2 ’ Digitized by the Inte Archive a in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library ul + wt - a tans » ts ree 4 r \ a ‘ Nene 4 “A \ Pa sv, ar) m f 4 r Pi, a ; a a ‘ne ¥ cA i WY ew ae } 2 oo ‘ ‘ ery , a oa¥ : - F RU. I } y i 7 A ¥ ’ Lary Ae s, ¥ 4} a r “ny tins Bisse re) x iy hae nn wae} if ay A-% 4 Bar: ey a ae I am . ty » ok ‘y ‘" (4 ay aA re gh: ‘ 4 i { om i i or Boe ay) " as i , it beeen a8 ee hi Y _ Pe) ea mf eae, we js ../ tL ee & 1 pss Acute and Chronic Unbelief Acute and Chronic Unbelief ; Its Cause, Consequence and Cure By ALBERT CLARKE WYCKOFF Professor of Psychology of Religion, the Biblical Seminary, New York, NV. Y. Author ay ‘The Non-Sense of Christian Science,”’ ‘‘The Science of Prayer,’’ etc. NEw YORK CHICAGO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH Copyright, 1924, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street PREFACE r A HREE factors enter into the problem of religious belief—the belief, the believer, the interpreter of the belief. Any one of these has the power to cause the reaction of un- belief. The belief and the interpreter long have been the problems with which the theologian and the Biblical scholar have dealt. The personal equation introduced by the personality of the un- believer is now receiving more attention. ‘To that portion of unbelief in which the personality of the unbeliever plays the dominant part we are going to devote this study. If this strict limitation of the subject is kept in mind, it will save much mis- understanding. Unbelief of this type involves more than a lack of intellectual assent to some his- toric doctrine. When it reacts against the cosmic factors in religious belief, it creates psychological disturbances of major magnitude, which seriously interfere with the normal functioning of one’s in- tellectual, moral and spiritual machinery. If this trauma of unbelief is too long neglected it keeps open a psychological wound around which the growth of misbelief develops. From the standpoint of health, medical science divides mankind into three groups: The healthy, the physically unhealthy, the psychically un- healthy. They are distinguished by their reac- tions under test to certain natural stimuli. The reactions of the healthy person are not conspicu- 5 6 PREFACE ously minus or plus, they are natural and normal. The reactions of the physically unhealthy are minus, they come short of the natural response. The reactions of the psychically unhealthy are plus, or exaggerated. They exceed the normal. From the standpoint of religious health, the psychologist divides mankind into three groups: The believer, the unbeliever, the misbeliever. ‘The reactions of the believer to the natural stimuli of the facts, truth and experiences of religion are not conspicuously minus or plus. They are natural, wholesome, normal. They explain themselves. The reactions of the unbeliever are minus, they fall short of the natural response to the facts, truth and experiences of religion, thus sub-belief is born. The reactions of the misbeliever are ex- aggerated, they go way beyond the natural re- sponse to the stimuli of the facts, truth and ex- periences of religion, thus super-beliefs are born. Up to this point the problem is purely psycholog- ical; not until the super-beliefs of spiritual healing are under consideration, do we encounter patho- logical conditions. For the purpose of experiment three major re- ligious beliefs have been selected—The Belief in a Personal God, ‘The Belief in Prayer, The Belief that Jesus is the Christ. ‘These beliefs have been chosen because of the curious psychological fact that all unbelief, misbelief, and normal religious belief consciously or unconsciously revolve around these three concepts. We will watch the reactions of the typical believer, the typical unbeliever, the typical misbeliever as they respond to these PREFACE 7 stimuli, and incidentally observe some most inter- esting behaviour. The physician finds that the human body regis- ters its normal health through the delicate balanc- ing of the two opposing elements of heat and cold at the mean temperature of ninety-eight and three- fifths degrees, Fahrenheit. In like manner, the psychologist has discovered that normal religious health is maintained by the delicate balancing of the two opposing elements of the intellect and the emotions at the mean temperature of ninety-eight and three-fifths degrees, friendship in the individ- ual and fellowship in the ecclesiastical organism. The religious vitality of the organism, whether individual or ecclesiastical, depends upon this volatile balance. The slightest disturbance of its equilibrium throws the organism into a state of unrest or inflammation, which gives the clue to the cause of unbelief and misbelief. If the intellec- tual element is overbalancing the emotional, un- belief begins to appear. If it reduces the emo- tional element to the zero point, atheism develops. If the emotional element is overbalancing the in- tellectual, misbelief begins to appear. If it re- duces the intellectual to the zero point, occultism develops. As the human body functions best for general satisfaction to the individual and society when it is in normal health, so religious life functions best for general satisfaction to the individual and society when its health is normal. Rationalism and pietism are ancient, ecclesiastical foes, dis- turbing the peace and harmony of the Church 8 PREFACE with their strife—first the one, then the other, holding the fort. The psychologist diagnoses all such outbreaks as religious epidemics caused by too much intellectualism or too much emotional- ism disturbing the delicate balance of normal re- ligious health conditions, and spreading through infection to abnormal proportions. The remedy is not the extermination of the one element or the other, but the restoration of their delicate balance at the mean temperature of normal religious health. For it is only when this balance is dis- turbed that these elements create inflammation, and seriously disrupt fellowship. This book undertakes pioneer work in this new field of religious research. It will undoubtedly exhibit the defects of all pioneer work, but if it helps the reader to understand the psychological background of this type of unbelief and misbelief, and stimulates further investigation in this new field, it will have served its purpose. To the publishers of The Biblical Review 1 wish to express my appreciation of their kindness in permitting me to republish several articles as chapters in this book. The chapter on Chronic Unbeltef has been circulated quite widely in pamphlet form. A. Cr Wi Reformed Church, SPRING VALLEY, N. Y. Contents PART I Unbelief or Sub-belief ie ACUTE UNBELIEF ie it y y Natural adolescent doubt artificially stimulated into reaction of positive unbelief by defects in train- ing and education—Home, Church, College big factors—How to prevent—How to cure. II. CHRONIC UNBELIEF~ - ih re ud Unnatural adult hostility toward religion—Chronic unbeliever a constitutional « aginer’’—Kink in temperament of child creates complex—Adult becomes its victim—Mr. H.G. Wells, Professor James Henry Leuba, Friedrich Nietzsche, typical cases—Religious medication a cure for unbelief. PART II Super-belief or Misbelief III, Occu tis - is a he b id Misbelief middle-life ailment—Failure to meet successfully psychological crisis in life opens up spiritual wound of religious indifference—Con- stant irritation starts up virulent psychological growth of misbelief—Occultism’s panaceas— ° Christian Science, New Thought, Spiritism, Theosophy as painless remedies—Why they prune the growth— Psychological operation most effectual cure. 9 13 4I 69 10 CONTENTS IV. Tue Super-Beviers OF SPIRITUAL HEALING - rg _ a “ Betsy) Unbelief and misbelief lack vital elements to keep spiritual life healthy—Psycho-physical ailments result—Type of persons susceptible—Panaceas offered by spiritual healing cults—Wherein they fail—Normal religious belief as a preventive and cure. PART III Normal Religious Belief V. BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD - s a: VERS Human personality will not permanently accept reality interpreted in terms lower than person- ality—Unbelief and super-belief cults furnish curious substitutes—Why they fail to satisfy— Why a Personal God satisfies—Psychological argument new, comprehensive, convincing. VI. BELIEF IN PRAYER . - - - 155 Prayer psychologically capable of sublimating in- stinct of selfishness and turning its anti-social energy into a constructive force for building up and sustaining Home, Church, State—Selfishness back of present-day problems in Home, Church, State — Psychological cause of divorce. One function of prayer. VII. Tue Beier THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST - 188 Messianic consciousness of Jesus baffles psycholo- gist—Either abnormal or supernormal—Pathog- raphers endeavour to prove Jesus abnormal, psy- chically unsound— Proofs considered—Failure to prove Him abnormal leaves psychology with a supernormal Jesus—A Mediatorial position— The christs of unbelief and super-belief cults compared with The Mediator, Jesus Christ— Unique personality of Jesus Christ distinctive feature in Christian religion—Naturally mediates pei gs human personality and personality of od. PART I UNBELIEF OR SUB-BELIEF I ACUTE UNBELIEF S the skillful physician distinguishes be- A tween chronic and acute disease, treating each according to its nature, soethe psy- chologist distinguishes between chronic and acute unbelief. ‘Though many of the symptoms are the same, yet there are clearly marked differences. Chronic unbelief is an attack from which the victim does not recover with normal rapidity. Acute unbelief is an attack from which the patient recovers in a natural way. ‘There are a number of obvious symptoms which enable the one to be dis- tinguished from the other. As there are certain types of chronic invalids who seem to enjoy poor health, so the chronic unbeliever is the kind who seems to enjoy his unbelief. He is an unbeliever, and is proud of it. At least he tries to make others think he is. The person suffering from an attack of acute unbelief is in real distress of mind and spirit. ‘The cause of this distress, confessed or repressed, is the real cause of the attack of un- belief. Chronic unbelief is an adult disease, and is constitutional in its nature. Acute unbelief is a disease of the later adolescent period, and is in- stitutional in its nature. The Nature of the Malady. The adolescent period has long been recognized as the natural time for religious decision. ‘The largest number 13 14 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF of conversions are experienced at this stage of development. But