WHAT ABSURD THING SHALL COME NEXT?
By Editor
We had often heard of the mind-cure theory, but now we see it. We always thought it was a mess of nonsense, but now we know that such only it is. We have before us the "formula" by which prescriptions are to be compounded for the cure of all diseases that humanity is heir to. What? "humanity" did we say? Oh, no, there is no humanity! It is all divinity. And "diseases" did we say? It is all a mistake. There is no such thing as disease, nor ache, nor pain—all this is a hoax. You get your finger caught as in a vice; it is not pinched, it does not hurt—it can't hurt, for don't you know that "matter has no life, and is insensible to pain or pleasure"? You only believe it hurts, and that is all. In fact matter "has no real existence" anyhow, and how can anything be really affected that has no real existence? "Matter is only an appearance like an image in a mirror;" and do you suppose that your reflection in a mirror could have its hand cut with a buzz-saw, or its finger mashed with a hammer? Do you suppose its tooth or head ever aches? Does it ever have the dyspepsia or neuralgia? Why, of course not. Well, then, are you so lost to all true ideas of sense or perception as not to know that "you are not material," and that that about which appears to be matter "is only an appearance like an image in a mirror"? And are you so dull as to suppose that an appearance can ache, or swell, or be inflamed, or be sick? If you are, you must get bravely over all that, for "pain and sickness exist only as beliefs, and come from consulting the appearance instead of clinging to the reality." Gentle reader, do you wonder whether we are not just "making this up"? Do you wonder whether there is anybody in this wide world who would put forth in sober earnest, and apparently with the expectation of being believed, such utter senselessness? If you do then you may safely lay aside all wonderment, for such is the case, and it is all sober fact. Let us proceed:— "The belief you have entertained of neuralgia, constipation, hoarseness, etc., is a profound error from beginning to end." We know better, for we have had them all—not all at once, but one or two at a time—and instead of it being only a belief that we had them, it was a painful reality. "You are a spirit . . . you cannot commit sin, be sick, or die." Wrong altogether. We are not spirit, we are flesh, subject to all the laws of flesh. We can commit sin, and are afraid we shall (especially if we read much more of this stuff), and we often have, and are sorry for it. We can be sick, and must be very careful that we be not, as thousands of people are. We can die, as everybody, except two persons, has died that ever has lived in this world, and multitudes are dying daily, and as multitudes shall die. "You are perfectly well [yes, we are], ever have been [no, we have not], ever will be." Thank you361for the consolation; hope we may be, yet we doubt it much. "Jesus conquered all these beliefs in false seemings [that is false, for he died], and was lifted up into a perfect perception of the spiritual truth of being, and he said that if he was lifted up, he would draw all men unto him. Therefore, because he did reveal this Christ-life of spiritual truth to man, you have only to follow that thought of his in your thoughts to come, yourself realizing that you are perfectly well and cannot suffer from any inflamed nerves, or irritated vocal organs or bronchial tubes, which you call neuralgia and hoarseness; it is an illusion." There, that is all we need to quote; there is much more to the same purpose, but this is enough. We can only say that if anything could possibly be more of "an illusion" than is this theory of the mind-cure, we should like to know how any conception of it could be conveyed to the human mind. And when we realize that there are men and women who actually believe in such unmitigated nonsense as is set forth in this "formula," we confess that our confidence in human nature is just about in the last stages of dissolution, for after that what is there, or what can there be, that men may not believe. J.