CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 213 



leaders of this movement have not made some attempt toward a solu- 

 tion of this difficulty, which is the cause of much of the current enmity. 

 They must certainly realize their own limitations, and should be clever 

 enough to devise some edict on the subject which would attain its 

 object without impairing the faith of their adherents. 



The subject of nervous disorders is so complex that it seems at 

 first hopeless, but the approach by the way of maladies of the circu- 

 lation is more encouraging, though less traveled. One clue to this 

 labyrinth was discovered many years ago while some young persons 

 were under treatment for excessive blushing, which took place to 

 such an extent, whenever they were addressed suddenly, as to be a 

 source of great annoyance. 



The first suggestion was to think of something terrifying whenever 

 the feeling of reddening took place, upon the theory that terror tended 

 to produce pallor, and would thus neutralize the blushing. This was 

 occasionally successful, but it was always difficult to hold a vivid idea 

 of fright, and the repetition of the idea robbed it of its effect, while 

 the stock of new thoughts of this nature soon became exhausted. 



The next step was for the patient to hold firmly the idea that he was 

 not going to blush, and to refuse to believe that he was, even if he felt 

 the warmth in his ears. He must know that he could not blush, and 

 that he was not blushing. This worked now and then, but the patient 

 naturally found some difficulty in believing that he was not blushing, 

 when he could feel that he was, so the process was only useful when it 

 was started well in advance of the tendency to redden. Here we have 

 an exact parallel to the Christian Science doctrine, " Deny error ! 

 Evil and disease are non-existent ! " No matter what the facts are, 

 ignore them, and hold firm to the ideal that you desire. We see here 

 a universal principle, the ideal must be made real, in spite of all 

 obstacles. Now we may laugh at this system all we wish, but we 

 shall in the end be obliged to admit that in every age it has achieved 

 the wished-for results in minds of a certain class. It has a real 

 scientific basis, however, as will be made clear later, but has the fatal 

 defect of being inapplicable in many cases, because of its conflict with 

 common sense. 



Decided progress was made when the patient found that the flush 

 would vanish if he said to himself firmly, " I know that I can stop 

 blushing if I want to, and I will." This was only attained as the 

 result of patient effort, assisted by strong auto-suggestion, by faith 

 in the operator caused by the previous successes, and, as was learned in 

 later cases, by incipient voluntary control of the arteries of the face. 

 Great self-confidence on the part of the operator was required, together 

 with considerable talk about " will power," " self mastery," etc. 



Those who have read the books on mental healing will see that the 



