Article August 29, 1925 Issue

Suggestion is recommended as an aid in rearing children,...

Ralph W. Still, Committee on Publication for the State of Texas,—Houston

Post-Dispatch

Suggestion is recommended as an aid in rearing children, in an article appearing in your columns, and associates it with Christian Science in such a way as to lead any one not understanding the difference into believing that they are similar, whereas suggestion is the very antithesis of Christian Science, and should never be classified therewith. Indeed, suggestion, and all other hypnotic methods, are specifically forbidden in the practice of Christian Science; and referring to this question of the exercise of the human will, or suggestion, on page 144 of her work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy states that "its use is to be condemned." In the same paragraph she further writes: "Human will-power may infringe the rights of man. It produces evil continually, and is not a factor in the realism of being."

In all modes of suggestion or hypnotism the attempt is made to substitute one human belief for another, or impose the operator's will on the subject; and, if not opposed and nullified, this practice eventually undermines individuality and initiative, causing mental, moral, and physical harm. Christian Science, on the other hand, maintains individuality, unfolding to human apprehension the naturalness of good and the spiritual nature of intelligence; not through suggestion, but through establishing or awakening in consciousness the fact of God, Mind, as the one divine, supreme, governing, and directing intelligence, or Soul, and man, in God's likeness, as ever reflecting this intelligence, or Mind. On page 375 of Science and Health we find the following: "The Christian Scientist demonstrates that divine Mind heals, while the hypnotist dispossesses the patient of his individuality in order to control him;" and Jesus found it necessary to make this very distinction between his method of healing and that attributed to him. When it was stated that he was healing the sick through "the prince of the devils" (suggestion, hypnotism), he repudiated the accusation, stating that he "cast out devils" through the "Spirit of God," and that as a result the kingdom of God was manifested to those to whom he ministered. The kingdom of God comes not through suggestion, but through spiritual understanding. Christ Jesus' metaphysical system of therapeutics and ethics was wholly spiritual, excluded the human or carnal mind as a factor in his healing and regenerative mission, and was incapable of producing other than salutary results, and the Christ-method is the method of Christian Science; they are identical, having nothing in common with any suggestive methods or systems. "For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit."

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