Let us get rid of this “confusion of tongues”; this “babel of Psychology”; “New Thought” (as old as man); “Metaphysics”; “Christian Science” et hoc genus omne, and come down to common sense and the facts of nature. The aim and the results along these lines are often good and helpful; then why clothe them in the garb of absurdities?
Recognize the facts, and express them intelligently, and they may do ten times more good, for then we could understand them. They are, one and all, a weak dilution of the old Hindoo Yoga, thrashed over there for thousands of years; straining after results, while ignorant of, or ignoring basic principles.
Aside from the “Eight Systems of Philosophy” now recognized in India, there are hundreds of varieties and classes of Yogis.
“To acquire powers” is one thing; self-mastery and self-knowledge are quite another. Thus the one is often distorted and always transient; the other constructive, regenerative, and enduring.
To illustrate by contrast what Constructive Psychology, or the building of character, is not, we may now take some of the forms of diseased action known to all time, occurring in individuals and in epidemics, and which to-day fill our Insane Asylums with “Incurables.”
The point of first importance in all these cases, is the lack of self-control. Weakness, aberration or disease of the Will. The Individual Intelligence fails to exercise its divine prerogative and be Master in and of its own house.
In the place of this control, sensations, feelings, emotions, desires, appetites, passions, and ambitions run riot. The Servants of the Master war among themselves, quarrel with each other, bind the Master hand and foot, wreck the furniture, and at last destroy the house. The Master has become the victim and at last the slave of his own servants. His Will is in abeyance; his perceptions distorted; his feelings and emotions aggravated; his “Reason Dethroned”; his judgment impaired; he has an “Unbalanced Mind.”
What is here needed but Christos in the Temple, “turning over the tables of the money-changers and the seats of them that sold doves,” and restoring the High-Priest in the Holy Temple—the Human Soul, viz.: the intelligent Will of Man, determined to govern his own house, and responsible for results?
In place of Rational Volition, clear, just and true perceptions, sound judgment and clear understanding, we have “Illusions,” “Hallucinations” and “Delusions.” In other words, the Individual is Insane!
It all goes deeper than the Mind; the Soul, the Individual Intelligence is dethroned in his own Kingdom; Body, Mind, and Soul are out of joint.