Not long ago Professor Munsterberg investigated the claims of Christian Scientists that they were constantly curing diseases of the organic type. He reported his findings in a series of articles in McClure's Magazine (1908), stating that he inquired personally into one hundred cases said to have been cured by Christian Science and found that ninety-two of them had been of the functional type, while eight were claimed to have been organic, but that in no instance could this be proved beyond doubt.
Chapter XXXV
The Two-fold Attitude of Mind and Soul
The following is an extract from a letter sent to me by a reader of my articles in ~The Nature Cure Magazine.~
"Sometimes you say we must rely on our own personal efforts and at other times you teach dependence upon a higher power. This, to me, is contradictory and confusing. I cannot understand how, consistently, we can do both at the same time. Which is right? Is it best to rely upon our own power and our personal efforts or upon the 'Higher Power'?"
Similar inquiries have come from other friends. I shall now endeavor to answer these and other questions.
There is nothing contradictory or incompatible in the teachings of the Nature Cure philosophy concerning the physical and metaphysical methods of treating human ailments. Both the independent and the dependent attitudes of mind and soul are good and true and may be entertained at the same time. It is necessary for us to rely on our own personal efforts in carrying out the dictates of reason and of common sense. But this need not prevent us from praying for and confidently expecting a larger inflow of vital power and intuitional discernment from the Source of all intelligence and power in the innermost parts of our being.
This two-fold attitude of mind and soul is justified not only by reason and intuition, but also by the anatomical structure of the human organism and its physiological and psychological faculties, capacities and powers.
The activities of the human organism are governed by two different systems of nerves, the sympathetic and the motor. The sympathetic nervous system is the conveyor of vital force to the organs and cells of the body. Just what this vital force is and where it ultimately comes from, we do not know. It is a manifestation of that which we call God, Nature, Life, the Higher Power or the Divine Within.
Heart action, the circulation of the blood, respiration, digestion, assimilation of food, elimination and all other involuntary activities and functions of the human organism are controlled by means of the sympathetic nervous system. The nature of the controlling force itself is not known to us. We do know that it is supremely powerful, intelligent and benevolent.