Yes, this is the twentieth century. No, we are not living in the year 500 nor yet in the year 1000. The ideas and doctrines, the beliefs and practices of Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science belong to the darkest period of the dark ages, but they are very real and very potent things in the lives of many thousands of people upon whom the light of the world’s highest civilization shines. Chapter XII Christian Science Witchcraft Let us now pass to consideration of another phase of Mrs. Eddy’s influence, more astounding, perhaps, than any we have considered, and more discreditable, if possible, to the age in which we live. I refer to the belief in what I have called the new-old witchcraft; that is to say, to the belief, taught by Mrs. Eddy as inspired truth, and accepted by her followers as revealed of God, that a maliciously disposed person has the power, by absent treatment, through his or her mind to cause any form of sickness, the most horrible of deaths, and complete domestic, social or business disaster to others. I shall quote somewhat liberally from Mrs. Eddy’s own statements in this regard, in order that there may be no question that I represent her correctly, and of these statements I invite thoughtful consideration. In her first edition of “Science and Health,” published in 1875, Mrs. Eddy said, on page 123: “In coming years the person or mind that hates his neighbor will have no need to traverse his fields, to destroy his flocks and herds, and spoil his vines; or to enter his house to demoralize his household; for the evil mind will do this through mesmerism; and not _in propria personæ_ be seen committing the deed. Unless this terrible hour be met and restrained by science, mesmerism, that scourge of man, will leave nothing sacred when mind begins to act under direction of conscious power.” On page 382, Mrs. Eddy says: “The silent argument used in his own behalf, as he manipulates the head, the malpractitioner would blush to make audibly. Suppose he has a juror for a patient, and establishes the mesmeric connection between them, he can influence more than law or evidence, the verdict of that honest juror.” (Possibly this accounts for the presence in the court-room, at the trial of a case in which Mrs. Eddy was defendant, of a large number of the most potent Christian Science hypnotists.) On page 177 of the 13th edition of “Science and Health,” Vol. II, Mrs. Eddy says: “Mesmerism is practiced both with and without manipulation; but the evil deed without a sign is also done by the manipulator and mental malpractitioner. “The secret mental assassin stalks abroad, and needs to be branded to be known in what he is doing.” On page 175, Mrs. Eddy says: