Article October 27, 1928 Issue

The medical writer in a recent issue of the California Monthly...

Edgar McLeod, Committee on Publication for Northern California,—Berkeley

California Monthly

The medical writer in a recent issue of the California Monthly who condemns and ridicules the various systems of healing which differ from his own, and who also disparages the judgment of persons who exercise their right to choose remedial aid other than that he himself espouses, makes several statements which show that he is badly informed and under a complete misapprehension with respect to the teaching and practice of Christian Science. His first misapprehension of Christian Science is disclosed in his placing it under new-thought. Unbiased investigators know that Christian Science is based upon the teachings of the Bible, particularly upon the teaching of Christ Jesus. It is admitted that many persons, including some physicians, regard the healing of physical disease as the most impressive feature of Christian Science; but thoughtful observers, who have watched its growth from a small beginning to a world religion in less than fifty years, recognize that it is not "primarily occupied with the treatment of disease," but like the early Christian church, it is primarily occupied in destroying sin, fear, superstition, and ignorance, which ever result in dissipating disease and destroying false appetites; and it does this as naturally as light dispels darkness. Aside from a strong medical bias, the critic's chief difficulty in attempting to describe and appraise Christian Science is his apparent inability to distinguish between material methods of healing and the spiritual healing recorded in the Old and New Testaments, which reached its zenith in the marvelous works of Christ Jesus, works which have never been duplicated or even approximated by any medical school or system. The statement that "Christian Science effectively controls the critical faculties, as if the patient were hypnotized," is opposite to the fact. Christian Science declares that God, divine Mind, is the only power by which health can be recovered and preserved, and it distinctly teaches that the mortal mind, or what Paul terms "the carnal mind," being the source of disease, cannot heal disease, and continually warns against the use of hypnotism, mesmerism, and mental manipulation. Persons sufficiently acquainted with Christian Science to heal the sick through its application—and manifestly such persons alone can undertake to explain its methods—know that its healing is accomplished through the application of spiritual law in the same manner that Christ Jesus destroyed disease.

The critic's inference that no real or permanent healing occurs in Christian Science, and that the absence of reliable diagnoses implies that only imaginary diseases are healed, will not be accepted by impartial investigators in the face of the thousands of testimonials, oral and written, which have been voluntarily given by persons from all sections of society—representing the very widest range of thought and experience, and including clergymen, doctors, professors, jurists, actors, and artists. In fact, persons from every station and condition of life have borne testimony to the healing efficacy of Christian Science. Further, it must not be overlooked that the majority of those healed in Christian Science accepted its treatment only after their cases had been thoroughly diagnosed by medical specialists and frequently pronounced incurable. Medical critics who deride mental and spiritual treatment should note that since Christian Science healing has become an accepted fact, there has been a growing tendency on the part of thoughtful physicians to observe more carefully the mental condition of patients, and to take into account mental as well as physical factors in their diagnoses. This growing tendency was emphasized by the trend of thought during the meeting of the American Medical Association, which recently convened in Washington, where, among many similar statements, it was declared by one eminent specialist that "heartbreak, the fires of ambition, the gnawing of discontent, the secret fear, tear down the physical being," and that "the doctor of the future will be a man trained in the mysterious processes of the mind." This tendency among the physicians assembled in Washington to attribute physical effects to mental causes and to encourage research in the mental realm, is interesting in view of the fact that the destructive effect of fear and mental unrest on health was stressed by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, over sixty years ago—all of which impels the observation that until medical critics have gained more definite knowledge of the workings of the mortal or carnal mind, they should be tolerant toward a religion which teaches reliance on the divine Mind.

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