conversions never register one hundred per cent. of the adolescents. For it is possible to decide against, as well as for religious faith. ‘Those who decide for, become believers; those who decide against, become unbelievers. If this decision settled the question for all time, our present problem would be simple. But there is a constant shifting back and forth from one of these positions to the other during the whole of the adolescent period. Many of the unbelievers, as their psychological problems become satisfactorily adjusted, move up into the believers’ group, and many of the believers, as their psychological prob- lems become more and more disturbing, move back into the group of the unbelievers. The stress and strain of the momentous physiological, psycholog- ical and social changes which are experienced by the adolescent, subject one’s spiritual, moral and intellectual nature to heavy demands. ‘The rapid development of one’s personality to the point of self-conscious individuality, the sudden emergence of a new world of ideals and social responsibilities, stir up a resistance against the authority which up to this time has held the child under control. The two mightiest regulating forces against which re- bellion rages are parental and religious authority. At this crisis, the home and the Church have need for infinite tact, wisdom and codperation. In moments of crisis, this truth is instinctively real- ized. One evening recently, the writer’s door-bell rang; when the door was opened, a woman was ACUTE UNBELIEF 15 seen standing before it apparently in a state of great agitation. Bursting into tears she said: For the first time in my life I feel the need for spiritual help, and I thought you might be able to give me some. We can do nothing with our daugh- ter. My husband and I have both been talking with her, but it does no good. You cannot reason with her. She wants to go out in company with young people with whom we do not wish her to associate, and to go to places where we do not wish her to go. When we tell her this is wrong, she says: “I do not think everything wrong you and Father do.” And when finally her father put his foot down and forbade her to go, she replied: “I will submit until I am eighteen, then I will leave home and do as I please.” (And the mother added, again bursting into tears) : And she will be eighteen next month, and she has almost broken my heart. The girl in question is a very popular young girl, with a character and reputation beyond re- proach. But she has reached the point where she is in rebellion against what she feels is unreason- able restraint. Every adolescent has something at stake in a conflict of this kind, which parents often in their ignorance are unwilling to recognize. It is a rapidly developing individuality, and it must be given its legitimate place in the family circle. Any boy or girl who possesses a personality of dominance, is going to fight for its emerging life with elemental fierceness. ‘The first battle often has to be fought against too unyielding parental control. If parents are wise enough to sense the need for reasonable readjustment of authority at this period, serious consequences are averted. 16 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF The next line of defenses which are attacked are those of religious authority. For religion is a real regulative power in the life of a child. Here, how- ever, open revolt does not accomplish the desired object. For one’s own conscience is such a large factor in the problem that some other tactics must be adopted. It is for this reason that the subtle strategy of psychological camouflage is employed. While the problem is distinctly psychological, yet the intellectual difficulties which the progress of modern science and Biblical criticism have created, furnish a most convenient excuse for rejecting the authority of religion. If to the assertion: “I do not think everything wrong you and father do,” is added: “I do not believe everything you and father do,” the childhood defenses of home and Church are shattered. And the external authority which might have suppressed the growing individuality of the child is forced to allow this new personality to become a cooperator in making and exercising voluntary control. Up to this point, however, the young are only feigning intellectual unbelief. Genuine intellectual difficulties which strike deep down to the very roots of their religious faith are still unknown. Their real problems are moral and spiritual, and they know this perfectly well all the while they are trying to camouflage this fact by throwing up a barrage of intellectual difficulties between them and their elders. Genuine intellectual difficulties are rare among uneducated adolescents. ‘They do not develop sufficient interest in the intellectual problems involved to make that phase of the ACUTE UNBELIEF 47, problem of any vital importance. This is the reason they enjoy shocking their elders with their new ideas and denials. As soon as the religious worker understands this truth, it is a simple matter to dig down and find out the psychological trouble which is masquerading in the garb of intellectual unbelief. Little serious attention need be paid to the religious doubts and denials of this group of adolescents. For theirs is really pseudo-unbelief or rationalization. Genuine, acute unbelief does not develop into a specific malady, save in exceptional cases, unless the adolescent period is abnormally length- ened by a college course during which the intellectual difficulties of religious belief are reinforced and exaggerated by the instruction of the college class room. The very nature of college work tends to make intellectual problems overshadow all others. The young student enter- ing college experiences a complete reversal of all previous life-value judgments. In the home, physical health, good habits, morals and ideals hold the center of the stage of interest. The intellec- tual ideas of children are regarded as negligible. For they are nothing more than children’s ideas, anyway. But during the four years of college, these life-values change. Intellectual performance and ideas become the most important of all life factors. They determine one’s standing and efficiency. Where the home exercised its most careful supervision, the college exercises least. Moral supervision is reduced to a minimum; un- less the transgressions of a student assume most 18 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF flagrant and notorious proportions, they are not taken under advisement by the college authorities. But intellectual performance and ideas are made the basis of rewards and honours. The most astonishing neglect remains to be men- tioned. College authorities do not seem to be suf- ficiently familiar with psychology to realize that the religious nature of the student is just as im- portant an element in personality as the intellectual. In the last analysis, history has proven that re- ligion is able to marshal all of the resources of personality, moral, physical, psychological and in- tellectual, and to command these in service, as no other power at the disposal of personality. For this very reason it possesses unique powers for as- sisting the individual and society in solving all physical, social, moral, psychological and intellec- tual problems. Mr. Frederick H. Nemeyer, Chairman of the Interfraternity Conference which was held re- cently at the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York, in addressing representatives from ninety-five col- leges, summed up their greatest problems in these words: “ Intemperance and poor scholarship are the two most serious problems with which the American college has to deal. Any one will recog- nize these two evils as moral and spiritual in their nature. Intemperance needs no comment. Poor scholarship in the American colleges is not caused by lack of mental power in the students. It comes from lack of interest and application. In other words, the cultural ideal has lost its grip upon the imagination of the American student. And philos- ACUTE UNBELIEF 19 ophy traces this to lack of spiritual life. Is it a coincidence, or is it simply the operation of the law of cause and effect, that these ‘two most serious problems with which the American college has to deal,” are the ones with which religion alone by its very nature is best equipped to deal, and through its neglect in college circles, leaves the in- dividual and society without the power to cope with the situation? The intellectual life of the student is given supreme concern by the college, the religious life of the student is considered of so little importance that even chapel exercises are made voluntary, and no responsible interest 1s taken in their neglect. The intelligent student cannot fail to draw the inference, that the college does not regard one’s religious life as a factor of any serious importance. The result of this indif- ference is now beginning to tell upon the religious life of the student. Fully seventy-five per cent. of the students in our American colleges are suf- fering from a mild or severe attack of acute un- belief. As long as this state of affairs remains un- remedied, every attempt to settle the problems which spring directly from this cause, such as the moral problem of intemperance and the spiritual problem of “poor scholarship”? must be futile. Science, to-day, leaves the college without ex- cuse. Psychology has discovered the germ of acute unbelief, isolated it, and pronounced its nature psychological rather than intellectual. It has traced it to its natural breeding place—the modern college class room. Of course, as we have already indicated, there are many secondary 1n- 20 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF cubators of this bacteria of acute unbelief. The adolescent mind is a very fertile one, the discon- tented mind is another, the supersensitive spirit is another, the inferiority complex is another, dis- appointment is another, modern literature is another. But no cultural idea of this nature could spread to such epidemic proportions among healthy-minded American adolescents without the intellectual support of the college class room. The Biology of the Bacteria of Acute Unbelief. It is fascinating to study the genesis of the bacteria of acute unbelief. The adolescent struggle for freedom from parental and religious authority, to provide one’s individuality with a chance to de- velop, creates an abnormal hunger in the mind of the growing boy and girl for the highly nitroge- nous findings of modern science and historical and Biblical criticism. When these intellectual dishes are prepared and served up in their best style by college