Chapter 4
NEW THOUGHT AND
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Abel Leighton
Allen
The Message
of New Thought
"Born
from the darkest
ages
Of superstition is that ancient
creed
That matter is the enemy of
good,
Accursed and hateful, to the
infinite;
For every atom is a living
thought,
Dropped from the meditations of a
God,
Its every essence of immortal
love,
Of the incarnate Deity; and
all
The inmost pulses of material
things
Are mediums for the pulses of his
will."
THE adherents of New Thought conceive
of the visible universe with its
infinite variety of forms and colors,
its manifold substances and elements,
as the expression of cosmic or
universal mind; as the product of a
divine intelligence. Their philosophy
teaches that all created things, from
atoms to circling planets, the myriad
forms of life, the budding tree, the
bursting flower, all animate life and
man, with his infinite faculties, are
the manifested results of divine
ideals. In other words, their
conception is that these created
entities, which we observe as the
external and visible works of Nature,
are the projected images from a
pre-existing Divine Mind.
Or we might state the proposition in
different language: that God first
created the ideals, or images of all
existing objects, and these ideals were
afterward externalized as created forms
in the visible universe. Carlyle said
everything in Nature is a symbol--man
himself is a symbol, the symbol of
God.
The contest has been long and
discordant between the advocates of
idealism on the
one hand, and
those of materialism on the other, as
to the origin of creation, life, and
intelligence. The great issue has been
whether there is an infinite creative
intelligence, back of all Nature, all
existing entities, as their efficient
cause and calling them into existence,
or whether the physical universe, and
all living things thereon, resulted
from some other cause.
The beginning of this century finds the
advocates of the materialistic
conception, with their strange ideas of
creation's origin, in the minority, and
that minority constantly diminishing in
the light of scientific investigation.
Few are the recognized scientists who
still speak of creation as having any
other origin than a pre-existing divine
intelligence.
On the other hand, the majority of
eminent scientists and thoughtful
philosophers, men whose useful
discoveries are attracting the
attention of the world, are outspoken
in their declarations that back of all
nature and all its manifested forms is
an unseen intelligence, the divine
cause of all existing things.
Even Professor Haeckel, the past master
of materialism, concedes that "the two
fundamental forms of substance,
ponderable matter and ether, are not
dead, and only revealed by extrinsic
force, but they are endowed with
sensations and will."
It is difficult to conceive of
sensation and will as existing separate
and apart from intelligence. Wherever
there is life, there is intelligence.
In the various forms of animal life,
and also in plant and vegetable life,
if we but look we can observe an
intelligence meeting and overcoming the
difficulties and obstacles of
environment. The tree planted among
rocks hunts out the crevices to send
its roots down to soil and
moisture.
As ether is supposed to fill all the
vast expanses separating the most
distant planets, we may adopt Haeckel's
premises and arrive at the unanswerable
conclusion therefrom, that a universal
intelligence pervades the entire
universe. From his conceded premises we
may therefore reach the reasonable
deduction that a mental force exists
everywhere, and therefore that it is
the cause of all existing life upon the
globe. We may therefore adopt as a
working hypothesis the conclusion that
the entire visible universe and all
created objects are the result and
product of a universal
intelligence.
''Ruling the rain and sun,
Giving the winds their laws,
Back of each battle won,
Back of each dream, each deed,
Back of the flower, back of the
seed,
Stands the eternal cause.''
The idealism referred to here differs
widely from an extreme or absolute
idealism proclaimed by many as the
theory of creation and it is desirable
clearly to differentiate the two. New
Thought does not agree with the
absolute idealist, that nothing exists
in creation but the ideal, and that all
external Nature is only an illusion of
the senses. The conception is that an
ideal or image was first created in the
Divine Mind, and into that image as a
mold the divine energy was centered,
and as a result created forms appeared
in the visible universe. In other
words, there was first an ideal or
picture in the Divine Mind, and the
object was created according to that
divine ideal or image.
The first Biblical account we have of
an idealism we find in Genesis, in the
great account of creation. The author
proceeds as follows:
"These are the generations of the
heavens and the earth, when they were
created in the day that the Lord God
made the earth and the heavens, and
every plant of the field, before it was
in the earth, and every herb of the
field before it grew."
Here is the declaration that every
plant of the field before it was in the
earth, and every herb of the field
before it grew, had been created. If
God created the plant before it was in
the earth, and the herb before it grew,
He must have created them as thought
images or ideals in His own Divine
Mind. They could not have been created
elsewhere than in His own mind, if God
was omnipresent and filled the universe
with His presence.
