Article October 10, 1914 Issue

No thinking person will be likely to differ with the conclusions...

Clinton B. Burgess

The Erie (Pa.) Dispatch

No thinking person will be likely to differ with the conclusions expressed in the excellent editorial in the Dispatch of recent date regarding the way in which victims of the drug habit should be dealt with; but I feel that attention should be called to the fact that Christian Science, while it has proved a complete remedy in numberless such cases, cannot rightly be classed as "suggestive treatment."

The supposed value of suggestive treatment lies in the readiness of the mind of the patient to respond to suggestions expressing, audibly or otherwise, the will of the operator, whose aim is so to control and determine the thought of the patient as to produce the desired effect. A great danger in this kind of treatment, and one that is recognized by those who have made a study and practice of it, lies in the fact that with each response or yielding by the patient of his individuality and self-control to another's will, his own power of resistance to suggestion is weakened. The result is a growing tendency to yield to strong suggestions from without,—suggestions which may and do come from other sources and baser motives than the earlier ones, which may have been given with the most benevolent intent. Against this tendency to be controlled the victim of the suggestion habit may struggle as vainly as does the victim of the drug habit, and thus the remedy be worse than the disease.

In methods and results Christian Science, based wholly on the teachings, works, and example of Christ Jesus, the most successful healer of the ages, is exactly and emphatically opposite to suggestive treatment. Misunderstood by those who could not perceive the natural supremacy of spiritual power and law over the material, the healing works of Jesus were classed by them with the suggestive methods of the exorcists of that time, and his answer to their accusation, as recorded in Luke xi. 17-20, was at once a repudiation of such methods and a lesson on the futility of using evil in the attempt to bring about good.

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