Article January 2, 1915 Issue

Considerable comment was aroused by the remarks on...

Ezra W. Palmer

Glenwood Springs (Col.) Avalanche

Considerable comment was aroused by the remarks on Christian Science by Prof. D. E. Phillips of Denver University, at the Teachers Normal Institute held in Glenwood Spirings a short time ago. Professor Phillips attempted to tell his psychology class what he believed Christian Science to be. His conclusion was that Christian Science was merely the operation of mental suggestion. Because of the publicity given his remarks I beg space to correct the erroneous impression given.

Christian Science is as far from mental suggestion as the east is from the west. Christian Science recognizes that there is but one intelligence,—the infinite, divine God, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," as St. Paul declares. Since Mind is omnipotent and omniscient, to know this Mind is to lay hold upon the Science of being. As a result, a clear line of demarcation is established between the things of Spirit and the things that are unlike Spirit. As the understanding of Mind is developed, it becomes clearly apparent that everything unlike the divine Mind, such as sin, sickness, disease, and death, is false human belief, the perversion of righteousness, the product of the human or carnal mind. The falsity of these being thus made apparent, they are obliterated from consciousness by the knowledge of the true nature of God, and of man, His perfect image and likeness. Jesus healed the sick by understanding God and His holy purpose. He ever declared that all power came to him from the Father, and through his understanding of the Father he was enabled to nullify and destroy all discordant material conditions, whether sickness, sin, poverty, storms at sea, or death itself. In this process the human mind was no factor whatsoever.

Suggestive therapeutics is merely another name for hypnotism; it is simply the action of one mind upon another, the intrusion of one mortal's thought into the consciousness of another. Upon consideration, it will be conceded that the human mind is not perfect; that it entertains evil and sinful thoughts as well as good thoughts. It is therefore just as likely to project evil thoughts and suggestions into the consciousness of the invalid as good thoughts, and therefore is capable of and frequently is used as an instrument of evil. As a matter of fact, it does not heal the person of his sick beliefs. A suggestion merely crowds out one erroneous state of mind and substitutes another human thought in its place, and this thought may be just as destructive to the harmony and happiness of the individual as the original belief. Furthermore, the patient is liable to relapse, as the erroneous state of mind is not destroyed but merely ignored, so that the patient may be, and usually is, in a worse state of thought than he was before.

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