This was God's method of creation,
first the ideal, then the ideal
expressed as a visible form of
creation. Thus in the first account of
creation, found in the Hebrew Bible, we
discover the declaration of an
idealism. The idealism of the great
Creator of the heavens and of the
earth. Here is the first record that
ideals or thought images preceded the
external and visible forms of Nature.
Every plant and every herb was first a
thought, an ideal, and then became an
entity in the visible works of
God.
Later it was said: "The universe is the
infinite utterance of an infinite
number of thoughts from an infinite and
thinking source."
"There seems to be a necessity in
spirit to manifest itself in material
forms; and day and night, river and
storm, beast and bird, acid and alkali,
pre-exist in necessary ideas in the
mind of God," says Emerson.
It was said by Judge Troward: "If we
realize that all visible things must
have their origin in spirit, then the
whole creation around us is the
standing evidence that the
starting-point of all things is in
thought images or ideas, for no other
action than the formation of such
images can be conceived of spirit,
prior to its manifestation in
matter."
Listen to Carlyle: "What is Nature? Why
do I not name thee God? Art thou not
the living garment of God?"
All that man has accomplished in his
long history, from the stupendous
monuments of
architecture to systems of laws,
governments, institutions, arts, and
civilization itself, is the fruitage of
thought, the result of ideals, which
first found existence in mind only. All
objective things first had a
corresponding picture in mind and
intelligence. The bridge first existed
in the mind of the engineer, before it
was objectivized in steel and iron. The
sculptor saw the image of the perfect
statue, before the marble was quarried
from the hills. The locomotive was
first a mental image, before it became
a throbbing and panting expression of
that ideal.
Men speak lightly of idealism, when
everything in our lives and experiences
is a standing evidence of its truth. We
employ idealism, either consciously or
unconsciously, in every act of life.
Whenever we convert thoughts into
deeds, ideas into action, carry plans
into execution, or otherwise give
expression to ideas, we proclaim the
truth of idealism.
Thomas A. Edison says: "Science is
mostly imagination. It is by conceiving
what might be, before one has seen the
way to realize it practically, that
scientists have been buoyed during the
period of experiment."
Ideals are the molds for events, the
fore-runners for all accomplishment,
and the predecessors of all completed
things. The truth of our ideals is the
real truth of human life.
New Thought is an idealism, as are all
esoteric philosophies and religions,
all religions that do not separate man
from God. It is also progressive,
because it recognizes by its
fundamental principles and teachings
that all healthful and normal ideals
must change, expand, and develop, as
the individual gains more light and
truth, as he expands and grows. "We
must realize that life is a voyage and
we are sailing under sealed orders. We
open our orders every morning and this
allows us to change our course as we
get new light."
Progressive minds cannot live on the
past. The ideals of one generation do
not fit the next. Men outgrow fixed
ideas and so-called finished
philosophies and systems of thought, as
the bird flies from the nest never to
return. It is the law of growth, it is
a fundamental requirement of the human
mind. This propulsion is innate in mind
it is the way of the soul.
New Thought is progressive and knows
that permanent and fixed ideals do not
exist. It may, therefore, be defined as
an advancing, progressive idealism.
Christian Science differs fundamentally
from New Thought. While Christian
Science is an idealism, it differs from
the idealism of New Thought. It may
properly be defined as an extreme or
absolute idealism. Its interpretation
of the account of creation, as set
forth in Genesis and heretofore quoted,
differs widely from that of New
Thought. The authorities of Christian
Science say that the only creation of
the plants and herbs of the field,
according to the account of Genesis,
was in the Divine Mind. They hold that
the plants and herbs referred to had no
existence in matter and were never
anything but ideas. Of course this
could be the only conclusion of a
philosophy or cult that declares matter
to be an "illusion of the human
belief."
"Science and Health" sets forth the
above account of creation from Genesis,
and then proceeds to an interpretation
and construction of its language as
follows: "Here is the emphatic
declaration that God created all
through mind, not through matter; that
the plant grows, not because of seed or
soil, but because growth is the eternal
mandate of Mind."
From "Science and Health" we also read
as follows: "The only realities are the
Divine Mind and ideal. Mind is all and
matter is naught. Spirit and matter
cannot coexist, or co-operate;
and one can no more create the other
than truth can create error, or vice
versa." "Matter and Mind are
antagonistic, and both have not place
or power." "Matter and mortal
body are all the illusions of the human
belief. Our corporal senses lie and
cheat. They are five personal falsities
and their evidence is to be
disregarded."
