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Science and
Health
with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter 5
— Animal Magnetism
Unmasked
For out of the heart
proceed evil thoughts, murders,
adulteries, fornications, thefts,
false witness, blasphemies: these
are the things which defile a
man.
— JESUS.
Mesmerism or animal magnetism
was first brought into notice by
Mesmer in Germany in 1775.
According to the American
Cyclopaedia, he regarded this
so-called force, which he said
could be exerted by one living
organism over another, as a means
of alleviating disease. His
propositions were as follows:
"There exists a mutual influence
between the celestial bodies, the
earth, and animated things.
Animal bodies are susceptible to
the influence of this agent,
disseminating itself through the
substance of the nerves."
In 1784, the French government
ordered the medical faculty of
Paris to investigate Mesmer's
theory and to report upon it.
Under this order a commission was
appointed, and Benjamin Franklin
was one of the commissioners.
This commission reported to the
government as follows: "In regard
to the existence and utility of
animal magnetism, we have come to
the unanimous conclusions that
there is no proof of the
existence of the animal magnetic
fluid; that the violent effects,
which are observed in the public
practice of magnetism, are due to
manipulations, or to the
excitement of the imagination and
the impressions made upon the
senses; and that there is one
more fact to be recorded in the
history of the errors of the
human mind, and an important
experiment upon the power of the
imagination."
In 1837, a committee of nine
persons was appointed, among whom
were Roux, Bouillaud, and
Cloquet, which tested during
several sessions the phenomena
exhibited by a reputed
clairvoyant. Their report stated
the results as follows: "The
facts which had been promised by
Monsieur Berna [the
magnetizer] as conclusive,
and as adapted to throw light on
physiological and therapeutical
questions, are certainly not
conclusive in favor of the
doctrine of animal magnetism, and
have nothing in common with
either physiology or
therapeutics."
This report was adopted by the
Royal Academy of Medicine in
Paris.
The author's own observations
of the workings of animal
magnetism convince her that it is
not a remedial agent, and that
its effects upon those who
practise it, and upon their
subjects who do not resist it,
lead to moral and to physical
death.
If animal magnetism seems to
alleviate or to cure disease,
this appearance is deceptive,
since error cannot remove the
effects of error. Discomfort
under error is preferable to
comfort. In no instance is the
effect of animal magnetism,
recently called hypnotism, other
than the effect of illusion. Any
seeming benefit derived from it
is proportional to one's faith in
esoteric magic.
Animal magnetism has no
scientific foundation, for God
governs all that is real,
harmonious, and eternal, and His
power is neither animal nor
human. Its basis being a belief
and this belief animal, in
Science animal magnetism,
mesmerism, or hypnotism is a mere
negation, possessing neither
intelligence, power, nor reality,
and in sense it is an unreal
concept of the so-called mortal
mind.
There is but one real
attraction, that of Spirit. The
pointing of the needle to the
pole symbolizes this
all-embracing power or the
attraction of God, divine
Mind.
The planets have no more power
over man than over his Maker,
since God governs the universe;
but man, reflecting God's power,
has dominion over all the earth
and its hosts.
The mild forms of animal
magnetism are disappearing, and
its aggressive features are
coming to the front. The looms of
crime, hidden in the dark
recesses of mortal thought, are
every hour weaving webs more
complicated and subtle. So secret
are the present methods of animal
magnetism that they ensnare the
age into indolence, and produce
the very apathy on the subject
which the criminal desires. The
following is an extract from the
Boston Herald: "Mesmerism is a
problem not lending itself to an
easy explanation and development.
It implies the exercise of
despotic control, and is much
more likely to be abused by its
possessor, than otherwise
employed, for the individual or
society."
Mankind must learn that evil
is not power. Its so-called
despotism is but a phase of
nothingness. Christian Science
despoils the kingdom of evil, and
pre-eminently promotes affection
and virtue in families and
therefore in the community. The
Apostle Paul refers to the
personification of evil as "the
god of this world," and further
defines it as dishonesty and
craftiness. Sin was the Assyrian
moon-god.
The destruction of the claims
of mortal mind through Science,
by which man can escape from sin
and mortality, blesses the whole
human family. As in the
beginning, however, this
liberation does not
scientifically show itself in a
knowledge of both good and evil,
for the latter is unreal.
On the other hand,
Mind-science is wholly separate
from any half-way impertinent
knowledge, because Mind-science
is of God and demonstrates the
divine Principle, working out the
purposes of good only. The
maximum of good is the infinite
God and His idea, the All-in-all.
Evil is a suppositional lie.
