unknown. If the Christian Church is to meet the\nchallenge of the cults with a far more clearly defined line of teaching,\nit is also to meet the challenge of the cults with a warmer religious\nlife, with the affirmation of an experience not so much tested by crises\nand conversions as by the constant living of life in the sense of the\ndivine--to use Jeremy Taylor's noble phrase: in the Practice of the\nPresence of God. The weakness of the cults is to have narrowed the\npractice of the presence of God to specific regions, finding the proof\nof His power in health and well-being. If we can substitute therefor the\nconsciousness of God in the sweep of law, the immensity of force, the\nnormal conduct of life, in light and understanding, in reason as well as\nmysticism and science as well as devotion, we shall have secured a\nfoundation upon which to build amply enough to shelter devout and\nquesting souls not now able to find what they seek in the churches\nthemselves and yet never for a moment out of line with what is truest\nand most prophetic in Christianity itself.\n\nSir Henry Jones has a paragraph in his \"Faith that Enquires\" distinctly\nto the point just here. \"The second consideration arises from the\ngreatness of the change that would follow were the Protestant Churches\nand their leaders to assume the attitude of the sciences and treat the\narticles of the creeds not as dogmas but as the most probable\nexplanation, the most sane account which they can form of the relation\nof man to the Universe and of the final meaning of his life. The\nhypothesis of a God whose wisdom and power and goodness are perfect\nwould then be tried and tested, both theoretically and practically, and,\nI believe, become thereby ever the more convincing. The creed would be\nnot merely a record of an old belief to be accepted on authority, but a\nchallenge to the skeptic and the irreligious. The Church, instead of\nbeing a place where the deliverances of ancient religious authorities\nare expounded, and illustrated by reference to the contents of one book\nand the history of one nation--as if no other books were inspired and\nall nations save one were God-abandoned--the Church would be the place\nwhere the validity of spiritual convictions are discussed on their\nmerits, and the application of spiritual principles extended; where\nenquiring youths would repair when life brings them sorrow,\ndisappointment or failure, and the injustice of man makes them doubt\nwhether there be a God, or if there be, whether he is good and has\npower, and stands as the help of man. Recourse to their certified\nspiritual guides, knowing that full and sympathetic justice will be done\nto all their difficulties, ought to be as natural to them as their\nrecourse to the physical laboratory or the workshop of the mechanician\nwhen an engine breaks down.\"[83]\n\n[Footnote 83: \"A Faith that Enquires,\" p. 82.]\n\n\n_Medical Science Should Take a More Serious Account of the Healing\nCults_\n\nNot only the churches but the schools and particularly Medical Science\nneed to take account of the cults. They constitute perhaps one of the\nsharpest indictments of present-day education. Many of their adherents\nare nominally educated above the average. They have secured for what\nthey follow the authority which always attaches, in the American mind,\nto the fact that those who champion any movement are college bred, and\nyet the want of clear vision, the power to distinguish and analyze,\nalong with the unexpected credulities which are thus made manifest,\nseem to indicate arresting deficiencies in popular education. It has\nleft us unduly suggestible, much open to mass movement, at the mercy of\nthe lesser prophets and wanting in those stabilities and understandings\nupon which a sound culture is to be built. When we consider what they\nare capable of believing who have had college or university training, we\nmust conclude either that contemporaneous education is wanting in the\ncreation of sound mental discipline, or else that we have a strange\npower of living in water-tight compartments and separating our faith\nwholly from our reason.\n\nThe cults which are organized around faith and mental healing at once\nchallenge and in a measure indict modern medical science. In many\ndirections all these movements are reactions against an excessive\nmaterialism; they affirm the power of personality as against its\nenvironment, testify that the central problems of life may be approached\nfrom the spiritual as well as from the physical and material side. It\nwould not for a moment be fair to say that modern Medicine is ignoring\nthis. There has probably always been a considerable element of mental\nhealing in any wise medical practice. But on the whole, the marvellous\nsuccesses and advances in Medical Science within the last thirty years\nand the very great success which has attended the definition of all\ndiseases in terms of physical disarrangement has led physicians\ngenerally unduly to underestimate or ignore the undoubted power of faith\nand mind over bodily states.