Here we have the unqualified
declaration that the only
realities are the Divine Mind and idea,
and that matter is a falsity and that
our corporal senses lie and cheat.
There cannot be two constructions to
this language, its meaning is
unmistakable.
Let us examine the language found in
Genesis, which "Science and Health"
quotes as the authoritative declaration
of God's plan of creation. Translated
into modern thought, it says that God
made the earth and the heavens, and
every plant of the field before it was
in the earth, and every herb of the
field before it grew. This language
assumes that the plant at some time was
in the earth, and that the herb at some
time grew. If the divine idea was the
only creation and if the plants and
herbs had no existence except as ideas
in the Divine Mind, it would be a
pertinent inquiry to make, why it was
necessary that the plant should be in
the earth at all or that the herb
should ever grow. If the distinguished
author of Genesis conceived of creation
as an idea only, and not as a material
or external reality, it is difficult to
understand or assign any reason why he
made any allusion to the earth at all,
for the earth, then as now was either
matter or an illusion of the
senses.
Then the author of Genesis records that
God made the earth and the heavens. Are
we to understand that when God made the
earth He was creating an illusion of
the senses only? If the earth was an
illusion of the senses only, why was it
necessary to refer to it or mention it
at all, in the great account of
creation? If there was nothing
bur a divine ideal, the great author
might have been content to describe the
ideal only, for that alone would be a
correct and truthful account of
creation.
Was so much of the descriptive account
as refers to the earth the product of
mortal mind and mortal thought? Was the
author of the great event in error?
These observations are not made with a
view to exhibiting a critical attitude
toward Christian Science, but to make
plain its fundamental principles and
clearly show the line of cleavage
between it and New Thought.
If we give the usual and customary
construction to the language employed
in "Science and Health," it conveys the
unmistakable meaning that nothing
exists in creation but ideas, and
everything is mind. Christian Science
may, therefore, be well defined as an
extreme or absolute idealism.
We are told in the foregoing quotations
from "Science and Health" that "Spirit
and Matter cannot coexist or
co-operate; and one can no more create
the other than truth can create error,
or vice versa." The inquiring mind is
inclined to ask why? Are there any
premises to support the statement, or
is it a mere dictum?
The author no doubt uses spirit in the
sense of mind and as a synonym thereof,
because she says mind is
all. If we assume that matter has no
existence and is only an illusion of
the senses, then it follows
as a logical conclusion that mind
cannot coexist or co-operate
with matter, because matter
is nothing and hence that mind cannot
coexist or co-operate with
nothing.
But if we concede that matter is an
existing reality, what then? Cannot
mind coexist or co- operate with it? Is
there not a coexistence and
co-operation of mind and matter in all
we see and observe in the universe? Is
not every work of art the co-operation
of mind and matter? What is the statue,
or the canvas, but the result of mind
co-operating with matter?
Are they not executed ideals? What
about our bodies? Did not mind build
them? Are they not the result of the
coexistence and co-operation of the
two? Is not the body the temple of the
spirit?
Sir Oliver Lodge observes that "Life is
not energy, but it is the director of
energy and matter. Mind determines,
life directs--the material and
energetic universe is dominated and
controlled by these agencies."
According to the statements of "Science
and Health" and the recognized tenets
of the philosophy of Christian Science,
our five senses that administer to our
daily wants and pleasures through life
are not trustworthy or to be believed,
but lie and cheat and delude us
constantly. By the teachings of its
philosophy our sense of taste, by which
we find enjoyment of the delicious
foods Nature has spread before us; our
sense of smell, by which we catch the
exquisite fragrance of the rose; that
of touch, by which we feel the warm
hand-clasp of a friend; our sense of
hearing, by which the soul is lifted up
to God through the immortal symphonies
of the masters; and the eye, which
reveals to us the unspeakable beauties
of Nature, the marvelous works of
creation, and betrays the innermost
secrets of the soul, are five falsities
and delusions.
New Thought cannot accept this
philosophy. In man's struggle through
the evolutionary processes of creation,
to his present physical and mental
stature, it took millions of years to
bring these five senses to their
present degree of perfection, and they
cannot be discredited by the bare
declaration that they are false.
Whoever makes the declaration that the
senses are falsities and delusions,
relies upon evidence which only the
senses can furnish.
As we take a survey of Nature with its
infinite variety of forms and beauty,
we cannot conceive of these objective
realities as nothing, or illusions. If
we must discredit the eye, must we blot
out of consciousness the magnificent
panorama of Nature, the bright galaxy
of the stars, the landscape with its in
expressible beauty, the towering
mountains and verdant valleys, the
glories of the dawn, the mellow glow of
sunsets, and man himself, as falsities
and delusions, because the eye reveals
them?