professors who are chronic unbelievers, they are liable to tempt the ravenous appetites of adolescents to overindulge. No intelligent super- vision is exercised at this point by college authori- ties. It does not seem to have occurred to them that this sort of a thing can be overdone. And professors themselves often use little judgment. They not only encourage students to overindulge, but they are guilty of cramming unwelcome ideas down the throats of their students, even when they are able to see that these ideas are causing real dis- tress of mind and spirit. The natural consequence of such a procedure is that more of these ideas are devoured than the system of the student can digest ACUTE UNBELIEF 21 and assimilate. This overplus of undigested ideas starts up fermentation of thought, this develops into metabolism of doubt, which causes a conges- tion of the reason, and acute unbelief results. As acute indigestion often arises from overindulgence in foods which consumed in moderation are health- giving, so acute unbelief is often caused by gorging one’s self upon the highly seasoned intellectual provender of new ideas. This can happen when every idea presented is fundamentally true. There is an art in teaching new truth which should be mastered by every college professor who instructs in those branches of learning which call for any radical readjustment of one’s life prin- ciples. A course of training in intellectual dietet- ics should be required of every one who is to teach adolescents. The applicant for a professorial chair should be made to demonstrate that he ap- preciates the importance of a balanced ration, and the necessity for regulating the portions of facts or truth doled out to the intellectual, moral and spiritual capacity of the student to digest and as- similate. All adolescents have a limited capacity for masticating, digesting and assimilating new knowledge. And this capacity varies for obvious reasons in different persons. ‘This is particularly true of religious truth. It is the hardest to digest and assimilate because of the moral and spiritual readjustments which it forces. "Those whose early training has made religion a vital factor in their lives, cannot digest and assimilate these new ideas as rapidly as those who have no particular religious or moral principles to readjust. This psycholog- 22 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF ical fact receives no recognition in the average college class room instruction. If overfeeding of students upon new ideas were the only offenses against the psychological nature of the adolescent of which the college professor is guilty, the situation would not be so bad. But to this, many professors add the additional indis- cretion of deliberately stuffing the students’ minds with the unripe fruit of immature, religious, critical-scholarship theories. So that many cases of acute unbelief are nothing more than the green- apple colic of the reason. Adolescents are so eager to devour this variety of intellectual prov- ender, especially when it is served up to them by their college professors, that unusual caution is necessary. Older people use more judgment as to what they accept as true, and then their ideas are fairly well set, and are not easily changed, as the preacher soon learns. But adolescents furnish open minds to the professor. To this fact must be added the requirement for examination or test, which makes it necessary for the student to pay attention and to absorb something of the ideas taught. This is why the task of the teacher is so much easier than that of the preacher. When Professor Leuba sums up the theological situation in these words: “ Theism having become logically impossible and pantheism being practi- cally insufficient, where shall we look for a re- ligion of the future?” he is serving up the unripe fruits of scholarship to his students. When such statements as the above are heard in the class room or read in his book on 4 Psychological Study ACUTE UNBELIEF 23 of Religion (see page 321), the impression is given that to the informed, theism has “ be- come logically impossible ” as a tenet of reason and faith. But what right has a college professor to inculcate that idea in the mind of the student? The verdict of scholarship and science has not yet been rendered in favour of atheism. And it is farther from favouring that theory than it was at the beginning of the century. A statement such as Professor Leuba makes above, might be justified in the company of his colleagues and peers, who are in position to weigh its evidence, and defend their religious beliefs; but immature adolescents have no defense against such generalizations. The extremes to which professors, who are chronic unbelievers, will go in their desire to un- dermine the religious faith of their students is illustrated by Professor Leuba’s pronouncement upon the observance of a national Thanksgiving Day. He says: Of the sense of a real, immediate dependence upon a personal divinity, there remains in Christian states but a few pitiable remnants. In the United States the most conspicuous one is the yearly proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving by which the members of the nation are called upon to return thanks to God for the good that has fallen to their lot and that of the country during the year. From an expression of genuine belief, this custom has become an objectional tradition which, the sooner it is abandoned, the better for those who keep it up and for those to whom it is addressed. It were better, instead, that we should be taught to realize our dependence upon each other and the gratitude we owe to the millions who strive, 24 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF often in material and moral distress, in order to build our material and spiritual prosperity (Belief in God and Immortality, p. 324). We are accustomed to have such professors at- tack beliefs that are fundamental to the Church, but this passage strikes at the foundations of the State, and so gives it a little different flavour. We can be sure that the students who have grown ac- customed to the attacks upon the belief of the Church find this new variety not quite as ap- petizing an intellectual morsel. In our study of chronic unbelief it will be seen why this flavour is easily thrown in. The practice of serving such intellectual provender to students produces the in- tellectual disturbance which we have termed acute unbelief. Let us put the matter in this fashion: Doubt is the natural intellectual hunger of the healthy- minded adolescent. The interrogation point is the hand that beckons the hungry mind to the banquet- ing hall where modern thinking has spread a most bountiful and appetizing feast of good things. It is not to be wondered at if the hungry mind of the modern adolescent prefers these new, freshly pre- pared viands of the present, to the cold, or warmed-over left-overs of the intellectual feasts of our fathers. All this they may be allowed to enjoy, without having their doubts nourished into positive unbelief. It is only when abnormally stimulated by certain intellectual ideas that adoles- cent doubt develops into positive unbelief. For psychology has clearly proven that this same ado- lescent period is the period of conversion. Doubt ACUTE UNBELIEP 25 is a peculiar mental, chemical solvent that has the power to soften beliefs and ideas so that they are capable of being remoulded. When in this plastic condition it is not a difficult task to remould such beliefs and ideas into useful beliefs, or into un- belief. And the college professor, who has the adolescent under his teaching in the class room for several hours a day for five days a week, with the demands of examinations and tests thrown in, has the very best opportunity in the world to remould the beliefs doubt has softened, according to his will. And no preacher or religious teacher or parent, having only an occasional touch with the adolescent and no regular intellectual authority over attention, can compete against such an ad- vantage. The Roman Catholic Church realizes that this is too precious an opportunity to take any chances on, so it turns its adolescents over to its trained religious teachers. It would be well if Protestants began to realize why unbelief is be- coming epidemic among college students. The Sufferers. Having learned something about the psychological and mental factors which cause acute unbelief, let us now study some of the symptoms. For it is necessary to be able to diag- nose the disease. The average college professor not being in the least concerned over an attack of acute unbelief, but rather pleased with one, as a sign of intellectual development, has no realization of this phase of the problem. ‘The writer having conducted for years a sort of free dispensary for college students suffering from acute unbelief, naturally has had this side of the problem deeply 26 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF impressed upon his mind and heart. The un- mistakable symptom of acute unbelief is real dis- tress of mind and spirit over the loss of religious faith. Sufferers from acute unbelief, like all suf- ferers, always seek out those whom they feel will understand their trouble and be sympathetic with them. So they do not go to those who have in- flicted the wounds. Space will not permit giving any adequate idea of the ceaseless procession of sick souls who have availed themselves of the free dispensary-help which we have given for years. Their appeals come from all over the world. Sometimes they present their cases in person, more often by letter. A typical case is described in the following letter. It reads: I am in trouble, and, having seen your works in The Biblical Review, I thought you might be kind enough to help me. All my ambitions have been stifled by the thought of the darkness of a future without God. Life seems worse than useless without Him. And, as much as I would like to be a Chris- tian, my prayers are never answered, and I am as far from God as if He did not exist. My misery is increased by the fact that I once knew the happiness that only comes to followers of Christ. When I was a child I was converted. The wonderful peace and love which so mysteriously steal into the heart of those who are truly converted was mine. That was ten years ago. Now I am twenty-two and a junior in college. With my pros- pects most people would be happy. Yet I am sad. I want back the love I have lost. The love that knows no limit. I know the beauty and happiness of a life that forgets itself in the service of God and others. No satisfaction will come to me until I find ACUTE UNBELIEF 27 God and am able to lead the kind of life that He intends His children