Article December 30, 1944 Issue

Annulling Mesmerism

NEIL MARTIN

Christian Science provides its students with the means of meeting the challenges of the day and hour.

Mesmerism, which heretofore has not been generally regarded as altogether respectable, has lately become almost fashionable. But Christian Scientists are in no way deceived by its new claims. They will continue to deny them and to annul their influence, for in mesmerism of any kind they recognize that ancient enemy of the human race, the belief of many minds, the lure of "other gods," against which the First Commandment warns us: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

The use of aggressive mental suggestion has gone through many vicissitudes both before and since it was proclaimed by Mesmer in Germany, in 1775, and roundly denounced a few years later by a committee appointed by the faculty of the University of Paris to investigate its validity. Recently, however it has been used experimentally in the sickroom and hospital. Those of us who have witnessed the uses to which it is currently being put have not failed to remark that it is still the same old attempt of one human mentality to control another.

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