Article February 1, 1913 Issue

In a recent issue of the Citizen, under the healing of...

Frederick Dixon—Letchworth, England.

Letchworth Citizen

In a recent issue of the Citizen, under the healing of "The Theosophical Society," there is a reference to Christian Science which I am sure you will allow me to correct. It is not my purpose in any way to criticize theosophy, nothing could be farther from my thought. What I do wish, however, is to explain that Frank Merry, in his lecture on the development of the Aryan race, introduced a reference to Christian Science which was completely, though I know unintentionally, misleading.

He explained that Christian Science is the counterpart in modern philosophy of the doctrine of Maya, promulgated by the Vedantist teachers. "The Vedantist," he explained, "endeavors to realize the unity of all things; and because man's nature reflects all principles that are in the universe, the constant endeavor is to shut out the lower planes, so that he may gain the experiences of the higher. Everything but this is to him illusion or Maya." Now, to anybody thoroughly grasping the teaching of Christian Science, this would be sufficient to explain that Christian Science and the Vedantic philosophy are poles asunder.

Maya is the belief in that fictitious energy which, in conjunction with the supreme self, produces the cosmic soul, and it is always personified by a female form of celestial origin, created to beguile. It would be difficult to imagine anything more completely contradictory of Christian Science than this. Christian Science is founded on the New Testament, and when Jesus personified the lie of evil, the illusion of matter, he personified it, not as a celestial being, but as the devil. "Ye are of your father the devil," he said, "and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." So far from Christian Science teaching anything approaching the doctrine of Maya, it teaches the exact reverse. The doctrine of Maya is expressed in this idea of fictitious energy which, in conjunction with the supreme self, produces the cosmic soul. Christian Science teaches that the only supreme self is divine Mind, and it uses the term Soul as a spiritual synonym for the divine Mind, or God. Matter, evil, whatever concrete shape illusion may seem to take, it describes as Jesus described it, as a lie, and as such, as something not producing, but entirely unknown to Soul or God.

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