to lead. This letter puts the case in an unusually clear and forceful way. The real distress of mind and spirit which follows loss of genuine religious faith is evident. Stifled ambitions, sadness of heart, depression of spirit—these are psychological dis- turbances as destructive to normal life functions as physical illness. No intelligent, well-disposed pro- fessor would think of causing physical ill-health in his students, yet many of them thoughtlessly plunge them into psychological distress without realizing that their religious natures are entitled to as much consideration as their physical natures. While the majority of these young people finally recover their religious faith, some drift into in- difference and have their whole religious life per- manently debilitated by their attack of acute un- belief, while in others, the malady hangs on until it becomes deep-seated and chronic. The conse- quences to the individual and to the children of the second generation are serious. We will come upon some of them in our study of superbelief cults and spiritual healing. To make sure that we have not exaggerated the situation, we will let other college students give their testimony. In one of the largest women’s colleges in this country, the examination paper in a recent mid-year test contained this question: What answer would you make to this report in a city newspaper of recent date? “The clergyman declared that ‘ rationalistic criti- 28 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF cism of the Bible is being taught by teachers and pro- fessors in colleges and universities throughout the country,’ and that it is undermining or destroying the religion which students acquire from home train- ing and church attendance in their early years.” As the college where this question was asked is one where great care is taken to make Bible study as constructive as possible, and where it is a re- quired part of the curriculum, we were greatly in- terested to know what the students answered. So we asked the instructor if we might be allowed to have a copy of their answers. Ina short time, the originals, marked according to the denomination of the student, were in our hands. A careful analysis of these answers throws an interesting side-light upon the relative efficiency of the relig- ious instruction of the various denominations, and the types of students who were most effected by the instruction of the college class room. We have space for only a couple of answers, but these we will make typical. One girl answers: If I were to write a report in answer to the recent criticism of Bible teaching in colleges and universities throughout the country, I should partially agree with that criticism. Many students who have come to college with a deep religious home training and church attendance in their earlier years have had their whole religious life undermined and destroyed. On the contrary side of this, I have also seen students who have had their religion strengthened by this rationalistic criticism of the Bible. A good deal de- pends upon the individual student, her previous train- ing, her attitude toward the rational criticism of the Bible, and above all upon the teacher. Some ACUTE UNBELIEF 29 teachers by ruthless destructive criticism destroy re- ligious truths, while others by careful close scrutiny of the Bible construct and aid religious truths already learned. Another girl gives this answer: I think he is quite right but don’t think it does much harm. What difference does it make how much you undermine or destroy as long as you have something left. I have, but I know a good many who haven’t anything to put in the place of what has been lost. That is very pathetic, but a religion must be poorly grounded that can’t be attacked without falling. Frankly, I don’t think that there is enough constructiveness in the course. Too much emphasis is on tearing down and not enough on building up. I very much regret that the last day could not have been spent in looking back over the course and seeing what was left standing among the wreckage, and it is wreckage to a good many. If a person can’t erect anything herself then I think the course has done harm, but where she can, it has done good by making her think more seriously about her religion than she probably has done before. Also some girls don’t lose anything, as they feel that the explanations are artificial and superficial. I heard one girl last night say that she got completely carried away in the class and agreed with everything, but when she got home and thought it over she felt that the arguments had twisted and turned without really getting to the bot- tom of the thing. These are first-hand observations taken direct from the students who are still in college, and when it is realized that they are made on an ex- amination paper to the instructor who has had charge of the Bible study course, they may be credited with no exaggerated emphasis. ‘They are 30 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF representative of the general opinion of the mem- bers of the class. ‘They are fair, frank, sane. Fach gives full recognition to the constructive value of these courses to “some’’; each also con- fesses that the destructive influence of these courses has affected “many.” One girl puts it thus: “It is wreckage to a good many.” The other girl says: “Many students . . . have had their whole religious life undermined and destroyed.” How- ever well-intended such courses in religious educa- tion are, their religious and spiritual value is deter- mined by the results obtained. If the “some” who have their religious life strengthened number twenty-five per cent. of the students, while the “many to whom it is wreckage,’ and who have had “their whole religious life undermined and destroyed,’ number seventy-five per cent. of the total, it does not take an expert mathematician to figure out that, from the standpoint of their relig- ious value, the experiment registers a heavy loss, which if persisted in for any length of time will bankrupt the faith. This, however, is the most encouraging depart- ment with which we have to deal. For the relig- ious expert accountant now reports that these Bible study courses are among the most constructive which touch the subject of religion. Quite apart from the actual content of the class room instruc- tion, the familiarity which the student gains with Bible characters and history, its moral and religious ideals and teaching, indirectly exerts a most salu- tary influence upon his or her religious attitude. It is in the department of special sciences, especially ACUTE UNBELIEF 31 in biology, sociology and psychology, that the highest mortality rate for religious belief is reg- istered. This we feel confident is due to the fact which Professor Leuba brings out in his book Belief in God and Immortality, where he states that the great majority of the greater scientists in these departments do not believe in the existence of a Personal God. The exact percentages he gives are: Only nineteen and four-tenths of the greater sociologists believe in the existence of God, sixteen and nine-tenths of the greater biologists, and only thirteen and two-tenths of the greater psycholo- gists. So that if we restrict our discussion to The Great Denial, that is, of the existence of a Personal God, over eighty per cent. of the greater scientists teaching in our colleges and universities confess that they do not believe in the existence of a Per- sonal God. It is inevitable that such unbelief should manifest itself in their teaching of science at the point where it touches the subject of religion. The teaching and the writing of these scientists naturally become one of the primary causes of the epidemic of acute unbelief which is to-day spread- ing among college students. Twenty years ago, these professors endeavoured to maintain a policy of strict neutrality upon the subject of religion. Professor James’ book The Varieties of Religious Experience is a splendid example of that earlier spirit. Though not a be- liever himself, still he did give the religious idea a most impartial study. In fact, Professor Leuba was so annoyed by the concessions which Professor James made to religious beliefs, that he wrote a 32 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF long criticism of this book protesting against this feature of Professor James’ work. ‘This criticism was reprinted in pamphlet form and given a wide circulation. In 1912, Professor Leuba published his book, entitled A Psychological Study of Re- ligion. In this he frankly states that he does not believe in the existence of an objective God, and argues that this fact places him in a better position to study the whole subject, because, not being a believer, he is able to approach the subject from an entirely unprejudiced point of view. In 1916 he published his book, entitled The Belief in God and Immortality. In this he frankly takes the offensive against theistic belief. He justifies his change of attitude by claiming that “at present these beliefs are hindrances to spiritual progress ” (see p. 823 f.). “ These beliefs ’—the belief in a personal God and in personal immortality—he characterizes as “‘morally inferior and, in pro- fessed followers of Christ, as reprehensible” (see p. 808). This being the case, those interested in morality and spirituality are duty-bound to take the offensive against these demoralizing beliefs and destroy them. Professor Leuba, himself, says: This is a relatively new phase for the controversy; it marks, it seems, the passage from the defensive to the offensive on the part of the disbelieving moralists ; the abandonment of the belief has become for these a condition of the attainment of the highest moral end (Op. cit., p. 308). It is this change of policy from strict neutrality ACUTE UNBELIEF 33 to an open offensive that constitutes the most alarming phase of the modern situation. Such a challenge, frankly made, cannot go unanswered. Not only have diplomatic relations been abruptly broken off by the unbelieving scientists, and war declared, but hostilities have actually been opened up and the neutral territory of the college student * mind ruthlessly invaded. The wreckage which the college girl describes in her examination paper bears a striking analogy to that which Belgium experienced at the outbreak of the World War. The advance of the anti-theists into this neutral territory has been comparatively easy because the college student is theologically an unarmed civilian, living in neutral territory, not yet committed by adolescent decision to either side. Held by tradi- tional training to theism, but with great sympa- thetic interest in the relief from disturbing relig- ious authority and restrictions offered by atheism. Up to the present time the theists have not made strong enough protest against this unwarranted invasion, nor have they any adequate force on the scientific fronts to put up an effective resistance. The writer, who was with the Rainbow Division upon the five battle fronts of France during the five major engagements, is not a pacifist, and does not take graciously to the glory of well-ordered retreats. He feels that the longer the enemies of theism are allowed to advance unopposed through this neutral territory of the college student mind, the more damage there will be caused, which will have to be repaired. And, much of it never can be repaired, or recompensed. If there were any 34 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF justifiable reason for allowing this advance, it would be different. But there is no intellectual justification for it either in modern science or philosophy. And the time has arrived when some resistance should be made. ‘The best defense is always an offense. The forces of theism should be marshalled and—but—this analogy of the great “ offensive’? which Professor Leuba has precipi- tated is so militaristic in its militant spirit that it is in danger of marching us off into an entirely dif- ferent trend of thought, so we had better drop this analogy of military science and return to the most pacific one of medical science. The Cure, First. If our returning academic spirit serves us right, we were busy with the sub- ject of acute unbelief. We had discovered that the adolescent is the particular type of person who is most susceptible to its ravages. We diagnosed the nature of the malady, studied the biology of its bacteria, and analyzed a few cases of those who were actually suffering from the ailment. It was at this point that Professor Leuba’s declaration of war against the beliefs of theism and personal im- mortality, in the avowed interests of the moral and spiritual progress of humanity, diverted us into the militaristic spirit and parlance. We pick up our problem at the point where a cure for acute unbelief is to be considered. In epidemic diseases, that is, those that can be communicated to others through infection, medical science has adopted a twofold scientific method of treatment. First, and most important, it has inaugurated what it calls “ preventive measures.” ACUTE UNBELIEF 39 These are divided into two kinds—sanitary and prophylactic. Sanitary science deals with the breeding places in which the disease germs are endemic. It traces the germs back to their sources, and destroys them there. We have shown how adolescent doubt is unnaturally stimulated by the college class room until it becomes positive un- belief. While sanitary science demands the merci- less destruction of these breeding places and the isolation of the carriers until they are free from the power to contaminate, we are constrained to mitigate these inexorable demands of sanitary science. We would mercifully recommend that the colleges be allowed to exist, and that the guilty professors be still permitted to teach the sciences in which they are eminent, but we would insist that they be not allowed to deal with the problems of religious belief. These subjects should be com- mitted to scientists and psychologists equally well informed in these sciences, who sympathetically understand the religious nature and needs of the student, and who are specialists in the department of religion as well as in the department of science. This preventive measure which we will call the sanitation of religious instruction is as important in the realm of religion as it is in medical science. Second. The prophylactic measures employed by medical science provide the physician with carefully prepared serums which are injected into the body of the one who is treated. These serums contain germs which instantly set up a fight against the invading disease germs, and overpowering them, keep the person free from the disease. The 36 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF miracles which these serums wrought during the World War in preventing any epidemics of typhoid fever in those infested regions of the war front, and in warding off tetanus from the poison of bullet and shrapnel wounds, are sufficient to estab- lish their value beyond dispute. The science of the psychology of religion should provide parents, preachers and teachers with the ability to diagnose the spiritual perils to be encountered during the adolescent period, and the proper serums to be in- jected into their minds to prevent acute unbelief. For the college student, the serum of previous information concerning the essentials of the new scientific and Biblical knowledge so far as it is related to religious belief, should be injected into the minds of the boys and girls while they are still under the influence of parents and home, be- fore the time when ideas per se become too absorb- ing. If this is intelligently and sympathetically done, college instruction will not cause any radical readjustments of ideas, and immunity will thus be secured. Third. Until these scientific preventive meas- ures are adopted in the psychological realm of religious belief, it will still be necessary to employ some therapeutic measures. Much can be done to relieve the real distress of the mind and spirit of the victim of acute unbelief, by showing that the first-hand data of modern science and psychology are not anti-theistic. The trouble does not arise from the facts in the case, but from the interpre- tation of these facts by chronic unbelievers. Why chronic unbelievers thus interpret them will be ACUTE UNBELIEF 37 shown in the next chapter. The knowledge that one may fearlessly open one’s mind to all of the assured findings of modern science and philosophy and have one’s belief in God strengthened instead of weakened in the process, brings surprising re- lief to the mind of the young person suffering from acute unbelief. But there is no chance to bring this relief unless the facts of science are given fair and scholarly treatment. The unbe- liever must be inspired with the confidence that the person who attempts to bring about this recon- ciliation between modern science and philosophy and religion has mastered these departments of modern knowledge so far as they touch the sub- ject of religion; and, in addition, has mastered the subject of religion far better than the chronic unbelievers who have wrought his or her faith’s undoing. If this psychological attitude of con- fidence can be created, the recovery from acute unbelief will speedily be experienced. So uni- formly successful has been this treatment, that it may be pronounced a specific for acute unbelief of the college intellectual type. Fourth. Because the relationships of college life are temporary, and to a great degree artificial, they do not possess the power to stabilize the equilibrium of sound reasoning upon life prin- ciples. The natural conservators of religious faith are lacking in the college environment. Normal daily-life contacts and responsibilities have no chance to operate. But as soon as the college course ends, these relations are reéstablished. ‘The entering into business or a profession, the respon- 38 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF sibilities of citizenship in one’s community and nation, the starting of a home of one’s own, and the coming of children into this home, create con- tacts which conspire to keep faith in God alive. These normal-life experiences act as a balm to one’s injured faith, and gradually reduce the in- tellectual inflammation to the point where normal religious habits and devotional practices can be resumed without undue irritation. Fifth. If the adolescent is going to be held, or won back, to religious faith, more romance must be put into believing. The deductive theological reasoning which fascinated our fathers, and at- tracted the finest minds of their day to its service, makes little appeal to the modern mind. The scientific thinking of inductive reasoning makes the corresponding appeal to-day. There is something in the inductive method that inspires intellectual confidence and encourages the attitude of belief. To stand upon the firm edge of facts gained through the rigid empirical method of observa- tion and experiment, and from this vantage point to leap forth into the unknown upon faith in one’s theories or beliefs, thrills the soul with adventure. When this method is universally employed in the search for and presentation of religious truth, the intellectual thrill of true romance will be expert- enced in religious thinking. But this is not enough; romance must be put back into living the faith. The psychological value of believing certain specific religious truths, and the consequent necessary struggle to believe them, and to defend them against unbelievers, and to ACUTE UNBELIEF 39 convert unbelievers into believers, furnishes a field for adventure in the moral and spiritual realm which should appeal to the adolescent spirit. When religious belief is reduced to the proposi- tion of cool, calculating, playing safe, it may ap- peal to adults, but it has lost one of its most at- tractive features for the young. Those who were with our soldier boys on the battle fronts of France, can never forget the eagerness with which they welcomed the calls which plunged them into the thick of the fight, where danger was greatest. This same adventurous spirit should find an out- let in moral and spiritual life. There is always something wrong with the religious belief of an age in which there is more adventure and daring in denial than in belief. The psychologist knows that belief is positive and constructive, that un- belief is merely negative, restrictive, or destructive. The respective merits of the two experiences from the standpoint of psychological satisfaction are not even open to argument. Yet during the last half- century unbelief has been more daring than be- lief. It has fearlessly led every great offensive; and consequently has kept belief always on the defensive. This fact impresses the adolescent with the feeling that unbelief has the stronger position. Whereas, we hope to show that this impression is wrong. In St. Paul’s day, unbelievers gained no ad- vantage of position from this angle. For the en- thusiasm, fearlessness, abandon, heroism of be- lievers so eclipsed that of the unbelievers that the impression which believers made upon human his- 40 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF tory survives to this day, while the unbelievers have been forgotten centuries ago. How much more ought the challenge of the intellectual, moral, political, financial, and international