As named in Christian Science,
animal magnetism or hypnotism is
the specific term for error, or
mortal mind. It is the false
belief that mind is in matter,
and is both evil and good; that
evil is as real as good and more
powerful. This belief has not one
quality of Truth. It is either
ignorant or malicious. The
malicious form of hypnotism
ultimates in moral idiocy. The
truths of immortal Mind sustain
man, and they annihilate the
fables of mortal mind, whose
flimsy and gaudy pretensions,
like silly moths, singe their own
wings and fall into dust.
In reality there is no
mortal mind, and
consequently no transference of
mortal thought and will-power.
Life and being are of God. In
Christian Science, man can do no
harm, for scientific thoughts are
true thoughts, passing from God
to man.
When Christian Science and
animal magnetism are both
comprehended, as they will be at
no distant date, it will be seen
why the author of this book has
been so unjustly persecuted and
belied by wolves in sheep's
clothing.
Agassiz, the celebrated
naturalist and author, has wisely
said: "Every great scientific
truth goes through three stages.
First, people say it conflicts
with the Bible. Next, they say it
has been discovered before.
Lastly, they say they have always
believed it."
Christian Science goes to the
bottom of mental action, and
reveals the theodicy which
indicates the rightness of all
divine action, as the emanation
of divine Mind, and the
consequent wrongness of the
opposite so-called action, —
evil, occultism, necromancy,
mesmerism, animal magnetism,
hypnotism.
The medicine of Science is
divine Mind; and dishonesty,
sensuality, falsehood, revenge,
malice, are animal propensities
and by no means the mental
qualities which heal the sick.
The hypnotizer employs one error
to destroy another. If he heals
sickness through a belief, and a
belief originally caused the
sickness, it is a case of the
greater error overcoming the
lesser. This greater error
thereafter occupies the ground,
leaving the case worse than
before it was grasped by the
stronger error.
Our courts recognize evidence
to prove the motive as well as
the commission of a crime. Is it
not clear that the human mind
must move the body to a wicked
act? Is not mortal mind the
murderer? The hands, without
mortal mind to direct them, could
not commit a murder.
Courts and juries judge and
sentence mortals in order to
restrain crime, to prevent deeds
of violence or to punish them. To
say that these tribunals have no
jurisdiction over the carnal or
mortal mind, would be to
contradict precedent and to admit
that the power of human law is
restricted to matter, while
mortal mind, evil, which is the
real outlaw, defies justice and
is recommended to mercy. Can
matter commit a crime? Can matter
be punished? Can you separate the
mentality from the body over
which courts hold jurisdiction?
Mortal mind, not matter, is the
criminal in every case; and human
law rightly estimates crime, and
courts reasonably pass sentence,
according to the motive.
When our laws eventually take
cognizance of mental crime and no
longer apply legal rulings wholly
to physical offences, these words
of Judge Parmenter of Boston will
become historic: "I see no reason
why metaphysics is not as
important to medicine as to
mechanics or mathematics."
Whoever uses his developed
mental powers like an escaped
felon to commit fresh atrocities
as opportunity occurs is never
safe. God will arrest him. Divine
justice will manacle him. His
sins will be millstones about his
neck, weighing him down to the
depths of ignominy and death. The
aggravation of error foretells
its doom, and confirms the
ancient axiom: "Whom the gods
would destroy, they first make
mad."
The distance from ordinary
medical practice to Christian
Science is full many a league in
the line of light; but to go in
healing from the use of inanimate
drugs to the criminal misuse of
human will-power, is to drop from
the platform of common manhood
into the very mire of iniquity,
to work against the free course
of honesty and justice, and to
push vainly against the current
running heavenward.
Like our nation, Christian
Science has its Declaration of
Independence. God has endowed man
with inalienable rights, among
which are self-government,
reason, and conscience. Man is
properly self-governed only when
he is guided rightly and governed
by his Maker, divine Truth and
Love.
Man's rights are invaded when
the divine order is interfered
with, and the mental trespasser
incurs the divine penalty due
this crime.
Let this age, which sits in
judgment on Christian Science,
sanction only such methods as are
demonstrable in Truth and known
by their fruit, and classify all
others as did St. Paul in his
great epistle to the Galatians,
when he wrote as follows: "Now
the works of the flesh are
manifest, which are these;
Adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lasciviousness,
idolatry, witchcraft,
hatred, variance, emulations,
wrath, strife, seditions,
heresies, envyings, murders,
drunkenness, revellings and such
like: of the which I tell you
before, as I have also told you
in time past, that they which do
such things shall not inherit the
kingdom of God. But the fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness,
temperance: against such there is
no law."
Go
to Chapter 6: Science, Theology,
Medicine
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