Part 13 (1/2)
”We affirm Heaven here and now, the life everlasting that becomes conscious immortality, the communion of mind with mind throughout the universe of thought, the nothingness of all error and negation, including death, the variety of unity that produces the individual expressions of the One-Life, and the quickened realization of the indwelling G.o.d in each soul that is making a new heaven and a new earth.”
We discover in this creed a more distinct recognition of ideals and truths which inherited Christianity supplied than in the earlier statements of purpose. In the annual address of the President there is distinct reference to the relation of the New Thought gospel to the churches. ”I am asked often: What is the relation of this movement to the Church? This is not a new religion. It is not an inst.i.tution seeking to build itself up for the mere sake of the inst.i.tution. We do not ask anybody to leave the church. We ask them to become better members of their churches than before. New Thought is designed to make people better and more efficient in whatever relation of life they may find themselves. In other words: 'New Thought teaches men and women only the old common-sense doctrine of self-reliance and belief in the integrity of the universe and of one's own soul. It dignifies and enn.o.bles manhood and womanhood.' The main idea on which Christianity is founded is that of communion with G.o.d, that of wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d in spirit and in truth.
This is the very corner-stone of those modern movements that recognize men and women as the living temples of the G.o.d within.... I predict that this new interpretation and new understanding will become universal in the new age which is now dawning.”
A further paragraph, however, reveals the synthetic character of the movement. ”It is the realization in practical affairs of the teachings not only of the Nazarene, but of every other great religious teacher since the world began; for in their essence these teachings are fundamentally alike; and the New Thought and other new spiritual movements are but the efforts to apply, in our relations one with another, these simple and sublime truths.”
_The Range of the Movement_
I have quoted at length from these programs, affirmations and this one address to indicate the range of the movement as it has found official expression. We must look, however, to the literature of the movement as a whole for a full understanding of its reach and influence. The literature in general falls into three cla.s.ses: (1) books concerned mostly about healing; (2) books which instruct as to character, spiritual states and fullness of life; (3) what one may call success books which apply New Thought to business and the practical conduct of life. The lines of demarcation between these three types of books is, of course, not clear and there is a material which is common to all of them, but the distinction thus suggested is real.
As a principle of healing New Thought differs from Christian Science in almost the whole range of its a.s.sumptions. It does not deny the reality of matter, not the reality of suffering, nor does it distinguish, as does Christian Science, between the Divine Mind and the mortal mind.
There are, according to New Thought, healing forces which may be trusted to do their remedial work in us, if only we surrender ourselves to them and let them have their way. There is nothing in New Thought which quite corresponds to the ”demonstration” of Christian Science. It would seem to an impartial observer that Christian Science asks of its disciples an intensity of positive effort which New Thought does not demand.
Dresser, for example, believes all suffering to be the result of struggle. Directly we cease to struggle we cease to suffer, provided, of course, that our cessation is in the direction of relaxation and a trust in a higher power. In some regions, however, Christian Science and New Thought as therapeutic agents work along the same line, but where Christian Science denies New Thought ignores. Here New Thought makes more use of psychological laws; it follows James generally in its psychology, as it follows Emerson in its thought of the over-soul, though in this region Emerson's detached serenity of faith is given body in an insistence upon the divine immanence for which New Thought is in debt to the suggestions and a.n.a.logies of modern science.
New Thought makes much of the s.h.i.+fting of attention and its disciplines are rather the disciplines of the mystic than the disciplines of the Christian Scientist. It seeks in substance to ascertain the laws of mind in action and then, through the utilization of this knowledge, to secure health, happiness and prosperity. It makes much, of course, of the centrality of mind both in well-being and pain. It hardly goes so far as to say that pain is an error in belief, but it does say that pain is a matter of consciousness and that as we are masters of consciousness we are masters of pain. It believes in thought transference and absent treatment, but it is perhaps more conservative in the cases which it is willing to undertake than Christian Science and recognizes the limitations of the healer.
_The Key-Words of New Thought_
Its key-words are Harmony, Realization, Affirmation and Poise. Just here New Thought is a strangely interwoven web. It makes much of ”vibration”
and ”friction.” It is evidently under the spell of the wave theory of light and heat. It is most dependable in its a.n.a.lysis and application of laws of mental action, most undependable in trying to account for the relation of mind to body and in its explanation of the physical phenomena of disease. Fatigue, for example, ”is evidently due to the calling of power into a new direction. It [evidently the power] comes into contact with dense matter, with an uncultivated portion of the being, physical as well as mental, and meeting with resistance friction of some sort is the natural result.” One has only to compare a statement like that with Cannon's careful study of bodily changes under emotional states, to see the difference between speculation controlled by a.n.a.logy and the illuminating experimental methods of modern science.