How are we longer to enjoy the wonders
Nature has spread before us, when we
are continually reminded that they do
not exist, but are only falsities and
illusions of the mind? Such a
philosophy will blight the finer
sensibilities and the imaginative
faculties of man. It will retard and
prevent the development of those
qualities in man which embellish,
ennoble, and enrich his life.
Nature is man's great teacher. It sets
God's symbols constantly before his
eyes. They are here to teach and
instruct. When philosophy teaches that
the senses which convey Nature's
meanings to man are falsities, then
Nature ceases to be man's teacher and
instructor.
The senses are the windows of the soul.
Shall we close them, because they do
not admit all the light, or shall we
open them wider, that they may let in
more light? We cannot improve the
senses, with the adverse suggestion
that they are delusions and
falsities.
Instead of discrediting them, let us
encourage, unfold, develop, and refine
them, until man with his enlarged
susceptibilities, shall see beauty
where the vision is now clouded, and
hear melodies and harmonies that now
beat upon unresponsive ears.
"The senses are the ministers of
love,
The senses are the oracles of
truth,
The senses the interpreters of
law,
The senses, the discoverers of
fact:
They hold their court in beauty and in
joy
On earth and in the spheres where
angels dwell,
And through the senses God reveals
himself,
And through the senses, earth is taught
from heaven.''
Carlyle says: "Rightly viewed, no
meanest object is insignificant; all
objects are as windows, through which
the philosophic eye looks into
infinitude itself."
Christian Science occupies the position
of the extreme or absolute idealist.
Materialism represents the extreme
opposite view. Their conceptions are,
respectively, that of the abstract on
the one hand and the concrete on the
other, of the unconditioned and the
conditioned, of the absolute and the
relative. Judge Troward in speaking of
the two conceptions says: "They are not
opposed to each other, in the sense of
incompatibility, but are each the
complement of the other, and the only
reality is in the combination of the
two. The error of the extreme idealist
is in endeavoring to realize the
absolute without the relative. and the
error of the extreme materialist is in
endeavoring to realize the relative
without the absolute.
"On the one side, the mistake is in
trying to realize an inside without an
outside; and on the other, in trying to
realize an outside without an inside.
Both are necessary to the formation of
a substantial entity."
Christian D. Larson has ably expressed
his views on the denial of matter, as
follows: "To deny matter, and mean it,
is impossible. To deny the existence of
matter, you must refuse to act as if it
did exist; that is, you must not use
matter in any shape or form, because to
do so would be to contradict with your
hands what you affirm with your
mind.
"If matter actually was an illusion,
you would simply be perpetuating that
illusion if you accepted matter in any
form whatever. Those who deny matter
deny it only as a mental concept.They
deny matter in the abstract, but accept
it in the concrete--from
greenbacks to roses.
"But matter exists only in the
concrete, it does not exist in the
abstract, therefore to deny it in the
abstract and accept it in the concrete
is to accept it where it does exist
and deny it where it does not
exist. Then wherein do we find the
denial? It simply is not there and what
appears to be such a denial is nothing
but a useless process of thinking; a
process that moves in a circle, which
brings the mind back to matter whenever
it claims to get away from
matter."
New Thought does not lay claim to more
than a few rays from the great divine
source of light, or that more than a
fragment of truth has been discovered.
It advocates, however, the infinite
unfoldment and the possibilities of
man, and that he will constantly reach
and comprehend more truth and advance
into a closer relationship with God. It
sees truth everywhere, and knows that
the avenues leading to its divine
citadel are infinite in number.
Christian Science seems to have fallen
into the error of its orthodox
predecessors in believing that it has
made discoveries heretofore unknown,
and that it possesses knowledge
exclusively conveyed by its teachings.
It recognizes but one road leading to
truth, and that the one pointed out and
circumscribed by the rules of its
organization.
Thus, in "Science and Health," its
author, after recounting the acts of
divine revelation to her, says:
"Christian Science is indivisible.
There can therefore be but one method
in its teaching. From the Infinite One,
in Christian Science, cometh one
principle and its ideas; and with this
one principle come scriptural rules and
their demonstration, which, like the
Great Giver, are the same, yesterday,
today, and forever."
It is unfortunate that religious
organizations have so often become
imbued with the idea that God has
smiled exclusively upon them and
vouchsafed to them peculiar and
particular revelation, not accorded the
rest of mankind. Truth cannot be
institutionalized, limited, or defined.
