Faith-Cure: All Hat And No Cattle

It was reliably reported a number of years ago that a certain oh-so cutting edge--and fatuous--commissar of the Mother Church stated that Christian Science healing is just one of many, presumably equally valid, healing systems. This fetid pronouncement bubbled up like swamp gas from the miasma of those dark years from which the Church has yet to emerge, years when the Board was giddily infatuated with the mind/body goings-on at the Harvard Medical School and had enraptured visions, apparently, of being BMOC in that tangled scrum. It doesn't take a vivid imagination to envisage the dank metaphysical backwaters that lie along that muzzy metaphysical bayou. One scary creature lurking in those black lagoons is personality with a "big, big P", as G&S might put it.

I recently encountered a fine article by Helen Wood Bauman in the March 1941 Journal, "Faith As A Factor In Healing", in which she cautions Scientists to be alert to the very important distinction between Christian Science healing and faith healing. Ms. Bauman gives a good summary of the dangers and limitations of faith healing, as does Mary Baker Eddy in "Retrospection and Introspection", "Faith-Cure" (pp. 54-55). The difference is, in the words of Mark Twain [I thought, but am unable to verify], as great as the difference between the lightning bug and lightning.

Any seasoned and sincere Scientist should know the difference and unceremoniously reject any flavor of faith healing. It is the tyro in Christian Science who is most in danger and who might mistake the slather of comforting words and "tea and sympathy" for the genuine article. Indulged in, faith healing will of necessity have a stultifying effect on the metaphysical progress of any student or patient, as well as that of the wayward mental physician. It is perhaps possible that I have conjured up once again a grin without a cat, though Mrs.. Eddy and Ms. Bauman obviously saw more than an insignificant grin. The hasty and unwise elevation of some Ethelreds the Unready may have put at risk naive or unwary students of Christian Science. Toadyism, a faithless willingness to give C.S. treatment for those who continue to receive medical care, and unquestioning adherence to the Big-endianism of the day should not be the litmus tests for one's fitness for the practice or, a fortiori, for teaching.

Coming On Like Gangbusters

I have said as much before and still strongly believe that error, animal magnetism, mortal mind, evil--pick the label you prefer--needs to be oppoosed and denied far more energetically and imperatively than many of us seem to. "Press on, press on, ye sons of light,/Untiring in your holy fight,/Still treading each temptation down,/And battling for a brighter crown." (Hymn #290) Christ Jesus saw clearly the need for Satan's eradication and assured his followers that each of them can utilize the talent or talents he has been given. "Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy". (Luke 10: 19) A good pair of metaphysical hobnail boots will be necessary. This isn't delicate tweezer work, like building a ship in a bottle.

Mary Baker Eddy implied that we live in "a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a greater development of power" (S&H 82: 31-32), and she wrote that over a century ago. Many of us might make greater progress if, instead of tepid, timorous, or torpid opposition to mortal mind, we followed Richard Sherman's (Tom Ewell) advice in "The Seven Year Itch" and came on like gangbusters, not, of course, with Rachmaninoff's "Second Piano Concerto", but with a greater and more vigorous understanding and demonstration of Christian Science. A failure to energetically crush out each temptation as it is encountered may leave the woolgathering treader-down with a discouragingly long--and growing longer--work order. Mrs. Eddy threw down the gauntlet emphatically to her loyal followers on a July 4 a century or so ago (Mis 176-177). How many of them (us?) are still dithering over picking it up and getting on with the challenge she was in fact requiring of them and us.

What worked so well for the Montgolfier brothers over the streets of Paris way back when will not suffice today--not that it ever really did. Satan and his progeny stoke the fires of hell with unrealized good intentions and self-satisfying pronouncements masquerading as heartfelt prayers. "Do not go gentle into that good night,/. . . Rage, rage against the dying of the light." (from "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas)

Note: Ignes fatui is simply the plural of ignis fatuus, will-o'-the-wisp, something that misleads or deludes; an illusion.

Ignes Fatui Wisely Dispelled

When one realizes a piece of furniture in his mental home is ugly, uncomfortable, and tormenting it is time to remove it, not simply relegate it to the attic or give it a cursory, faute de mieux reupholstering. "If disease moves, mind, not matter, moves it; therefore be sure that you move it off." (S&H 419: 14-15) Not even a grin without the cat should be allowed to remain.

