True Healing and Its Counterfeits

Albert F. Gilmore

ON page 57 of "Miscellaneous Writings," Mrs. Eddy tersely states, "By the law of opposites, after the truth of man had been demonstrated, the postulate of error must appear." Apparently the attempt of evil is to simulate good, claiming recognition in its place, and to accompany the progressive steps in human experience. The carnally minded observers of the spiritual healing performed by Christ Jesus and his disciples attempted to imitate their works, even seeking to purchase what they thought to be a secret. When Simon the sorcerer witnessed spiritual healing, he desired to acquire the power, offering money. But Peter replied, "Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money."

The imitation, or counterfeit, which mistaken mortal mind frequently attempts to put forward in place of the genuine, with the assurance that it is "just as good," would greatly wrong the innocent through misleading them. The effort of evil is to urge its acceptance as good; and the more nearly the falsity simulates the truth, the more subtle and apparently dangerous it becomes. Sacred history, no less than secular, repeats itself; and to-day we find the spiritual healing imitated, and the spurious seeking to have itself accepted as the genuine.

In the more than half century since Mrs. Eddy discovered Christian Science, this method of divine healing has had many imitators, comprising those desiring to commercialize it for selfish gain; those who would receive its rewards without having earned them; and, likewise, those who, mistakenly, have believed they could do its works without undergoing the preliminary spiritual preparation. All these would-be imitators have failed; but mortal mind is ever prolific in its inventions, and persistent in its revival of old attempts to counterfeit the truth.

The efforts to heal the sick by mental influence other than the divine Mind—that is to say, on mortal mind's own terms—have been the fertile source of many false methods. Whether these be classified as mental science, mesmerism, hypnotism, autosuggestion, or what not, all partake of the same quality; and it is claimed that they heal mankind's seeming ills, not by divine law, the activity of the infinite Mind, correcting the false beliefs held in human thought, which are the procuring cause of disease, but by the apparent influence of so-called mortal mind either upon itself, or of one over another. When once it is learned that the mortal or human mind of itself possesses no healing power, in fact, has no existence or entity, this, obviously, will be seen to be an impossible contention. This seeming activity, classified under whatever name, is none the less a falsity, an unreality, having no source, no law, no government, and no kingdom; consequently, it possesses no healing power. Mortal mind can by no possibility rise above itself to assume the prerogatives of divine Mind, the only true healer.

The present recrudescence of the claim that autosuggestion is a healing agency recalls an incident to which Mrs. Eddy makes reference in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Franklin, who was a member of the Committee appointed by the French Government to investigate the claims of the German, Mesmer, says in the preface which he wrote to the Committee's report, published in 1785: "Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists. Error is endlessly diversified. It has no reality but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it." The claim that animal magnetism heals was declared by the report to be untrue. Here, then, is a concise statement, corroborated by Christian Science, of the utter falsity of all pretensions, in whatever guise presented, that mortal or carnal mind is possessed of healing properties.

It is not without significance that in the country where this exposure of mesmerism was made nearly a century and a half ago, there now appears a new school which claims to heal through the same agency, although under another name. No one can read Mrs. Eddy's masterful exposure of the nothingness of animal magnetism without full enlightenment upon the futility of these pretensions. On page 101 of Science and Health she says, "If animal magnetism seems to alleviate or to cure disease, this appearance is deceptive, since error cannot remove the effects of error." Mrs. Eddy further states under the marginal heading, "The genus of error," on page 103 of the Christian Science textbook: "As named in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal mind. It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and is both evil and good; that evil is as real as good and more powerful. This belief has not one quality of Truth. It is either ignorant or malicious." Yet the claim is being put forth that healing is had through autosuggestion, which is but another name for self-hypnotism.

True healing, it is learned in Christian Science, is much more than the cure of disease or the alleviation of suffering. It is the realization of man's perfect state of spiritual selfhood, brought about by the elimination of whatever material beliefs may claim place in human consciousness. That this healing could by any possibility result merely from the suggestion that one is well and not sick, without an understanding of the facts of spiritual being, is quite incomprehensible. Christian Scientists are in no wise confused over this situation. Mrs. Eddy has made the way so clear that even the wayfaring man may walk in it; and only by walking in it with humility and obedience does one reap the reward of the faithful. The kingdom of heaven is not won by accepting the false, but by strict adherence to spiritual truth.

Albert F. Gilmore.

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