application. As far removed as chemistry from alchemy, as astronomy
from astrology, as the doctrine of the localization of function
in the brain from phrenology, as hypnotic suggestion from animal
magnetism, are the crude and perverse notions of Christian Scientist
or Metaphysical Healer removed from the rational application of the
influence of the mind over the body.
X
The growth and development of the occult presents an interesting
problem in the psychology of belief. The motives that induce the
will to believe in the several doctrines that have been passed
in review are certainly not more easy to detect and to describe
than would be the case in reference to the many other general
problems--philosophical, scientific, religious, social, political,
or educational--on which the right to an opinion is accepted as an
inalienable heritage of humanity or at least of democracy. Professor
James tells us that often "our faith is faith in some one else's
faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case." Certainly
the waves of popularity of one cult and another reflect the potent
influence of contagion in the formation of opinion and the guidance
of conduct. When we look upon the popular delusions of the past
through the achromatic glasses which historical remoteness from
present conditions enables us to adjust to our eyes, we marvel that
good and great men could have been so grossly misled, that obvious
relations and fallacies could have been so stupidly overlooked,
that worthless and prejudiced evidence could have been accepted as
sound and significant. But the opinions to which we incline are all
colored o'er with the deep tinge of emotional reality, which is the
living expression of our interest in them or our inclination toward
them. What they require is a more vigorous infusion of the pale cast
of thought; for the problem of the occult and the temptations to
belief which it holds out are such as can be met only by a sturdy
application of a critical logic. Only as logical thoroughness comes
to prevail over superficial plausibility, as beliefs come to be
formed and evidence estimated according to their intrinsic value
rather than according to their emotional acceptability, will the
propagandum of the occult meet with greater resistance and aversion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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