McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 4, August 1908Various
History
McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 4, August 1908
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
What are we to think of the miraculous cures reported in Christian
Science "experience meetings" and in the columns of the Christian
Science journals? Are we to consider them as genuine and accurate
records of fact, or are we to reject them as fabrications?
It would be easy to deal with the subject by driving Christian
Scientists into a corner and logically refuting their claims; for if
it is true, as stated on page 120 of "Science and Health," that
"health is not a condition of matter but of mind, _nor can the
material senses bear reliable testimony on this subject_," of course
"the material senses" cannot be trusted when they testify that cancer,
consumption, broken bones, or locomotor ataxia have been cured by
Christian Science. There is no such thing as the diagnosis of these
diseases without reliance on the testimony of "the material senses."
But although it is easy thus to refute the Christian Scientists, such
refutation satisfies no one and proves nothing except their logical
bankruptcy. The victory over their weak-kneed theory is a barren one,
for is it not notorious that people's practice may be better than
their theory? Skill in logic and in the accurate statement of one's
principles may be very slight, and yet the successful application of
these misstated or absurd principles may be a fact and a blessing.
I shall therefore undertake to examine and to discuss Christian
Science cures, not from the point of view of logic or consistency, but
by a study of the written testimonials and of my own experience gained
in the attempt to verify the claims of those who pronounce themselves
cured.
Some years ago I followed up, so far as was possible through personal
interviews and through letters, all the Christian Science "cures" of
which I could hear any details in or near Boston. Within a short time
I have returned to the subject and studied one hundred of the cases
recorded in the recent volumes of the _Christian Science Journal_
under the caption, "Testimonies from the Field." Putting together this
evidence and comparing it with my experience regarding the accuracy of
my own patients' statements about their own diseases, past and
present, my conclusions are, first, that most Christian Science cures
are probably genuine; but, second, that they are not the cures of
organic diseases.
In my own personal researches into Christian Science "cures," I have
never found one in which there was any good evidence that cancer,
consumption, or any other organic disease had been arrested or
banished. The diagnosis was usually either made by the patient himself
or was an interpretation at second or third hand of what a doctor was
supposed to have said.
As I have followed up the reported cures of "cancer" and other
malignant tumors, I have found either that they were not tumors at
all, or that they were assumed to be malignant without any microscopic
examination. In other words, the diagnosis was never based upon any
proper evidence.
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