problems of to-day to put twentieth century Christians upon their mettle, and stir into action all the love of ad- venture that slumbers in the adolescent soul! The fight to make the religious and social ideals of Jesus dominant in the life of the world, and to keep one’s faith in these ideals in the midst of indifference, temptations, and opposition should be accepted as life’s greatest battle, and victory—tiife’s greatest achievement. ‘This was true with St. Paul. In his valedictory, he bows farewell to life’s arena with these triumphant words: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my career, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). To keep the faith is much, but St. Paul really did more than this. He accumulated faith, as the years rolled by, instead of losing the little with which he began, and this made life a game, as he loved to picture it, infinitely more fascinating and worth playing than the game in which one merely accumulates dollars. For “ now abideth faith, hope, love, these three” (1 Cor. 18:18). Tennyson caught the thrill of the sport of accumulating faith through overcoming life’s experiences, and so he crowns his hero with this plaudit: He fought his doubts and gather’d strength, He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them: thus he came at length To find a stronger faith his own. II CHRONIC UNBELIEF HILE there are those who fight their W doubts and by overcoming them find a stronger faith their own, there are al- ways a small number who are so constituted that from the early days of childhood they reverse this process, and fight their faith and foster their doubts. With few exceptions, these furnish us with our typical chronic unbelievers. As has al- ready been stated, chronic unbelief is an attack from which the person does not recover in a normal and healthy manner. To compensate for the great loss of religious faith and experience from which the chronic unbeliever is a lifelong sufferer, the victim endeavours to make a virtue out of his affliction, and consoles himself with the thought that it is his unusually keen mind, or his superior knowledge of science or philosophy, or the Bible, or his intellectual honesty, or his exceptional moral courage in the pursuit of truth, which are responsible for his unbelief. He cannot help this natural superiority, or consent to think with the crowd. ‘This conscious and unconscious self-flat- tery is one of the strong tenets of the cult of the unbelievers. It is the veritable staff of their spir- itual life, the bread and wine of their communion feasts. This conceit of unbelievers is indulged with amazing benevolence by most intelligent be- lievers. AI 42 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF A typical illustration of the way unbelievers play up to this conceit is found in Professor Leuba’s books. We have already seen this in the case of his statements concerning college students and eminent scientists. He concludes his book A Psychological Study of Religion with this passage: The leaders in philosophy, science, literature, and even in religion, as well as increasing numbers of the rank and file, reject openly or secretly the traditional Christian belief in a Divine Father in direct com- munication with man (p. 315). Unbelievers endeavour to create the impression that the necessary price one is compelled to pay for possessing natural gifts leading to eminence and for moving up into the truly cultural group is the loss of one’s early religious faith. A guilty feeling something akin to sacrilege steals over one when forced to disturb this long-cherished con- ceit of unbelievers. But two obvious facts chal- lenge its truth. First. All intellectual persons endowed with natural gifts leading to eminence, though possess- ing exactly the same scientific or philosophical knowledge, equal intellectual integrity, and un- questioned moral courage in the pursuit of truth, are not unbelievers. And conversely, not all un- believers are possessed of this much-vaunted keen- ness of mind, superior scientific and philosophical knowledge and high courage in the pursuit of the truth. Some of the leaders of the cult do possess some of these gifts and qualities of mind and spirit, but the full roll of unbelievers includes more CHRONIC UNBELIEF 43 defectives, delinquents, criminals, anarchists, weak- minded and ignorant persons, than that of the believers. Man for man, they average far lower in the scale of intellectual, moral and spiritual de- velopment than the much-despised rank and file of the believers. And as for strength of character, virtue, and courage, does not Professor James make this acknowledgment? The best fruits of religious experience are the best things that history has to show. . The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, pa- tience, bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have been flown for religious ideals (Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 259 f.). History confirms Professor James’ verdict. It unhesitatingly accords its highest place of honour to the greatest religious believer of the centuries —Jesus Christ. This more accurate checking up of the intellectual and moral status of the unbe- lievers forces the psychologist to search in some other quarter for the tap-root of unbelief. Second. The unbelief of the present is not born of modern scientific discovery. In later chapters this fact will be brought out more clearly; at pres- ent we wish to call attention to it only so that it will be in mind. The fact that the materialists were first upon the field of scientific discovery and so were the first to make use of the data discov- ered has naturally created the impression that this data favours unbelief. But he is ill-informed who still labours under the impression that materialism holds the thinking mind of to-day. Twenty years 44 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF ago pure materialism was abandoned by the lead- ing thinkers; and from that time to the present every modification of its fundamental principle of universal mechanism has met the same fate. It takes no great prophet to predict that the next twenty years are going to witness as radical a revolution in the realm of religious thought as has been experienced during the last century. And this change is not going to be reactionary in its nature, nor is it going to be in opposition to re- ligion. It will be a new point of view growing directly out of the scientific progress which has been gained; and it will include and conserve all the assured results of this great era of seeking and finding. The tidal wave of new scientific knowl- edge which swept over this modern world, natu- rally swamped religious thinkers as it did all other thinkers. But religious thinkers are getting their intellectual footing in this new scientific world and are ready to make sure intellectual and spiritual progress. Biology, medicine and psychology, the principal offenders against religious belief, are al- ready beginning to show signs of repentance, and are ready to make amends for the havoc they have wrought with religious faith. Before we have finished our study we shall find them con- spicuous among the reconstructive sciences. The intellectual horizon of the historic Christian world has not been as radiant with light and hope for a hundred years. At a time when the biological science of evolution, when medical science, when psychology, and modern philosophy are all turn- ing back to religion, it is not the psychological CHRONIC UNBELIEF 45 moment to stress superior knowledge of these sciences as the sure foundation of unbelief. For centuries it has been a common practice to lay all the responsibility for unbelief upon the un- reasonableness of beliefs, or upon the incorrect interpretation of these beliefs, upon the creeds and confessions of faith, or upon the preachers and teachers. The sole remedy for unbelief was to make the creeds reasonable and the interpretations modern and acceptable. Psychology has intro- duced another important factor into the problem of unbelief. It is the unbeliever. Three elements enter into unbelief; either one of which has the power to turn the will-to-believe for or against any belief. They are: The belief, the interpreter, the believer. Gross unreasonableness, logical incon- sistency, scientific misstatements, philosophical de- fects, naturally make any religious belief untenable for the educated. Incorrect interpretation, wrest- ing words out of their true meaning, insistence upon archaic adaptations, tend to make religious truth useless. But it is equally true that many times the attitude of the believer, his prejudices, his special interests, his training, have as much to do with his unbelief as either of these other fac- tors. The exact percentage of unbelief which is due to the nature of the belief or the interpreta- tion, and that which is due to the nature of the unbeliever, is an interesting psychological study. In acute unbelief, the percentages vary widely; sometimes the balance turns against the belief, sometimes against the interpreter, sometimes against the unbeliever. In acute unbelief it would 46 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF seem that the majority of cases can be traced to the interpreter either in the home, the Sunday school, the pulpit or the college class room. In chronic unbelief by far the largest proportion of cases can be traced to the nature of the unbeliever. Therefore, this phase of the problem will claim our attention. The age must be weary of criticising creeds and preachers by this time; it will be a change at least to turn our critical study upon the third and most neglected factor in the problem of unbelief—the unbeliever. In a poem entitled Credo, Richard Watson Gilder dramatically phrases the psychological phase of our problem thus: How easily my neighbour chants his creed Kneeling beside me in the House of God. His “I believe ”’ he chants, and “I believe,” With cheerful iteration and consent— Watching meantime the white, slow sunbeam move Across the aisle, or listening to the bird Whose free, wild song sounds through the open door. Thou God supreme—I too, I too, believe! But O, forgive, if this one human word, Binding the deep and breathless thought of Thee And my own conscience with an iron band, Stick in my throat. I cannot say it, thus— This “TI believe,” that doth Thyself obscure. Any adolescent who, during an attack of acute unbelief, finds the words “TI believe” sticking in his throat, may be readily forgiven. ‘This is sim- ply one of the sympathetic symptoms of the malady. Most of us have had touches of it some CHRONIC UNBELIEF 47 time or other. But when the difficulty increases with