\n\nEven as a matter of scientific investigation medicine as a whole has not\ntaken this line of approach seriously enough. The Society for Psychical\nResearch has something to teach the medical faculties just here. That\nSociety, as we have seen, set out in the most rigorous and scientific\nway possible to find out first of all just what actual facts lay behind\nthe confused phenomena of Spiritualism. They have given a long\ngeneration to just that. As they have finally isolated certain facts\nthey have, with a good deal of caution, undertaken to frame hypotheses\nto account for them and so, with the aid of the students of abnormal\npersonality, they are gradually bringing a measure of order into the\nwhole region. Medical Science on the whole has not done this in the\nregion of faith and mental healing. We are, therefore, far too uncertain\nof our facts. A good deal of this is open to correction. If a Society\nfor Psycho-Therapeutic Research should be organized, which would follow\nup every report of healings with an accurate care, beginning with the\ndiagnosis and ending with the actual physical state of the patient as\nfar as it could be ascertained by the tests at their disposal, they\ncould greatly clarify the popular mind, prevent a vast deal of needless\nsuffering, save the sick from frustrated hope and secure for their own\nprofession a distinct reinforcement and an increased usefulness.\n\n\n_A Neglected Force_\n\nIf they thus find--as is likely--that the real force of Psycho-therapy\nhas been largely overestimated, that imagination, wrong diagnosis and\nmistaken report as to the actual physical condition have all combined to\nproduce confidences unjustified by the facts, we should begin to come\nout into the light. And if, on the other hand, they found a body of\nactual fact substantiating Psycho-therapy they would do well to add\ncourses therein to the discipline of their schools.[84] The whole thing\nwould doubtless be a matter for specialization as almost every other\ndepartment of medicine demands specialization. Every good doctor is more\nor less a mental healer, but every doctor cannot become a specialist in\nPsycho-therapy, nor would he need to.\n\n[Footnote 84: But this is already being done.]\n\nTemperamental elements enter here very largely. But we might at least\ntake the whole matter out of the hands of charlatans and the\nhalf-informed and establish it upon a sound scientific basis. There is,\nbeyond debate, a real place for the physician who utilizes and directs\nthe elements of suggestion. They have gone farther, on the whole, in\nthis direction in France and Switzerland than we have in America.\nEvidently we are standing only upon the threshold of marked advances\nalong these lines. Psycho-therapy can never be a substitute for a\nmedical science which deals with the body as a machine to be regulated\nin its processes, defended against hostile invasion or reinforced in its\nweaknesses, but there is also another line of approach to sickness. A\ncatholic medical science will use every means in its power.\n\n\n_The Cults Must be Left to Time and the Corrections of Truth_\n\nBeyond such general considerations as these there is little to be said.\nThe Christian churches will gain nothing by an intolerant attitude\ntoward expressions of faith and spiritual adventures beyond their own\nfrontiers. Just as there is a constant selective process in answer to\nwhich the historic churches maintain their existences, a selective\nprocess controlled by association and temper, in that some of us are\nnaturally Catholics and some Protestants, there are tempers which do not\ntake kindly to inherited organization, authority or creed. Such as these\nare seekers, excessive perhaps in their individuality, but none the less\nsincere in their desire for a faith and religious contact which will\nhave its own distinct meaning for their own lives. And if there may seem\nto some of us elements of misdirection or caprice or unreason in their\nquests, it is perhaps in just such ways as these that advances are\nfinally made and what is right and true endures.\n\nIf nothing at all is to be gained by intolerance, nothing more is to be\ngained by an unfair criticism and, in general, all these movements must\nbe left to the adjustments of time and the corrections of truth.