Article January 19, 1929 Issue

Your recent issue contains an article, designated as a paid...

Mrs. Maxine E. Clemons, Committee on Publication for the State of Arkansas,

Jonesboro Evening Sun

Your recent issue contains an article, designated as a paid advertisement, which attacks and misrepresents the practice of Christian Science. Space is respectfully requested in which briefly to refute and correct the false allegations therein.

There is but one reply to the heading of the article, "Do Christian Scientists use hypnotism in order to heal those who come to them for treatment?" No, they do not. Hypnotism does not enter into Christian Science treatment. No attempt is made to gain control of either the supposed conscious or subconscious mind of a patient. Healing in Christian Science is based on the teachings and practice of Jesus the Christ; and the methods of the Christian Science practitioner are identical with those employed by our blessed Master, the Way-shower. Jesus taught that he did not do the works of himself, but that it was the Father, eternal Truth, God, who worked through him. Likewise, Christian Scientists make no claim to be personal healers. Through their recognition and clear realization that it is God, Spirit, Mind, Life, Truth, Love, divine Principle, who is the only Healer, they are able to-day to prove in a measure that "God is the only Mind governing man" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 308); and thus they heal those who come to them for treatment. Mrs. Eddy plainly states in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 180): "Christian Science contains no element whatever of hypnotism or animal magnetism. It appeals alone to God, to the divine Principle, or Life, Truth, and Love, to whom all things are possible; and this Principle heals sin, sickness, disease, and death."

Regarding the advertiser's incoherent statements as to Christian Scientists dealing in spirits—either good or evil—all that he has to say is ridiculous, and wholly unthinkable by anyone who has the slightest knowledge of Christian Science and its practice. That Christian Scientists practice from the standpoint of the one Spirit, God, is clearly evidenced by the following from pages 334 and 335 of Science and Health: "Spirit being God, there is but one Spirit, for there can be but one infinite and therefore one God. There are neither spirits many nor gods many. There is no evil in Spirit, because God is Spirit." "Soul and Spirit being one, God and Soul are one, and this one never included in a limited mind or a limited body." I can only recommend to your advertiser that if he desires correctly to inform himself as to the teaching of Christian Science on these points, he read the chapters in our textbook mentioned above, entitled, respectively, "Christian Science versus Spiritualism" and "Animal Magnetism Unmasked," which will convince most readers that spiritualism, hypnotism, and mesmerism are entirely foreign to the practice of Christian Science.

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