Editorial September 10, 1927 Issue

On Guard against Prophesying Evil

Ella W. Hoag

Men are not always aware that every thought they entertain concerning a future is always prophecy of some sort. As the thought they hold looks forward to either a good or an evil prospect, so is their expectancy, and of like nature is their prophesying. Before Christian Science was revealed the world was largely in darkness to the fact that what one sows in the mental realm brings forth fruit after its own kind. Centuries ago Paul sent out a warning in this direction when he wrote, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." This warning, however, was generally supposed to refer to words and deeds rather than to thoughts.

Men therefore have—more or less innocently, but always mistakenly—spent much time in prophesying evil. Not only have they imagined that evil might occur in their own future, but their thoughts have gone out with evil expectations,—perhaps all unwittingly, but nevertheless very positively,—for their relatives, their friends their neighbors, their town, their nation, and even for the world at large. They have also talked these evil predictions widely, often arguing that because of present untoward circumstances or conditions evil must result in the future, thus apparently making assurance doubly sure that the evil they were thus prophesying should come to pass.

Various human tendencies have entered into this practice. Almost invariably it has been attended with fear; but an element often also seen in evil prophesying is a pride of prognostication, which has sometimes called itself superior intelligence; there is also that self-will which is so desirous of having its own way that it seems to exult in seeing its own evil presentments fulfilled. So much is this the case that the "I told you so!" of ordinary conversation has come to be almost proverbial. Men have not realized that all evil prophesying is in and of the "liar" who, Jesus said, "was a murderer from the beginning." Had they been conscious of this, they would have been more on guard against all such false mental and oral processes.

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