MENTAL HEALING. IQ7 



Real permanent cures seem to be actually effected by the sub- 

 conscious mind acting on the diseased tissues in obedience to some 

 jiowerful suggestion made either by a healer or by the patient 

 Tiimself in what is called auto-suggestion — and the main condition 

 of su'tcess is that the patient shall be in a state of passive receptivity ; 

 he need not have actual faith in the treatment but he must not 

 oppose it ; he must be in such a quiescent condition that the force 

 of the suggestion ma}' have fair play and not be thwarted by his 

 meddling intellect. His mind being thus quiescent and receptive, 

 w"ill be able to concentrate itself on obedience to the pa ticular 

 suggestion given to it : and as this departmental consciousness is 

 co-extensive with bodily life, the action of this consciousness will 

 manifest itself in the tissues of the body ; and its operation in 

 obedience to a healing suggestion will he itself a healing operation. 



Ultimately, perhaps, we cannot get much bej^ond what Plato 

 says in the Ph^edrus, that the soul is self moving and, therefore, the 

 cause of all motion or change in anything else, and that soul takes 

 -care of that which is devoid of soul {■Ktirru 4"''X'/ fTn^/fXff-at tthitoq -ao 



And now a word as to Christian Science. In dealing with it, 

 we must distinguish and discriminate, neither swallowing it whole, 

 nor rejecting it as pure imposture. There has been too often 

 an absence of this discrimination. People have apparently 

 thought that if they accept its alleged cures, they must also accept 

 the remarkable philosophy of the universe which Mrs. Eddy has 

 produced, and on the other hand, that if they reject that philosophy 

 they are committed to a rejection of the cures themselves. But 

 this is not the least necessary. We can accept the cures as an 

 •example of the working of that subconscious mentality of which 

 I have been speaking, while we reject the philosophy as an equally 

 \mintelligible and unnecessary theory for accounting for them. 



There is no necessary connection whatever between the facts 

 and the theory. Mrs. Eddy's powerful personality and the moral 

 })latitudes in which her book abounds are just the sort of forces 

 W'hich would naturally impress a rather unintelligent section of 

 the public, and give the necessary cue to the subconscious mind, 

 and so initiate the healing effect. This is abundantly evident 

 from the testimonials given at great length at the end of Science 

 •and Health. 



What we have to remember is that a strong and clear suggestion 

 is to be given to the subconscious mind if it is to be stimulated 

 to its work — but it does not in the least matter whether that sug- 

 gestion is folmded on truth or not. 



The hypnotised man has not broken his arm. but is made to feel 

 that he has. It is the quantity of strength of the suggestion, not 

 its quality, that matters. 



Mr. Stevenson says : — 



" I do most of the morality, my Brownies have not a rudiment of what 

 •we call a conscience," 



and Mr. Hudson expresses the same fact more prosaically b\' 

 saying that this subjective or subconscious mind is essentialh' 

 deductive — i.e., it draws conclusions from premises supplied to it 

 whatever these premises may be. 



