[58] "The Quimby Manuscripts," p. 172.
Christian Science Has a Rich Field to Work
Now what can finally be said of the whole matter? In general, two things. Recognizing the force and reality of psycho-therapy Christian Science gets its power as a healing system from the great number of people who are open to its appeal and the shrewd combination of elements in the appeal itself. In spite of our great advance in medical knowledge and practice and in spite of the results of an improved hygiene there remains in society at large a very great deposit of physical ill-being sometimes acute, sometimes chronic, sometimes clearly defined, sometimes vague, badly treated cases, hopeless cases and a great reach of cases which are due rather to disturbed mental and moral states than to ascertainable physical causes. Illness has its border-land region as well as thought and the border-land faiths make their foremost appeal to those who, for one reason or another, live in border-land physical states.
And, to repeat, the number of those who belong to this group is unexpectedly large. Naturally such as these grasp at anything which offers help; they supply to the manufacturer of cure-all drugs their clientele; they fill printed pages with testimonials of marvellous cures achieved where the regular medical faculty had been helpless; they crowd about every faith healer; they are the comrades of the pilgrims to Lourdes and Ste. Anne de Beaupré; they belong to the fellowship of those who, in the Middle Ages, haunted shrines and sought out relics and asked to be touched by kings. We discover their forebears in the pages of the Gospels and as far back as any records go we see this long, pathetic procession of the hopeless or the handicapped seeking help. And again and again they get it, for we have also seen that, given faith enough either in a saint or a shrine or a system, psycho-therapy with certain subjects and in certain cases does heal. But this type of healing depends upon no one philosophy or no single force except indeed those obscure forces which are released by suggestion.
While this was being written certain evangelistic faith healers in the city of Detroit were sending out broadsides of testimonials to their healings, as definite in detail as the testimonials in "Science and Health," or the Christian Science Journal, and yet the basal principles by which these men have claimed to work are as different from the basal principles of Christian Science as east is from west. While this is being revised Coué, the apostle of suggestion according to the Nancy school, is besieged in New York by those who have been led to hope for healing through the success of his method. Whether the relic be true or false does not matter if only the relic be believed in.
One of the Most Strongly-Drawn Systems of Psycho-therapy Ever Offered
Now Christian Science is one of the most strongly drawn psycho-therapeutic agencies ever offered. Most faith healing systems heretofore have depended upon some place, some thing, some healer. Here is a system capable of the widest dissemination and dependent only upon a book and its interpreters. It universalizes what has heretofore, for one reason or another, been localized. It is shrewdly organized, as far as propaganda goes, and effectively directed. It is widely advertised by its friends—and its critics. Its temples, for beauty and dignity, put to shame most Protestant churches. Its rituals combine in an unusual way the simple and the dramatic. It is so fortunately situated as to be able to keep finance—which is a trying element in Protestant Church life—in the background. Its followers have that apostolic fervour which attaches to movements sure of their divine commission and not yet much worn by time. It possesses distinctly one of Sir Henry Jones' hall-marks of religion. "It impassions the spirit of its disciples and adds consequence to the things it sanctions or condemns."
It draws upon deeply established Christian reverences and faiths. It secures for its authority the persistent but perplexed faith in the Bible which the average Protestant inherits and for those who believe in it the force of this authority is no wise weakened by the fact that by every sound canon of Biblical interpretation it is illicit. Its very dogmatism is an asset. It could not do its work if it were less sure. The confusions of the systems which try the critically minded are a contribution to the devout who find in them an added opportunity for faith. Its experience meetings create enthusiasm and confidence. It is, in short, more than any one of the movements we are here considering, a clearly defined cult whose intensities, limitations and mystic assurances all combine to produce among its disciples the temper most favourable to suggestion and it locks up on its force as a system of healing.
An accurate analysis of what it actually accomplishes would require an immense and probably impossible labour—a knowledge of each case, an accurate diagnosis when even for the trained diagnostician the thing is difficult enough, and the following up of all reported cases. The medical faculty would probably have done better to have taken such movements as these more seriously and to have brought to them a trained investigation which, except in the case of Lourdes, has never even been attempted. Doubtless there is looseness and inconsistency in the whole system. Almost any one who has had a practical observation of the working of Christian Science has knowledge enough not only of looseness and inconsistency but of what seems to the non-Christian Science mind positive untruth. Something, however, must always be allowed here for the way in which the mind acts under excitement and for the way in which delusion deludes. All this combines to make any final judgment in this region difficult, but there still remains, after all qualification, an arresting solidity of achievement. Christian Science does work, especially with the self-absorbed, the neurotic and those who have needed, above all, for their physical deliverance, a new access to faith and courage. Christian Science practitioners have also an unusual opportunity in what may be called moral rehabilitation with physical consequences. The physician has a better chance with the bodies of his patients than with their souls; the minister a better chance with the spiritual needs of his parishioners than with their bodies and habits; the Christian Science practitioner to an unusual extent has the whole of life under his control and it ought in all fairness to be conceded that this power is helpfully employed.
The very discipline of Christian Science is itself a therapeutic. There are really a good many things which become non-existent directly you begin to act as if they did not exist. An atmosphere in which no one refers to his ailment and every one to his well-being is a therapeutic atmosphere. Psychologists have taught us that if we go through the motions of being happy we are likely to have an access of happiness; if we go through the motions of being unhappy we have an access of misery. If we go through the motions of being well, very often we achieve a sound measure of health.