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  THE CHURCH OF ST. BUNCO

  A DRASTIC TREATMENT OF A COPYRIGHTED
  RELIGION--UN-CHRISTIAN NON-SCIENCE

  BY GORDON CLARK

  THE Abbey Press

  PUBLISHERS

  114 FIFTH AVENUE
  London      NEW YORK      Montreal




  Copyright, 1901,
  by THE Abbey Press




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER                                                    PAGE

         Preface                                                7

      I. A Bird's-eye View of the Thing                        11

     II. The Origin of the "New Thought"                       15

    III. Dr. Quimby's most Distinguished Patient               41

     IV. A Great "Metaphysical" Novel                          59

      V. A Soft Set of Critics                                 74

     VI. "The Precious Volume"                                 78

    VII. "Key" to the Eddy Scripture, Science and Health       95

   VIII. "Christian Science" Organizing Forces                108

     IX. The One True "Mother Church"                         120

      X. A Martyr to "Science"                                131

     XI. Metaphysics                                          155

    XII. Further Analysis of the Universe                     165

   XIII. A Special Look at Space and Time                     180

    XIV. Creative Mind Further Probed                         186

     XV. The Genesis of "Transcendental" Ideas                193

    XVI. The Grand Result of Dissecting Phenomena             196

   XVII. Some Sequences of Absolute Idealism                  206

  XVIII. Various Schools of the "New Thought"                 219

    XIX. An Advanced Healer of To-day                         232

     XX. Conclusion                                           248




PREFACE.


The purpose of this book is not to deny the power of mind over matter, or
of the human mind over the human body, but to show that the foolish and
pestilent thing termed "Christian Science" is a leech fastened upon these
great truths, mostly, if not wholly, to batten on them.

There is no use of saying this to "Christian Scientists" themselves--an
obedient chain-gang in hypnotic servitude. But people who are not already
"in Science" (to use the shibboleth of those who are), ought to be
prompted not to get there. The best way in general, I think, is to show
that even the historical and biographical claims at the base of the
movement are false. If the personal veracity of the head of a church
cannot be trusted, "divine revelations," "miracles" and "mental medicine,"
proceeding from such a source, will naturally be accepted only by the very
soft, or else by the very hard for solid considerations.

Is there no sincerity, then, in "Christian Science"? Of course there is.
Even the "discoverer and founder" of it undoubtedly believes certain of
its asseverations. Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy must be credited, for instance,
with the conviction that she has some knowledge of "metaphysics"--a
conviction that is nothing worse than a pitiable mistake, which is
exploded here at some length. When, as a result of this mistake, she
teaches that matter is nothing--not even a condition of anything--only
sincerity can account for such lunacy. Yet herein "Christian Science" has
its whole rational, or rather irrational, breath of life.

Some "Christian Scientists" sincerely believe in an equivalent for "black
magic." As, in their view, "concentration of mind" can cure disease, they
think it can also throw disease upon enemies, or upon backsliders from
"science." It has been suggested even to the present writer that illness
might be cast upon him if he antagonized "the true faith." According to
certain dissidents from "Christian Science," "black magic," though with
much talk of "chastening love"--(every crime of religious hypocrisy is
always committed in the name of "love")--has been persistently tried on
heretical wanderers. In the natural course of time some of them are dead;
but those whom I have met are not only living, they are comfortably fat.

As "Christian Science" has to me no genuine basis, either in facts,
science, theology, metaphysics or therapeutics, but is a mendacious,
contradictory, pretentious humbug, I do not hesitate to use such weapons,
whether narration, logic, or satire, as are adapted to puncture it. We
hear that "Christian Science" has done good. So it has, in some instances,
but only through means which it pretends to repudiate, and through the
trustful ignorance of those who have been duped by it. We hear, also, that
"Christian Scientists" are specially "educated and intelligent." I deny
it. No one of them seems ever to have heard of the history of
philosophy--a cemetery in which have long lain buried the most of "Mother"
Eddy's "divine revelations," "original discoveries" and "absolute
demonstrations." Her followers can doubtless _read_, or they would not be
available as purchasers of her _Science and Health_; but, if they could
_think_, they never would have read the book through. From beginning to
end, it is simply a batch of self-contradictions and self-nullities. These
are capped with the most impudent claim ever uttered on earth--the claim
that the human mind in its natural state cannot comprehend the divine mind
incarnate in the author. If caustic is applied to such nonsense, there is
no need of apology. The only doubt is that the malefaction is worth the
burning.

G. C.




THE CHURCH OF ST. BUNCO.




CHAPTER I.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE THING.


The date of this writing is the year 1901.

About a quarter of a century ago, Boston, the city of modified Puritans
and keen business thrift, evolved a new religion. Modern Boston, however,
being nothing if not "scientific," the new religion tipped its wings with
the new time, and soared aloft in the name of "Christian Science."

In a world not quite converted to this "science," facts sometimes fall
behind assertions. But the sect of Christian Science now claims to number
in its fold a million sheep. The "mother church," of course, is in Boston;
but daughter churches of every age and size are budding and blooming
throughout the earth. At headquarters Christian Science has its official
weekly organ, its official monthly magazine, and its official publishing
house. The cult has issued innumerable books, but specially the
multifarious editions of _Science and Health_, the chief work of the
adored "mother" and "founder" of Christian Science, Mrs. Mary Baker G.
Eddy. As the latest edition of this sacred book is always the best, and as
the holy author carefully recommends it as such to all the
faithful--whatever other editions they possess--its very high price, under
copyright,[1] as compared with undivine books, has rendered it a
magnificent source of income. Then, as the average fee for blessing a
disciple of Christian Science with a dozen lessons in "metaphysics" and
"healing" has been three hundred dollars,[2] a grateful providence through
long years, has not only provided food and raiment for "Mother Eddy," but
a rich abundance, too, of such worldly goods as should adorn and stimulate
perfect piety, not excepting the whitest of diamonds, as symbols of
purity, for herself and the elect of her household. Why not? Her devotees
are strict adherents of Scripture--always as she interprets it for
them--and she believes, for all the text will yield, that "the laborer is
worthy of his hire."

Now, apart from the name and the church of Christian Science, there are
many people in Boston and its universal radiations--very intelligent and
honest people, too--who utterly discard Mrs. Eddy and her teachings, yet
hold the general doctrine on which she speculates--the now well-known
doctrine that mind governs matter, and that the soul can cure the body of
disease. The teaching of these people may simply be termed "mental
healing," though they say also "mental science," sometimes "metaphysics"
and comprehensively "the new thought."

Of late much has been said and written against Christian Science; but
adverse criticism has proceeded mostly from physicians in the interest of
their schools and theologians in the interest of their creeds. These good
souls have taken Christian Science seriously, like the innocent followers
of Mrs. Eddy herself. But as soon as a general investigator touches the
fad, especially the history of it, he sees that, whatever its effects may
have been--good, bad or indifferent--it began in false pretenses,[3] has
been pushed for money, and is one of the most shallow humbugs that ever
tricked an epoch in the cloak of religion, or reduced "metaphysics" to
lunacy. Hence our title. The Church of St. Bunco is the name for the
thing. "Christian Science," properly named, is simply _Un_-Christian
_Non_-Science.




CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW THOUGHT.[4]


"Christian Science," "Mental Healing," "Metaphysical Treatment of
Disease,"--where did these things come from, and how did they get here?
The facts are peculiar; they are partly unpleasant; they are sometimes
amusing; but they are not far to seek.

In 1836, Charles Poyan, a Frenchman, introduced into the United States the
practise of Mesmerism. In 1840 it was taken up, with great earnestness, by
a Maine Yankee, named Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. He was a watch and clock
maker, an inventor, and a natural reformer. In making his mesmeric
experiments, he soon found an extraordinary subject of them in the person
of a young man, Lucius Burkmar, with whom he traveled several years,
giving, it is said, some of the most astonishing exhibitions of mesmerism
and clairvoyance that had ever been known. As the substance of mesmerism,
though under the newer name of hypnotism, has now been fully substantiated
by the French Academy of Medicine, the highest authority in the world on
such subjects, there seems to be no longer any reasonable question of its
general claims.

On taking up mesmerism in New England, Mr. Quimby had been very ill and
given up by his physicians to die. By inquiring into his own condition
through his clairvoyant subject, Lucius, and by the young man's laying-on
of hands, Mr. Quimby, as he tells the story, recovered immediately from a
long-standing and dangerous malady. Partly as a result of this cure, but
much more because his whole life shows him to have been a natural exemplar
of "the good physician," he took to "healing the sick." He held no diploma
from any college of medicine; but his work and his thousands of patients
inevitably conferred upon him the title of "Doctor."

At first he merely co-operated with the regular medical faculty, who
sometimes called upon him to have his subject, Lucius, examine their
patients. Being put into the mesmeric state, young Burkmar would describe
the disease, with the pains accompanying it, and would then go on and
prescribe remedies, though he knew nothing about them.

As a participant and student of this process, Dr. Quimby came, in a short
time, to the conclusion that the diagnosis of the clairvoyant was not
necessarily the true one, but was taken from the belief of the patient, or
his physician, or some other person, and was, therefore, an impression of
incidental mind, rather than a statement of fact. Such results would not
do for a man like Quimby; so he dismissed mesmerism--such practise of it
at least as depended on anybody but himself and those on whom he directly
