Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures
CHAPTER V
ANIMAL MAGNETISM UNMASKED
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these
are the things which defile a man. - JESUS.
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Earliest investigations
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MESMERISM or animal magnetism was first brought into
notice by Mesmer in Germany in 1775. According to the American Cyclopaedia, he
regarded this so-called force, which he said could be exerted by one living
organism over another, as a means of alleviating disease. His propositions were
as follows: "There exists a mutual influence between the celestial bodies, the
earth, and animated things. Animal bodies are susceptible to the influence of
this agent, disseminating itself through the substance of the nerves."
In 1784, the French government ordered the medical
faculty of Paris to investigate Mesmer's theory and to report upon it. Under
this order a commission was appointed, and Benjamin Franklin was one of the
commissioners. This commission reported to the government as follows: "In
regard to the existence and utility of animal magnetism, we have come to the
unanimous conclusions that there is no proof of the existence of the animal
magnetic fluid; that the violent effects, which are observed in the public
practice of magnetism, are due to manipulations, or to the excitement of the
imagination and the impressions made upon the senses; and that there is one
more fact to be recorded in the history of the errors of the human mind, and an
important experiment upon the power of the imagination." |
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Clairvoyance, magnetism
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In 1837, a committee of nine persons was appointed,
among whom were Roux, Bouillaud, and Cloquet, which tested during several
sessions the phenomena exhibited by a reputed clairvoyant. Their report stated
the results as follows: "The facts which had been promised by Monsieur Berna
[the magnetizer] as conclusive, and as adapted to throw light on physiological
and therapeutical questions, are certainly not conclusive in favor of the
doctrine of animal magnetism, and have nothing in common with either physiology
or therapeutics." This report was adopted by the Royal Academy of Medicine in
Paris. |
Personal conclusions |
The author's own observations of the workings of
animal magnetism convince her that it is not a remedial agent, and that its
effects upon those who practise it, and upon their subjects who do not resist
it, lead to moral and to physical death. If animal magnetism seems to alleviate
or to cure disease, this appearance is deceptive, since error cannot remove the
effects of error. Discomfort under error is preferable to comfort. In no
instance is the effect of animal magnetism, recently called hypnotism, other
than the effect of illusion. Any seeming benefit derived from it is
proportional to one's faith in esoteric magic. |
Mere negation |
Animal magnetism has no scientific foundation, for God
governs all that is real, harmonious, and eternal, and His power is neither
animal nor human. Its basis being a belief and this belief animal, in Science
animal magnetism, mesmerism, or hypnotism is a mere negation, possessing
neither intelligence, power, nor reality, and in sense it is an unreal concept
of the so-called mortal mind. There is but one real attraction, that of Spirit.
The pointing of the needle to the pole symbolizes this all-embracing power or
the attraction of God, divine Mind. The planets have no more power over man
than over his Maker, since God governs the universe; but man, reflecting God's
power, has dominion over all the earth and its hosts. |
Hidden agents |
The mild forms of animal magnetism are disappearing,
and its aggressive features are coming to the front. The looms of crime, hidden
in the dark recesses of mortal thought, are every hour weaving webs more
complicated and subtle. So secret are the present methods of animal magnetism
that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very apathy on the
subject which the criminal desires. The following is an extract from the Boston
Herald: "Mesmerism is a problem not lending itself to an easy explanation and
development. It implies the exercise of despotic control, and is much more
likely to be abused by its possessor, than otherwise employed, for the
individual or society." |
Mental despotism |
Mankind must learn that evil is not power. Its
so-called despotism is but a phase of nothingness. Christian Science despoils
the kingdom of evil, and pre-eminently promotes affection and virtue in
families and therefore in the community. The Apostle Paul refers to the
personification of evil as "the god of this world," and further defines it as
dishonesty and craftiness. Sin was the Assyrian moon-god. |
Liberation of mental powers
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The destruction of the claims of mortal mind through
Science, by which man can escape from sin and mortality, blesses the whole
human family. As in the beginning, however, this liberation does not
scientifically show itself in a knowledge of both good and evil, for the latter
is unreal. On the other hand, Mind-science is wholly separate from any half-way
impertinent knowledge, because Mind-science is of God and demonstrates the
divine Principle, working out the purposes of good only. The maximum of good is
the infinite God and His idea, the All-in-all. Evil is a suppositional lie.
