Subjugating the Mind by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 3, 1909

Subjugating the Mind

By C. M. S.

THE conquest of the human mind has been one of the prime objects of man's enemy during the entire campaign of unrighteousness. There have been many methods employed in bringing it about; but one object runs through them all. To subjugate the mind is to conquer the individual who possesses it. Lucifer has had that in view in the inauguration of every system of false worship, as well as in some other movements not rated as religious.

In hypnotism, or mesmerism, the operator can do nothing until the subject yields his intellect to the control of another. In Spiritualism the “spirits” can do nothing until the medium is in a “receptive” mood. In Christian Science the pyramid of logical reasoning is by an ingenious process completely inverted, while the real and the unreal change places. In the Emmanuel Movement this same campaign against the conscious self is waged, while the subliminal self, or some other being's self, is set over the thoughts and actions of the individual.

In the same category stands the Roman Church, anathematizing private opinion and liberty of conscience, and seeking to compel men to think and speak only as the church dictates. Dr. O. R. Brownson, in the preface to his great defense of the Catholic Church (“Essays and Reviews,” preface, page vi) says:—

The articles [which comprise the book] before being printed in the Quarterly Review were submitted to the revision of a competent theologian, and I have no reason to suppose that they contain anything not in accordance with Catholic faith and morals; but they are as a matter of course republished with submission to the proper authority, and I shall be most happy to correct any error of any sort they may contain the moment it is brought authoritatively to my notice. It is not my province to teach; all that I am free to do is to reproduce with scrupulous fidelity what I am taught.

This is the position that must be taken by every loyal Catholic writer. Otherwise his book is placed upon the Index Expurgatorius, and he is anathematized if he persists in holding his opinion. Every book that bears the “Imprimature” of an archbishop stands for an individual whose mind is subjected to the dominance of some authority outside himself; and every time such dominance is permitted, God is robbed of the allegiance that is his due. When the whole world bows down to one earthly ruler, although he be arrayed in the insignia of the vicegerent of Christ, it will have declared its intellectual and religious capitulation to the powers of darkness, and the time for the Sun of Righteousness to shine forth in the glory of the Father will have come. C. M. S.