Trying to cope foolishly with some mesmeric claim rather than peremptorily destroying or unlearning it is to play Br'er Rabbit to a mortal mind tar baby. Pope's observation on vice in his "Essay on Man" can just about as easily apply to any false belief or attraction.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Such an embrace may sell itself as a kind of moral squeeze play, but a bunt is never going to get the ball out of the park, and the truth that just might get across home plate if the play works won't compensate for the offending error's remaining ensconced. There is also the possibility of a discouraging double play if the bunt is whiffed or popped up. One may know intellectually that prayer isn't simply a General McClellan-like marshalling of spiritual ideas, but really "getting it" is the ineluctable understanding and demonstration of Truth and learning that what is seen as vale was never in fact ave.

Note: If the above baseball metaphor leaves too many runners stranded on base (about five too many by my count), I hope at least the gist of the effort is clear. It's too late for another at-bat.

"My mother is a fish."--Vardaman

That well-known and startling statement is a complete "chapter" in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. It may only be a choice bit of Faulkner's gothic rhetoric, but it can be used to make a useful point, I think. If a child, like Vardaman, made such a perverted statement and one set out to correct it in Christian Science, he certainly wouldn't pray for a correct concept of a fish. To establish in Vardaman's thought the proper sense of a human mother wouldn't permanently or Scientifically correct anything either.

The root of the animal magnetism, aggressive mental suggestion, claim, or temptation harrying one may lie much deeper than the tears and pain occasioned. "That which is least distinct to thought is most forcible." (My 197: 2-4) How many of us have a cherished or feared glass menagerie we keep enshrined on a shelf deep within the shadows of our false beliefs? For many (most?) of us only strict obedience to God and His laws and the absolute purity of thought the furnace of affliction brings will allow Science to get to all of it and destroy it. Mrs. Eddy tells us, though, that the warfare with oneself is grand and gives idle minds, and even busy ones, plenty to do. We certainly don't think our loving Father-Mother God is a fish--at least I hope not--but are there not too many times when our disobedient and apathetic "three-day" thoughts of Him begin to smell? As we break the bonds of mortal mind and its enslaving beliefs we might do well to sing in our dissolving chains "like the sea", though time should never be permitted to hold us "green and dying" as we do so. (See "Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas)

Note: I'm sorry if I appeared to take the commenter on brevity "to task". My comment was merely an explanatory comment thereon.

Bronco Busting

A familiar OT dialogue is here presented in an admittedly amateurish alteration and drastic reduction.
Eliphaz. Yo, Job, you've worked yourself into a lather up there and struck some mighty fine poses that would be the envy of Walter Mitty, but don't you think it's about time you took the saddle off the top rail of the fence and actually put it on one of those broncos in the corral?
Job. Festina lente, amigo. I have a collector's set of bruises already, and my Stetson doesn't need any more creases either.
E. That herd of wild horses isn't getting any smaller, and sooner or later you're going to have to put the saddle on one and all, tighten the cinch, and ride 'em cowboy!
J. I get saddle sores just thinking about it, and what's the hurry anyway?
E. Well, you have only a succession of todays to get the job done. No mananas [Tilde over the first "n". Sorry to cop-out, LowlyWise]. No one else is going to break them for you, and one horse broken will make the next easier. Each subdued bronco will become, to shift metaphors, a staff upon which you can lean in the future, as Mrs. Eddy might say. There are no rewards for saddle time on the fence, no matter how stylish a figure you cut up there.
J. And what if I get thrown? That ground is hard, and I hate to smudge my designer denims.
E. You are probably going to get thrown dozens of times. Just dust yourself off, put your hat back on, and have at it again and again until the job is done. You can always wash your precious jeans, but the false beliefs of mortal mind need to be busted, completely broken, and a failure to do this can't be washed away in your Maytag.
J. Maybe I'd rather have a little more suffering on the fence rather than a passel of it trying to break that wild lot of horses.
E. Well, as that tv commercial said: "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later." Keep in mind, though, that the delayed payment is much more expensive, i.e., entails much more suffering. Every lie of any reality of life in matter and material existence needs to be completely broken. Remember, "The work to be performed is ours,/[but, thankfully] The strength is all his own." (Hymn #354)