\n\nWe began this study by defining religion as the effective desire to be\nin right relation with the power which manifests itself in the universe.\nHow vast this power is we are just beginning to find out. How various we\nare in our temperaments and what unsuspected possibilities there are in\nthe depths of personality we are also just beginning to find out. There\nis possible, therefore, a vast variation of contact in this endeavour to\nbe in right relation with the power which faith knows and names as God.\nIn an endeavour moving along so wide a front there is room, naturally,\nfor a great variety of quest. When we have sought rightly to understand\nand justly to estimate the more extreme variants of that quest in our\nown time, we can do finally no more than, through the knowledge thus\ngained, to try in patient and fundamental ways to correct what is false\nand recognize and sympathize with what is right and leave the residue to\nthe issue of the unresting movements of the human soul, and those\ndisclosures of the Divine which are on their Godward side revelation and\non their human side insight, understanding and obedience.\n\n_Printed in the United States of America_\n\n\n\n\nSTRIKING ADDRESSES\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n_JOHN HENRY JOWETT, D.D._\n\nGod Our Contemporary\n\nA Series of Complete Addresses $1.50.\n\nAmong the pulpit-giants of to-day Dr. Jowett has been given a high\nplace. Every preacher will want at once this latest product of his\nfertile mind. It consists of a series of full length sermons which are\nintended to show that only in God as revealed to us in Jesus Christ can\nwe find the resources to meet the needs of human life.\n\n\n_SIDNEY BERRY, M.A._\n\nRevealing Light $1.50.\n\nA volume of addresses by the successor to Dr. Jowett at Carr's Lane\nChurch, Birmingham, the underlying aim of which is to show what the\nChristian revelation means in relation to the great historic facts of\nthe Faith and the response which those facts must awaken in the hearts\nof men to-day. Every address is an example of the best preaching of this\nfamous \"preacher to young men.\"\n\n\n_FREDERICK C. SPURR_\n\n_Last Minister of Regent's Park Chapel, London._\n\nThe Master Key\n\nA Study in World-Problems $1.35.\n\nA fearless, clearly-reasoned restatement of the terms of the Christian\nGospel and its relation to the travail through which the world is\npassing. Mr. Spurr is a man in the vanguard of religious thought, yet\njust as emphatically as any thinker of the old school, he insists on one\nPhysician able to heal the wounds and woes of humanity.\n\n\n_RUSSELL H. CONWELL, D.D._\n\n_Pastor Baptist Temple, Philadelphia._\n\nUnused Powers $1.25.\n\nTo \"Acres of Diamonds,\" \"The Angel's Lily,\" \"Why Lincoln Laughed,\" \"How\nto Live the Christ Life,\" and many other stirring volumes, Dr. Conwell\nhas just added another made up of some of his choicest addresses. Dr.\nConwell speaks, as he has always spoken, out of the experimental\nknowledge and practical wisdom of a man, who having long faced the stark\nrealities of life, has been exalted thereby.\n\n\n_GAIUS GLENN ATKINS, D.D._\n\n_Minister of the First Congregational Church, Detroit, Michigan._\n\nThe Undiscovered Country $1.50.\n\nA group of addresses marked by distinction of style and originality of\napproach. The title discourse furnishes a central theme to which those\nfollowing stand in relation. Dr. Atkins' work, throughout, is marked by\nclarity of presentation, polished diction and forceful phrasing.\n\n\nTIMELY ESSAYS AND STUDIES\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n_NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS_\n\n_Author of \"Great Books as Life-Teachers.\"_\n\nGreat Men as Prophets of a New Era $1.50.\n\nDr. Hillis' latest book strikes a popular chord. It fairly pulses with\nlife and human sympathy. He has a large grasp of things and relations, a\nbroad culture, a retentive memory and splendid imagination, and there\nare few writers to-day with so large an audience assured in advance. The\nsubjects include: Dante; Savonarola; William the Silent; Oliver\nCromwell; John Wesley; John Milton; Garibaldi; John Ruskin, etc.\n\n\n_THOS. R. MITCHELL, M.A., B.D._\n\nThe Drama of Life\n\nA Series of Reflections on Shakespeare's \"_Seven Ages_.\" Introduction by\nNellie L. McClung. $1.25.\n\nA fresh, stimulating discussion of old themes. Mr. Mitchell handles his\nsubject with unusual directness, bringing to its discussion clarity of\nthought and lucidity of expression which has already won the\nenthusiastic endorsement of Sir William Robertson Nicoll, Chas. W.