Editorial July 27, 1918 Issue

Fads Analyzed

William D. McCrackan

With delightful humor Mrs. Eddy exposes a common human frailty when she writes on page 197 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "A new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it." If humanity understood the solid facts of Science it would not run after the fads and fancies of blind belief. Fads are contagious because they act as suggestions put forth by mesmerism; spiritual facts, because they come through obedience to God, illumine consciousness, thus saving and healing the sick and sinning. Without the spiritual light which destroys darkness or mesmerism, human beings continue to pursue passing fashions of belief concerning God, man, and the universe, popular innovations, caprices and hobbies about science, or to adopt sententious philosophies on the supposition that they are truth. Medical fads are particularly noticeable, and while they lend themselves easily to humorous treatment, their main contention is based on false belief about cause, hence about God.

The votaries of materia medica itself must be amused at the revolving changes which time has brought in their theory and practice. It is sometimes assumed that going around in a circle like a white mouse in a cage means progress. Unless the advance is made from a right basis and the light is clear the traveler will err on the way. How can the basic hypothesis that senseless, unthinking matter is cause lead anywhere but into the ditch? But Christian Science does not leave the unfortunate there. It gives them the scientific understanding of divine Truth wherewith to extricate themselves.

Mrs. Eddy tells us on page 24 of "Retrospection and Introspection" that in 1866 she "gained the scientific certainty that all causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon." From this it results that the healing art must be mental or spiritual, that scientific prayer must be the cure for all human ills. "When thou prayest," Christ Jesus said, near the close of the Sermon on the Mount, "enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." The prevalent method of attempting to heal the sick is to set up some fad in place of the Father, and to trust in it rather than in Him. With the passing centuries almost every material substance in the earth or under the earth has at some time or other been tried as a remedy for physical ills. It would be unkind to list these remedies, but those who still believe in matter as power should awaken to the fact that in the modern fads and fancies there is absolutely no advance over those ancient horrors. The aberration of thought regarding to-day's poison serums and vivisection are in no wise less aberrant than the listed remedies of the past. In proportion as contagious mesmerism is allowed to rule mankind, so will fads and fancies seem to crowd out the saving and healing truth.

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