the years and becomes aggravated with age, it is a sure symptom of chronic unbelief. It as- sumes an alarming stage when it encourages an adult to indulge the idea that a vague, undefined, nebulous, religious belief which shrinks from verbal expression, is superior intellectually and spiritually to one which binds the deep and breath- less thought of God in the clear concept of an ex- pressed idea. Reluctance to express in words one’s religious belief is a virtual confession that one secretly fears that this faith will not fare well in the open. As we shall see in our later studies, this desire to keep one’s religious faith in some secret place is a characteristic feature of occultism and super-beliefs. And of all persons, the rational- ist and chronic unbeliever do not suspect that they hold anything in common with this class. When the words “I believe” grow more and more difficult for the adult to say, a pathological condition is developing which needs attention. The physician occasionally encounters a person who has great difficulty in swallowing a pill which the majority of normal patients swallow without it sticking in their throats. In such a case the physi- cian does not lay the trouble to the pill but to the patient. In the same way, when the psychologist finds here and there a chronic unbeliever who can- not say “I believe”? when kneeling in the house of God beside an equally intelligent and sincere neighbour who finds no difficulty in repeating those words with the majority of worshippers, he is in- clined to lay the trouble, not to the belief, but to 48 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF the unbeliever. For he has discovered that the imagination has a strange way of erecting inhibi- tions which abnormally exaggerate the difficulty of swallowing pills and making “I believe” stick in the throat of unbelievers. Our first step then is to make a diagnosis of the psychological nature of the chronic unbeliever. As we become better acquainted with him we discover that religious belief is not the only thing the chronic unbeliever finds it difficult to approve. On general principles he is constitutionally opposed to those things which the majority favour and for those that the majority oppose. He can be counted on to run true to form on every great issue. He nourishes the conceit that he is superior to the average person, therefore he must be different. This disposition can invariably be traced to some early childhood kink in temperament which was not successfully ironed out by discipline. It is a legacy bequeathed by the home atmosphere where some maladjustment, continuing throughout the years of childhood and youth, left a trauma, or life-wound in the sensitive psychological nature of the child around which a complex has developed. Tinge this with continued irritation and emotional hostility and you have a psychological complex capable of working real disturbance in the intel- lectual life of a person. It only takes one or two wrong decisions at critical periods in the growing life of a child to set this complex in control. And if one will take the pains to study any chronic unbeliever it will soon become apparent where these decisions have been made. Sometimes they CHRONIC UNBELIEF 49 have been moral decisions, sometimes falling into sin, sometimes simply refusal to go to Sunday school when commanded by parents, sometimes refusal to go to church, sometimes it has been refusal to unite with the church when the ma- jority of one’s companions have united. Any one of a hundred wrong or different decisions is suf- ficient to set up the disturbance of such a complex. This is true in the case of quite ordinary persons. When dealing with those who are gifted beyond the ordinary, the reactions are certain to be more extreme. Naturally one’s reactions are most vio- lent at the point where the dominant life-interest or maladjustment is touched. If this has been the religion of the home, you will find such a person reacting against churches and creeds. Most chronic unbelievers expend their aggressive an- tagonisms against a single interest. Once in a while there arise iconoclasts of the major order like Brann and H. G. Wells, whose versatility en- ables them to take a turn at attacking every well- established institution and tradition of society. With such, their religious unbelief is only an ele- ment in their nonconformity of spirit. As H. G. Wells is the best known living example of this type of chronic unbeliever we will study him. The English have made no secret of the annoyance which Mr. Wells’ constitutional oppo- sition to every patriotic interest of the British Empire has caused them. His fellow-countryman, Henry Arthur Jones, has gathered up and ex- pressed this feeling in his book entitled My Dear Wells. We says: 680 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF We have among us a group of thinkers and writ- ers whom I call “ The Haters of England.” They always “think” against their own country. If there is a sedition and a revolt in any part of the Empire, they stir it up. If there is trouble and unrest at home, they foment it. . . . During the war they were worth many army corps to Germany. Now that the war has left us a legacy of new insecurities and perils, now that it is a first necessity that our nation should gather itself in one great unity of aim and effort to ward off disaster, these haters of England are busy spreading disaffection and disunion both in our internal and in our foreign affairs. This general arraignment of the “ Haters of England” Mr. Arthur Jones concludes with this specific charge: “Mr. Wells is one of the most popular and influential of these thinkers and writ- ers who think and write against England” (p. Vi, Those familiar with Mr. Wells’ writings do not wonder that one of his own patriotic fellow- countrymen has been forced to protest against his disloyalty. One need only read the book from which we have quoted to be convinced of the con- stitutional kink in temperament which makes Mr. Wells a typical chronic unbeliever. We in America are not disturbed with his general icono- clastic attitude, but we are interested in his religious beliefs. Those who have read Mr. Britling Sees It Through, God the Invisible King, The Soul of a Bishop, and The Outlines of History are well enough acquainted with his general point of view to follow this study. The readers of his Outlines of History have CHRONIC UNBELIEF 51 been impressed with his colossal attempt to cover the whole range of knowledge with one theory of interpretation. But those who have taken the pains to supplement this reading with a study of the mass of literature which has grown up around this work, have discovered that in each department of knowledge the real experts find his presentation _ of their particular branch of science or knowledge most unsatisfactory. The department of religion is no exception. ‘Those familiar with the assured results of Biblical and historical criticism find very few of his statements supported by the consensus of competent scholars. In the place of the find- ings of these sane and recognized experts, he un- hesitatingly sets down the wild fancies of his superficial opinions. And as the majority of his readers know less about these matters than even Mr. Wells himself, they are disposed to accept his statements as authoritative. The harm wrought by this mass of unreliable information is intensi- fied by the fact that for the great majority of those who read his works, this is their first introduction to any kind of a critical study of the Bible and the beginnings of Christianity. So that all of his statements come with the force of a new revelation of truth. And being found in the midst of such an overwhelming mass of information upon every conceivable subject, the uninformed are disposed to accept them as reliable. We do not question Mr. Wells’ sincerity, most chronic unbelievers are sincere, yet we cannot help wondering what quali- fications entitle him to leadership in the depart- ment of Biblical scholarship and theology? Why 52 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF should his hastily formed opinions be accepted as authoritative when they run counter to the assured findings of scholarly experts who have spent a lifetime in accurate and sympathetic study of these subjects? Before accepting Mr. Wells as an authority in this department of knowledge, the reader should bear in mind that his whole religious experience has been pronouncedly erratic and abnormal. We will let him tell his own story. In God the Invis- ible King, he calls our attention to the fact that many children in childhood have their tender re- ligious natures permanently injured by what he styles as “nursemaid” teaching concerning God. He puts it this way: “Many minds never rise again from their injury. They remain for the rest of life spiritually crippled and debased.” This general observation he concludes with this personal confession: I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his Hell were the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still believed in him, and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a fantastic monster, perpetually spying, perpetually listening, perpetually waiting to condemn and to “strike me dead ”’; his flames as ready as a grill-room fire. . . . When I was still only a child of thirteen, by the grace of the true God in me, I flung this Lie out of my mind, and for many years, until I came to see that God himself had done this thing for me, the name of God meant nothing to me but the hideous scar in my heart where a fearful demon had been (p. 44). These quotations acknowledge, so far as Mr. CHRONIC UNBELIEF Dd Wells is concerned, the existence of the complex which we are seeking to show is always in the back- ground of the early childhood religious experience of the chronic believer. It is not always that we are able to uncover this complex, but it is hidden away somewhere in the past. Mr. Wells’ child- hood reaction to the traditional theology of his day was not normal or healthy. He cries out: ‘‘ Who could help but hate?” The answer is: The normal childish reaction to this very “ nursemaid ” teaching concerning God is not hate, but love. The great majority of the older generation of the most devoted lovers of God were raised upon this very theology. It is interesting to recall that even such an erratic person as Robert Louis Stevenson was brought up upon this very same theology. His nursemaid, equally with the one of whom Mr. Wells complains, was a staunch Calvinist, and his home was very religious. But during his child- hood days, Stevenson experienced no violent re- action against the religious teaching of his home. His