Article April 14, 1906 Issue

I am not a Christian Scientist myself, being, indeed, a...

Dacre Lane

London (England) Tribune

I am not a Christian Scientist myself, being, indeed, a member of the Church of England, but this does not bar me from admitting and rejoicing in the good work the Christian Scientists are doing by the exercise of what a critic calls their "healing propensity." I have had experience of it myself in being healed of a trying attack of sciatica which a doctor had failed to relieve, but I found in Christian Science no approach to hypnotism. I requested the healer's help in a spirit very like doubt and unbelief ; I asked innumerable questions all through the week of treatment, and in every way that I could I inquired into the process. Before the end of the week I was undoubtedly quite well.

I have found Christian Scientists a most charitable and cheerful people to know ; their conversation and, so far as I have seen, their lives conform to their professions. If this critic had the least personal acquaintance with the "healing propensity," she would know that the very last possible charge against Christian Science healing would be that of hypnotism. The personality of the healer is, if anything, the least factor in the whole process. I have been asked more than once, "What, then, does the healing?" and my answer is the only possible one from any one who knows their ways and has had personal experience of their healing ; it is "Prayer — the kind of prayer the Christ himself commanded his followers to pray." The most prominent claim in Christian Science healing is that "Divine Mind heals the case."

How can any one assert in one and the same breath that there is danger of mesmerism in the Christian Science healing. and then follow on to say that "one of the good points in Christian Science was that it had made known the question of individuality"? What is more common than for a doctor to tell his patient that he will be liable all his life to the complaint from which he is supposed to be cured! Certainly there it is an admitted propensity not to heal, but merely to help. Is there so much fault to find with a people in whom their most severe critics discover their chief characteristic to be a "propensity to heal"?

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