Editorial October 2, 1920 Issue

The Omnipresence of Advertising

Gustavus S. Paine

It is a popular commonplace to say that we live in an age of advertising. Many newspapers and magazines seem to exist simply because of their profitable advertising pages. Natural scenery is disfigured with billboards and other signs. Motion pictures are used for the purpose of suggestion. A multitude of other advertising methods are eagerly used by business people, though some variations, because of their peculiarly hypnotic intention, are discountenanced by alert merchants as well as by the general public. The average person does not have to be convinced, therefore, that devices for attracting the attention of the many seem, indeed, omnipresent and inescapable.

The fact is, of course, that even the worst phases of this prevalent belief are but counterfeits of the activity which expresses Principle. There could not even seem to be such a concept as advertising without there being the true idea of it in the divine Mind. The true idea must be wholly good, wholly spiritual, wholly unlimited, wholly apart from any human sense of things. Since infinite Mind is entirely here and now, all that infinite Mind produces must really be completely present, unfolding constantly because of the inexhaustibility of the divine cause. In other words, the real idea is never absent for a moment but is occupying consciousness and leaving no room for any supposition of an opposite. What constitutes the true idea is for each one to reason out for himself in every connection.

In prophesying the coming of the Christ, Balaam the son of Beor declared, "Come therefore, and I will advertise thee" as to the future. At least that is the English translation of the Hebrew, given in the King James version of the Scriptures. Though the question may arise as to whether the word "advertise" in that passage meant the same in the early seventeenth century as it does in the business world to-day, still there can be no doubt but that the word in both English and Hebrew indicated then and indicates now a turning of thought in some specific direction. The turning of thought in the right direction is, thus, the true way of advertising. The turning of attention in wrong directions is sheer hypnotism and is necessarily futile. In fact, sooner or later all attention has to be directed to the one divine Principle, which demands, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." The activity of Mind which constitutes man is already turned altogether in this one right way, since there is no other. What the student of Christian Science learns and proves is that all genuine desire is satisfied through being focused on infinite intelligence, and not on any material sense of things.

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The Omnipresence of Advertising

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