\nGordon, D.D., (Ralph Connor) Archdeacon Cody and Prof. Francis G.\nPeabody.\n\n\n_D. MACDOUGALL KING, M.B._\n\n_Author of \"The Battle with Tuberculosis.\"_\n\nNerves and Personal Power\n\nSome Principles of Psychology as Applied to Conduct and Health. With\nIntroduction by Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King. $2.00\n\nPremier King says: \"My brother has, I think helped to reinforce\nChristian teaching by showing wherein recent medical and scientific\nresearches are revealing the foundations of Christian faith and belief\nin directions hitherto unexplored and unknown.--The world needs the\nassurance this book can scarcely fail to bring.\"\n\n\n_REV. R.E. SMITH Waco, Texas._\n\nChristianity and the Race Problem $1.25.\n\nA sane, careful study of the Race problem in the South, written by a\nborn Southerner, the son of a slave-owner and Confederate soldier. Mr.\nSmith has lived all his life among negroes, and feels that he is capable\nof seeing both sides of the problem he undertakes to discuss.\n\nPROBLEMS OF TODAY\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n_GEORGE McCREADY PRICE, M.A._\n\nPoisoning Democracy\n\nA Study of the Present-Day Socialism. $1.25\n\nProfessor Price shows that the conditions prevailing to-day are due\nlargely to the acceptance of various socialistic and evolutionary\ntheories termed \"New\" Theology. No more terrific moral and religious\nindictment of Socialism has ever been presented.\n\n\n_ALBERT CLARKE WYCKOFF_\n\nSense of Christian Science $1.75\n\nA deadly, withering attack on Christian Science enfilading its every\nposition. Mr. Wyckoff's searching analysis of the pretensions, errors,\nfollies, and non-sense of so-called Christian Science should prove as\nconvincing as it is unanswerable.\n\n\n_ALLEN W. JOHNSTON_\n\nThe Roman Catholic Bible and the Roman Catholic Church\n\nForeword by David J. Burrell, D.D. $1.25\n\nA book that examines the cardinal doctrines as taught by the Church of\nRome, such as the Invocation of Saints, Purgatory, Indulgences, Worship\nof Mary, the Holy Eucharist, etc. etc., and indicates the dissimilarity\nbetween this body of teaching and Holy Writ.\n\nNew Editions.\n\n\n_I.M. HALDEMAN_\n\nCan the Dead Communicate with the Living? $1.25\n\n\"Needless to say, Dr. Haldeman holds no brief for Spiritism. A book that\nis awakening everyone to the peril of 'spiritualism' among\nChristians.\"--_Christian Work._\n\n\n_JAMES M. GRAY, D.D._\n\nSpiritism and the Fallen Angels\n\nFrom a Biblical Viewpoint. $1.25\n\n\"Beginning with a review of the present-day revival of Spiritism and how\nto meet it, Dr. Gray harks back to origins, the baleful influence of the\ncult from the earliest recorded history of the human race.\" _S.S.\nTimes._\n\nSTANDARD REFERENCE WORKS\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_G.B.F. HALLOCK Editor of \"The Expositor.\"_\n\nA Modern Cyclopedia of Illustrations for All Occasions\n\nNineteen Hundred and Thirty-eight Illustrations. $3.00.\n\nA comprehensive collection of illustrative incidents, anecdotes and\nother suggestive material for the outstanding days and seasons of the\nchurch year. The author, well-known to the readers of \"_The Expositor_,\"\nhas presented a really valuable handbook for Preachers, Sunday School\nSuperintendents and all Christian workers.\n\n\n_JAMES INGLIS_\n\nThe Bible Text Cyclopedia\n\nA Complete Classification of Scripture Texts. New Edition. Large 8vo,\n$2.00\n\n\"More sensible and convenient, and every way more satisfactory than any\nbook of the kind we have ever known. We know of no other work comparable\nwith it in this department of study.\"--_Sunday School Times._\n\n\n_ANGUS-GREEN_\n\nCyclopedic Handbook to the Bible\n\n_By Joseph Angus. Revised by Samuel G. Green._\n\nNew Edition. 832 pages, with Index, $3.00.\n\n\"The Best thing in its line.\"--_Ira M. Price, Univ. of Chicago._\n\n\"Holds an unchallenged place among aids to the interpretation of the\nScriptures.\"--_Baptist Review and Expositor._\n\n\"Of immense service to Biblical students.\"--_Methodist Times._\n\n\nThe Treasury of Scripture Knowledge _Introduction by R.A. Torrey_\n\nConsisting of 500,000 Scripture References and Parallel Passages. 788\npages. 8vo. Cloth. $3.00.\n\n\"Bible students who desire to compare Scripture with Scripture will find\nthe 'Treasury' to be a better help than any other book of which I have\nany knowledge.\"--_R.R. McBurney, Former Gen. Sec., Y.M.C.A., New York._\n\n\n_A.R. BUCKLAND, Editor_\n\nUniversal Bible Dictionary\n\n511 pages. 8vo. Cloth. $3.00.