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The genus of error |
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. The malicious form of hypnotism ultimates in
moral idiocy. The truths of immortal Mind sustain man, and they annihilate the
fables of mortal mind, whose flimsy and gaudy pretensions, like silly moths,
singe their own wings and fall into dust. |
Thought-transference
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In reality there is no mortal mind, and
consequently no transference of mortal thought and will-power. Life and being
are of God. In Christian Science, man can do no harm, for scientific thoughts
are true thoughts, passing from God to man. When Christian Science and animal
magnetism are both comprehended, as they will be at no distant date, it will be
seen why the author of this book has been so unjustly persecuted and belied by
wolves in sheep's clothing. Agassiz, the celebrated naturalist and author, has
wisely said: "Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First,
people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next, they say it has been discovered
before. Lastly, they say they have always believed it." |
Perfection of divine government
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Christian Science goes to the bottom of mental action,
and reveals the theodicy which indicates the rightness of all divine action, as
the emanation of divine Mind, and the consequent wrongness of the opposite
so-called action, evil, occultism, necromancy, mesmerism, animal magnetism,
hypnotism. |
Adulteration of Truth
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The medicine of Science is divine Mind; and
dishonesty, sensuality, falsehood, revenge, malice, are animal propensities and
by no means the mental qualities which heal the sick. The hypnotizer employs
one error to destroy another. If he heals sickness through a belief, and a
belief originally caused the sickness, it is a case of the greater error
overcoming the lesser. This greater error thereafter occupies the ground,
leaving the case worse than before it was grasped by the stronger error.
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Motives considered |
Our courts recognize evidence to prove the motive as
well as the commission of a crime. Is it not clear that the human mind must
move the body to a wicked act? Is not mortal mind the murderer? The hands,
without mortal mind to direct them, could not commit a murder. |
Mental crimes |
Courts and juries judge and sentence mortals in order
to restrain crime, to prevent deeds of violence or to punish them. To say that
these tribunals have no jurisdiction over the carnal or mortal mind, would be
to contradict precedent and to admit that the power of human law is restricted
to matter, while mortal mind, evil, which is the real outlaw, defies justice
and is recommended to mercy. Can matter commit a crime? Can matter be punished?
Can you separate the mentality from the body over which courts hold
jurisdiction? Mortal mind, not matter, is the criminal in every case; and human
law rightly estimates crime, and courts reasonably pass sentence, according to
the motive. |
Important decision |
When our laws eventually take cognizance of mental
crime and no longer apply legal rulings wholly to physical offences, these
words of Judge Parmenter of Boston will become historic: "I see no reason why
metaphysics is not as important to medicine as to mechanics or mathematics."
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Evil let loose |
Whoever uses his developed mental powers like an
escaped felon to commit fresh atrocities as opportunity occurs is never safe.
God will arrest him. Divine justice will manacle him. His sins will be
millstones about his neck, weighing him down to the depths of ignominy and
death. The aggravation of error foretells its doom, and confirms the ancient
axiom: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." |
The misuse of mental power
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The distance from ordinary medical practice to
Christian Science is full many a league in the line of light; but to go in
healing from the use of inanimate drugs to the criminal misuse of human
will-power, is to drop from the platform of common manhood into the very mire
of iniquity, to work against the free course of honesty and justice, and to
push vainly against the current running heavenward. |
Proper self-government
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Like our nation, Christian Science has its Declaration
of Independence. God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are
self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only
when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love.
Man's rights are invaded when the divine order is interfered with, and the
mental trespasser incurs the divine penalty due this crime. |
Right methods |
Let this age, which sits in judgment on Christian
Science, sanction only such methods as are demonstrable in Truth and known by
their fruit, and classify all others as did St. Paul in his great epistle to
the Galatians, when he wrote as follows: "Now the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions,
heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings and such like: of the
which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which
do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." |
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