When Dresser adds that ”we shall eliminate disease not by fighting it, not by studying its causes, or doctoring its physical effects, but by seeing the wisdom of the better way,” he is on dangerous ground, for if we are not to study the causes of disease but to take as our guide the serene generalizations of a speculative mind we are shutting in our faces one of the doors by which we enter into that knowledge of the mind of G.o.d, of which New Thought makes so much. How shall we know the mind of G.o.d except as we ask endless patient and careful questions of every revelation of the divine method, whether in sickness or health?
New Thought, however, takes a far more constructive view of suffering than Christian Science. For New Thought suffering is at least disciplinary and instructive: it compels reflection: it brings us to a knowledge of the law. It is certainly, therefore, just and it may be kind. Indeed, New Thought occasionally goes so far as to say that suffering is also a revelation of love and must be so accepted and entertained. Its general conclusions in this region are far more safe than its insistence upon vibration and friction and its s.p.a.cious technicalities.
When Dresser says that there is a difference ”between ignoring a trouble, between neglecting to take proper care of ourselves and that wise direction of thought which in no way hinders while it most surely helps to remedy our ills,” he is on perfectly safe ground. When he adds that there is a strong reason for believing that ”there is a simple, natural way out of every trouble, that kind nature, which is another name for an omniscient G.o.d, is ever ready to do her utmost for us” he is speaking with a wise and direct helpfulness, though here as generally New Thought errs on the side of too great a simplification. There is a way out of every trouble but it is not always simple, it is often laborious and challenging. We have accomplished marvels in the matter of tropical sanitation but the way out has been anything but simple. It has involved experimentations which cost the lives of physicians who offered themselves for humanity as n.o.bly as any soldier on any battlefield; it involved the sweat of hard driven labour digging drainage ditches, the rebuilding of the foundations of cities and a thousand cares and safeguards. If New Thought wishes to dismiss such a process as this with the single adjective ”simple” it may do as it pleases, but this is not simplicity as the dictionary defines it.
_Its Field of Real Usefulness_
All that way of thinking of which New Thought is just one aspect is fatally open to criticism just here. It ignores the immense travail of humanity in its laborious pilgrimage toward better things and it is far too ready to proclaim short-cuts to great goals when there never have been and never will be any short-cuts in life. None the less, trust and quietness of mind and soul and utter openness to healing, saving forces are immense healing agents and in its emphasis thereupon New Thought has recalled us to that which in the very intensity of life's battles we are in the way of forgetting. And beyond doubt, in that obscure range of diseases which are due to the want of balanced life--to worry, fear, self-absorption and over-strain--the methods of New Thought have a distinct value.
In general, as one follows the history and literature of New Thought one finds that, though it began with a group more interested in healing than anything else, healing has come to play a progressively less important part in the development of the movement and the larger part of its literature deals with what one might call perhaps the laws of mental and spiritual hygiene. The principles implicit in New Thought as a healing cult carry of their own weight into other regions. It is important enough to get well--that goes without saying--but it is more important to keep well. Good health on the whole is a kind of by-product. We suffer as distinctly from spiritual and mental maladjustments as from physical. We suffer also from the sense of inadequacy, the sense, that is, of a burdening disproportion between our own powers and the challenge of life. New Thought has addressed itself increasingly to such states and problems as this. Here it ceases to be a cult or a method of healing and has become a most considerable influence and here also it in general takes the direction of and is identified with what is truest in the Christian religion, what is sanest and most clear visioned in present-day thinking. The typical books just here are Trine's ”In Tune with the Infinite” and a similar literature.
_Its Gospel of Getting On_
Another application of New Thought is in the direction of personal efficiency. There is a considerable literature in this region. It does not specifically call itself New Thought but it is saturated with the New Thought fundamentals and has distinctly the New Thought outlook.
Marden is the most popular and prolific writer in this connection and the t.i.tles of his books are suggestive--”Keeping Fit,” ”Selling Things,”
”The Victorious Att.i.tude,” ”Training for Efficiency,” ”Getting On,”
”Self-Investment,” ”Be Good to Yourself,” ”He Can Who Thinks He Can,”
”Character,” ”Opportunity,” ”An Iron Will.” Something like this has, of course, been done before but the modern efficiency literature moves along a wider front than earlier books and makes a fuller use of the new psychology. All this literature dwells strongly upon the driving power of a self-a.s.sertive personality strongly controlled by will, single visioned and master of its own powers. It suggests lines of approach by which other people's wills can be overcome, their interest aroused or their cooperation secured.
Quotation is almost impossible--there is such an abundance of material and much of it is commonplace. It takes a deal of padding to make shelves of books out of the familiar and generally accepted truisms which are the ”Sermon on the Mount” and the ”Beat.i.tudes” of this gospel of personal efficiency. Keep fit, keep at it, a.s.sert yourself, never admit the possibility of failure, study your own strength and weakness and the strength and weakness of your compet.i.tor and success is yours.