\n\n_Dr. Campbell Morgan_ says: \"Clear, concise, comprehensive. I do not\nhesitate to say that if any student would take the Bible, and go through\nit book by book with its aid, the gain would be enormous.\"\n\nCHURCH WORK\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n_ROGER W. BABSON Author of \"Fundamentals of Prosperity,\" etc._\n\nNew Tasks for Old Churches\n\nCloth, $1.00. Paper, 60c.\n\nSuggestions for the solution of to-day's problems, clear-cut and\ncourageous. Babson has little sympathy with the arguments of\nself-interest of business men or with the outworn methods of the church\nin industrial communities. His sole interest is in the physical, social,\nand spiritual salvation of the men, women, and children in our\nindustrial centres.\n\n\n_PRES. WILLIAM ALLEN HARPER_\n\n_Author of \"The New Church For The New Time\" etc._\n\nThe Church in the Present Crisis $1.75.\n\nHon. Josephus Daniels says: \"Dr. Harper has ably presented the demand\nthat the church shape the thought and life of the future. The world,\nhaving tried everything else, is becoming convinced that no Golden Rule\nalone will be the savior. Dr. Harper wisely stresses study of the Bible,\nthe Christian leaven in education, the duty to look difficult problems\nin the face and solve them by application of the Christian religion. It\nis a book of faith with wise directions and guidance.\"\n\n\n_REV. ALBERT F. McGARRAH_\n\n_Author of \"Modern Church Management.\"_\n\nMoney Talks\n\nStimulating Studies in Christian Stewardship. $1.25.\n\nMinisters and laymen, who desire to present convincingly the principles\nand practices which should govern Christians in getting and using money,\nwill find here a wealth of fresh material, popular in style, yet deeply\ninspiring in tone. A companion volume to \"Modern Church Finance\" and\n\"Modern Church Management.\"\n\n\n_LYMAN EDWYN DAVIS, D.D., LL.D._\n\n_Editor \"Methodist Recorder.\"_\n\nDemocratic Methodism in America\n\nA Topical Survey of the Methodist Protestant Church. $1.50.\n\nA history of the Methodist Protestant church from its founding in 1830,\npointing out the various links in the chain of circumstances which lead\nto the organization of the Methodist Protestant Church and the\nfundamental principles which prompted and justified the movement. It\nconstitutes a vigorous and ably-argued plea for \"mutual rights\"\nMethodism.\n\nBIBLE STUDY\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n_P. WHITWELL WILSON_\n\n_Author of \"The Christ We Forget\"_\n\nThe _Church_ We Forget.\n\nA Study of the Life and Words of the Early Christians. 8vo, cloth, net\n\nThe author of \"The Christ We Forget\" here furnishes a companion-picture\nof the earliest Christian Church--of the men and women, of like feelings\nwith ourselves, who followed Christ and fought His battles in the Roman\nworld of their day. \"Here again,\" says Mr. Wilson, \"my paint-box is the\nBible, and nothing else--and my canvas is a page which he who runs may\nread.\"\n\n\n_C. ALPHONSO SMITH, Ph.D., LL.D._\n\n_Head of the Department of English in the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis.\nMd._\n\nKey-note Studies in Key-note Books of the Bible 12mo, cloth, net\n\nThe sacred books dealt with are Genesis, Esther, Job, Hosea, John's\nGospel, Romans, Philippians, Revelation. \"No series of lectures yet\ngiven on this famous foundation have been more interesting and\nstimulating than these illuminating studies of scriptural books by a\nlayman and library expert.\"--_Christian Observer._\n\n\n_GEORGE D. WATSON, D.D._\n\nGod's First Words\n\nStudies in Genesis, Historic, Prophetic and Experimental. 12mo, cloth,\nnet\n\nDr. Watson shows how God's purposes and infinite wisdom, His plan and\npurpose for the race, His unfailing love and faithfulness are first\nunfolded in the Book of Genesis, to remain unchanged through the whole\ncanon of Scripture. Dr. Watson's new work will furnish unusual\nenlightment to every gleaner in religious fields, who will find \"God's\nFirst Words\" to possess great value and profit.\n\n\n_EVERETT PEPPERRELL WHEELER, A.M._\n\n_Author of \"Sixty Years of American Life,\" etc._\n\nA Lawyer's Study of the Bible\n\nIts Answer to the Questions of To-day. 12mo cloth, net\n\nMr. Wheeler's main proposition is that the Bible, when wisely studied,\nrightly understood and its counsel closely followed, is found to be of\ninestimable value as a guide to daily life and conduct. To this end Mr.\nWheeler examines its teachings as they relate to sociology, labor and\ncapital, socialism, war, fatalism, prayer, immortality. A lucid, helpful\nbook.","title":"Modern Religious Cults and Movements","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":93199}