This section is from the book "Faith - Healing. Christian Science And Kindred Phenomena", by James Monroe Buckley. Also available from Amazon: Faith-Healing, Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena.
Mrs. Eddy speaks of Mesmerism in this way:
Mortal mind, acting from the basis of sensuous belief in matter, is animal magnetism. ... In proportion as you understand Christian Science you lose animal magnetism. ... Its basis being a belief and this belief an error, animal magnetism, or mesmerism, is a mere negation, possessing neither intelligence nor power. . . . An evil mind at work mesmerically is an engine of mischief little understood. . . . Animal magnetism, clairvoyance, mediumship, and mesmerism are antagonistic to this Science, and would prevent the demonstration thereof. . . . The Mesmeriser produces pain by making his subjects believe that he feels it; here pain is proved to be a belief without any adequate cause. That social curse, the mesmerist, by making his victims believe they cannot move a limb, renders it impossible for them to do so until their belief or understanding masters his.
Of Spiritualism:
Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would destroy the supremacy of Spirit.
And of Clairvoyance specifically:
Clairvoyance investigates and influences mortal thought only. . . . Clairvoyance can do evil, can accuse wrongfully, and err in every direction.
Of Faith Cure:
It is asked, Why are faith cures sometimes more speedy than some of the cures wrought through Christian Scientistsf Hecause faith is belief, and not understanding; and it is easier to believe than to understand Spiritual Truth. It demands less cross-bearing, self-renunciation, and Divine Science, to admit the claims of the personal senses, and appeal for relief to a humanized God, than to deny those claims and learn the divine way, drinking his cup, being baptized with his baptism, gaining the end through persecution and purity. Millions are believing in God, or Good, without sharing the fruits of goodness, not having reached its Science. Belief is mental blindness, if it admits Truth without understanding it. It cannot say with the Apostle, "I know in whom I have believed." There is even danger in the mental state called belief, for if Truth is admitted but not understood, error may enter through this same channel of ignorance. The Faith cure has devout followers, whose Christian practice is far in advance of mere theory.
Marston, speaking of change in the inverted thought of the sick person, says:
Since a change of the inverted thought of the sick person is all that can be produced by extraneous influence, the treatment of a professional Healer is not the only means of securing it. While a majority of cases are affected in that way. there are well-attested instances to show that anything that will enable the sick person to change his thought may put him in a condition to receive spiritual healing. A text from Scripture or some other writings may be brought to his mind with such force as to do this, or some sudden event may startle him out of his chronic delusion. It is in this way alone that we can account for cures that seem to result from prayer, a resort to relics, charms, ami other things believed to possess peculiar virtue. This is why good results follow any one of the thousand absurd acts, by the performance of which superstitious and credulous people seek to be restored to health.
Another remarks:
The question is often asked. In what does the Christian Science healing differ from the faith cure ? In the faith cure the patient must have faith; in Christian Science that is not necessary; patients have frequently been helped or entirely cured, without knowing they were being treated. ... No great faith is necessary on the part of tho patient; but it will expedite his recovery if he take interest enough in the method by which he is being healed to read suitable books on the subject, and converse profitably with the healer. . . . Prayer to a personal God affects the sick like a drug that has no efficacy of its own, but borrows its power from human faith and belief. The drug does nothing because it has no intelligence.
 
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