Whenever an organization attempts to
corral truth, it is plainly evident
that it has discovered only a small
portion of truth. Christian Science has
not yet discovered that dogmas are not
religion and creeds mean spiritual
death.
Censorship is not in harmony with the
spirit of the age, nor with the true
idea of religious growth and
development. The soul cannot be
nourished on prepared and canned
spiritual thought, nor a commercialized
religion. The soul is limitless, and
each demands its own spiritual food.
Why this exclusiveness? Why set
bounds to the universal demands
of the soul? Why not encourage
the soul to press on to greater
truths?
Why limit worship to two books? Is not
truth recorded elsewhere? Has an
Emerson or a Whitman no message of
light to the struggling soul?
No system can satisfy the soul. Its
aspirations are as boundless as the
universe itself. At last it must find
its light from within.
With all that we hear about a universal
religion and religious tolerance, the
world still groans under a burden of
sectarianism and exclusiveness. As long
as organizations contend that their
system is complete, that they have all
the knowledge, that they have found the
perfect way, so long will the world be
dominated by creeds which separate man
from man and which have been among the
most fruitful sources of all his
wrongs.
History should be scanned carefully,
before laying claims to exclusive
knowledge or to the sole discovery of
truth. Did not Pythagoras say,
twenty-five centuries ago, that God was
all in all, as all great thinkers have
ever done? Did not Bishop Berkeley and
others teach the philosophy of absolute
idealism? Have not mental and spiritual
healing been practiced with more or
less success, as far back as the
records of man extend?
The advocates of New Thought do not
attach much importance to special
revelations to the particular few. It
believes that God is revealing Himself
to man at all times and has been so
revealing Himself in all ages, and he
whose mind is attuned to the harmonies
of truth can hear and understand these
revelations.
Walt Whitman Says: "I find letters from
God dropped in the street--and every
one is signed by God's name, and I
leave them where they are, for I know
that whereso'er I go, others will
punctually come, forever and ever." New
Thought believes with Walt Whitman,
that man can forever find letters from
God, and that others will punctually
come, forever and ever. It accepts
truth wherever it may find it. It looks
upon completed systems, revealed
theologies, and fixed cults, as already
in senile decay.
Christian Science has performed a most
valuable service to man; it has broken
over creeds and dogmas which stood as
barriers in the path of man's progress.
It has shown man a new way. Its danger
lies in building around him a new
barrier higher than the one he has
surmounted.
The world is less ready now than ever
before to concede a monopoly of divine
wisdom to any philosophy, theology,
institution, or cult. While
institutions continue to discourage,
restrict, and forbid the widest search
for truth in every byway and avenue
that open to the mind, so long will
they retard its growth and hold the
individual in bondage to their edicts.
So long as they limit their adherents
to the mental and spiritual food
prepared and seasoned in their own
theological kitchens and limit them to
such interpretations as they place upon
accepted writings, so long will they
remain spiritually inert and stagnant.
Instead of spiritual growth,
development, and progress, there will
be arrested growth, spiritual and moral
decay.
Institutions that still continue to
practice medieval methods are out of
harmony with the progressivism of the
twentieth century. They have not caught
the spirit of truth or the temperament
of the age. The Roman Catholic Church
still sways its weapon of authority
over the wills and consciences of man.
Encyclicals are promulgated in Rome
against what is called modernism. What
is modernism but the God-given right of
man to think but a free and
unobstructed pathway over which the
soul may travel? Think of six hundred
priests at one time in one cathedral,
holding up their hands and taking a
solemn oath that they would not teach
modernism! It means that they would not
claim the right of man to think for
himself; that they would not teach an
immanent or indwelling God, but a
distant God requiring priestly
mediation between Him and man. It is a
spectacle for thought and
consideration. Why all this concern?
Why place this ban on man's
thinking? Truth is its own defense. It
is only error that is in danger. If an
institution is built on the divine
rock, how can modernism undermine the
foundation or batter down her
walls?
Men can grow only as they are mentally
and spiritually free, only as they
break away from the limitations that
institutions attempt to set to their
progress. What slavery is so debasing
as spiritual servitude? Yet think of
the millions who are under this
bondage,--men who do not dare think
except as they have been told, men who
dare not read except what has been duly
censored by those exercising spiritual
authority.
Let us open the windows of the soul and
let the light in, and then as the
Gentle Master said, "The truth shall
make you free."
Chapter
5
* * * * *
The Message of New Thought
Table of
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