Book Description
Diseases are said to be nothing but mental pictures, which man creates for himself and believes in religiously. We must therefore learn to dominate all those conditions which may be susceptible to the implantation of mental germs. And, as man is the creator of every form of sin and suffering, so is he also the vector of his misdeeds being transmitted to others by mental germs, instead of physical germs. The assertion of the Christian Scientists that it was through their “Science” that Jesus healed, is a preposterous absurdity! When told to turn our left cheek to him who smites us on the right, we are not commanded to deny the blow but, on the contrary, to bear the offence without encouraging the offender to smite the other cheek. Sins and diseases are neither denied by Jesus, nor are their opposites (virtue and moral purity) anywhere affirmed. The Christian Scientists deny every theological dogma from Eden downwards, as much as Theosophists do, yet the former affirm that they are not at one with the Omnipotent Spirit of Truth, which alone can heal. Mrs. Gestefeld warns the would-be healer that if he treats for personal gain, the power to heal will desert him and he will be no longer a Christian Scientist, only a Mesmerist; but to the Occultist, this would be no objection. Mrs. Gestefeld’s assertion that diseases are the result of “wrong beliefs” is a fallacious syllogism, absurd and ridiculous in equal measure. The child, who has no belief, knowledge, or conception of true and false, can only catch scarlet fever through the oropharyngeal secretions of close contacts infected by Streptococcus pyogenes (or even asymptomatic carriers) — not through the alleged “infectivity” of someone else’s thought. More! Epidemics, such as cholera, flourish in crowded slums and camps of displaced populations (our brothers and sisters, in fact), who are forced to live in unsanitary and inhumane conditions. Are all these poor and lowly, despised and oppressed people sinners? Or are they victims of ecclesiastical and secular cruelty, and of man against his kith and kin? There are also climatic conditions, as in the outbreak of cholera in , when the epidemic seemed confined to certain areas following some law of atmospheric currents, or some other undetected, but not undiscoverable, physical cause. “Christian Science” goes further by asserting that physical disease is the direct effect of mental disease and wickedness. As an example, Bright’s disease of the kidneys is supposed to affect persons who are untruthful and deceitful. Shall we be next told that cancer of the tongue or throat is produced in those who backbite and slander their fellow men? Or are the Christian Scientists themselves, who are untruthful and deceitful? If, in the age of slander we live in, people are told that strangers can deny their faults and vices by barging into their mind (thereby absolving them from the effects of demerit arising from their actions) — would not such a belief cut from under their feet personal responsibility, and every hope of redemption and salvation? The diseases and other exigencies, in which we find ourselves entangled in their meshes, are the Karmic progeny of our former thoughts and deeds that are governed unerringly by Karma, the Law of Ethical Causation and Harmony across the Universe. By fostering responsibility and self-reliance, Karma frees every man from the servitude of religion and the clutches of “Christian Science.” “Christian Science” is Hypnotism under a Christian Garb. It is a pernicious form of Black Magic practised by Roman Catholic priests, adepts of the Black Art, enchanters, dugpas, and necromancers, who are known to have incited mental epidemics. Occult philosophy is the only remedy for the ills of mind and body. Let us cultivate brotherly feeling, charity, and tolerance towards the whole of creation, extending even to the dumb brute, and all shall be well.