Article November 21, 1914 Issue

In a recent issue of The News, an address given at the...

S. T. Downs—Indianapolis, Ind.

The News

In a recent issue of The News, an address given at the Propylæum, on "The Secret and Law of Suggestion in Child Training," is reported, in which there is an undoubted intention to be kind to Christian Science; but it is liable to confuse your readers, and I shall appreciate the opportunity to make a brief statement of what Christian Science teaches.

The speaker is reported as saying in the sentence immediately preceding the statement that Christian Science heals, that mesmerism, psychology, hypnotism, and suggestion are the laws of God, and the inference is that Christian Science agrees with this doctrine. In Christian Science, however, we learn that God is Mind, and that in reality man is the reflection or expression of Mind, and is governed only by the law of Mind; the same Mind to which St. Paul referred as being in Christ Jesus. The opposite of this is the Adam-dream of many minds, with each mind having power to govern or control the other; it is the belief of mind in matter, and that man reflects both good and evil, and that evil is as real and powerful as good. Hypnotism, mesmerism, and suggestion, therefore, being but different names for the belief of one human mind controlling another human mind, are the direct opposite of Christian Science.

All through the writings of Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, she points out that the attempt to practise hypnotism, mesmerism, or suggestion will destroy one's power to heal through the law of God. She classifies hypnotism, suggestion, and the belief of one human mind controlling another human mind as "animal magnetism," and regards the correct understanding of this subject as so important that, in the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she has given it a chapter entitled Animal Magnetism Unmasked.

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

Send a comment to the editors