childhood religious experience was normal and healthy. To be sure, when he entered the univer- sity he did become the victim of a very severe attack of acute unbelief. This, however, as we have shown, was also a perfectly normal and healthy adolescent reaction, from which in time he recovered, leaving us the splendid legacy of his morning and evening prayers and his heroic strugele against the ravages of an insidious disease. Mr. Wells states that at the early age of thirteen he “ flung this Lie” out of his mind. This reveals the important fact that it was years before his 54 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF knowledge of evolution and Biblical and historical criticism created any intellectual problems of un- belief, that he was the victim of an emotional hostility which created a complex in his nature. So true was this that he tells us that God meant nothing to him for many years but a “ hideous scar” in his heart “where a fearful demon had been.” It does not take a psychologist to remind the reader that those “many years” lived under the control of the complex which transformed the God-idea into a “ fearful demon,” robbed Mr. Wells of the normal religious experiences which are indispensable for a sympathetic understanding of religion. It took the war with its tremendous emotional disturbances to break up this deep- seated childhood complex and throw open his mind to the elemental facts of religious experience. If the war had lasted long enough, and its disturbance had been personal enough, Mr. Wells might have advanced from a believer in a finite God to a be- lief in the God and Father of Jesus Christ. Let us now study a typical intellectual chronic unbeliever. When Professor Leuba says, “I can- not persuade myself that divine personal beings, be they primitive gods or the Christian Father, have more than a subjective existence” (see A Psy- chological Study of Religion, p. 10), he con- fesses that he does not believe in the fundamental truth upon which historic Christianity is founded —belief in a personal God. As we have already learned, Professor Leuba has won for himself the reputation of being the most outspoken and ag- gressive of all the unbelieving psychologists who CHRONIC UNBELIEF 59 teach psychology of religion in American colleges. Therefore we will select him as a good example of the intellectual chronic unbeliever. Where one’s career has been scholarly, usually the childhood maladjustment has not been as violent as in the cases where the early rebellion is moral or spiri- tual. Yet in most instances, the homes from which aggressive chronic unbelievers come have been deeply religious. It isa surprising fact that where homes have been irreligious or anti-religious, the children generally grow up with an indifferent or negative attitude toward the whole subject. They are rarely ever aggressive leaders against the Church or religious beliefs. Aggressive chronic unbelievers come from homes where they have failed in childhood successfully to adjust them- selves to the imperious demands of the dominant home interest—religion. This failure which has destroyed the natural harmony of domestic life in the home always leaves a sensitive spot in the psychological life of the one who has failed to make the adjustment. Around this a complex develops, and its victim is under the necessity of yielding, or justifying a continued unyielding at- titude by the process which psychology calls ration- alization. Alleged scientific support is one of the first resorts in this exigency; another comforting support is to be able to convince some other person of the reasonableness of your unbelief, thus bol- stering up one’s cause by adding recruits. But spiritual dissatisfaction and discomfort are in the background. Whether Professor Leuba’s childhood home was 56 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF deeply religious or whether it was not, we have not been able to ascertain. We do know that his family descended from French Huguenots who took refuge in Switzerland at the time of the great persecutions. In a French Huguenot home located in Switzerland, religion was bound to be a subject of dominant interest. Into such a home Professor Leuba was born. What occasioned the complex which set his motived-will-to-think to- ward skepticism we do not know. However it found plenty of encouragement during the early years of his education on the continent of Europe. After completing his education in Europe he came to America, where he specialized in_ psychol- ogy. In 1895 he was a fellow at Clarke Univer- sity, Worcester, Massachusetts. Here under the guidance of Dr. G. Stanley Hall he studied for his degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Those who are acquainted with Dr. Hall’s works, especially his monumental work entitled Jesus Christ in the Light of Psychology, know that this period of study could not help but encourage his already well-defined attitude of unbelief. One incident from this period of his educational career furnishes us with the necessary information to illustrate the point we are endeavouring to make. In 1895 Mr. Charles F. Cutter, then the leader of the Old Fulton Street Noonday Prayer Meeting, became interested in the subject of religious con- version. In order to obtain some reliable scien- tific data upon this important subject, he conceived the idea of sending out a questionnaire containing a number of questions concerning the previous re- CHRONIC UNBELIEF ov ligious experience of converts. Before his plan was put into execution this questionnaire fell into the hands of Mr. Leuba of Clarke University, who became greatly interested in the project from a psychological standpoint. After some correspond- ence, Mr. Leuba was taken in to assist Mr. Cutter. The questionnaire was duly arranged and circu- lated through the press and private correspondence, and many answers from people in this country and Europe were received. This information, sup- plemented by biographies, Mr. Leuba made the basis of his degree thesis on Religious Conversion. The thesis is a splendid piece of original, critical work. It is one of the first efforts made in America to subject the phenomena of religious experience to the scrutiny of psychological analy- sis. And it started a new line of investigation into the phenomena of religious experience which was soon adopted by others. The psychologists were carried away with this thesis, but Mr. Cutter did not feel satisfied with its conclusions. He had examined all of the re- plies which had been received, and he felt that Mr. Leuba had not done full justice to the facts which the answers to the questionnaire furnished. Therefore, as soon as the letters came back into his possession, he took a very scholarly friend and writer into his confidence and told him of his dis- appointment. After some discussion, he turned over to this friend all of these letters asking him to make a thorough examination of the material and write out his analysis and conclusions. The friend took the letters expecting to comply with 58 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF this request, but ill-health lasting many years de- feated this project. After the appearance in 1912 of Professor Leuba’s book, A Psychological Study of Religion, we were so amazed at the arbitrary manner in which Professor Leuba rejected psychological data of great importance, that we wrote a series of articles entitled, The Psychologist Among the Theologians, and The Theologian Among the Psychologists. In these, we called attention to this unwarranted rejection of so much important data upon the subject of religion. Soon after the appearance of these articles, a letter was received from the previously mentioned friend of Mr. Cutter, telling the story of the questionnaire and asking if we would consent to undertake the long delayed task of reéxamining this material. The upshot of the whole matter is that we now have in our possession the original letters upon which Mr. Leuba based the conclusions found in his thesis on Religious Conversion. At some other time we hope to make a study of them. But our examina- tion of this data reveals the fact that Professor Leuba adopted in this instance the same method which characterized his book. All of the data used are well analyzed, but the facts left out of his calculation are most significant. Some in- hibitions clearly biased his selection of material. And these inhibitions were operating in the early years while he was still a student at Clarke Unt- versity. No doubt Professor Leuba honestly be- lieves that the conclusions which he states in his two recent books A Psychological Study of Re- CHRONIC UNBELIEF 59 ligion and The Belief in God and Immortality are the inevitable resultants from the knowledge of psychology which he has gained during twenty- five years of thorough research. But as we shall see in a later chapter, every item of his anti- theistic and anti-Christian positions is contained in his maiden thesis written at Clarke University in 1895. In other words, he was already an un- believer before he began to investigate the psycho- logical data of religious experience. And this at- titude of unbelief was the dominant factor which controlled his selection and rejection of data. It must be borne in mind that chronic unbe- lievers have keen enough minds, that their reason- ing powers are in good working order, that they have at their disposal sufficient facts, but they do not give all of these facts a chance to function in behalf of truth. This is not because they are dis- honest, but because some early childhood malad- justment has created a complex which is in per- petual conspiracy with the motived-will-to-think so that selective attention is not impressed with facts that are untouched with emotional interest and hostilely regarded by inhibitions. And in the case of chronic unbelief, these are the very facts which count most. ‘Those who are not victims of trau- mas and complexes have open minds to receive this additional evidence, even when it is presented by their opponents. ‘The victims of acute unbelief for example eagerly welcome it, but the mind of the chronic unbeliever is closed: he cannot see their value. For such, facts, logic and reason have no force as long as this psychological com- 60 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF plex is not broken up. Not until some mighty emotional experience breaks the grip of this com- plex on the motived-will-to-think, and releases it so that an emotional interest charges selective at- tention with the new task of weighing this evi- dence, can the chronic unbeliever be expected to change his point of view. Analytical psychology is able to furnish valuable assistance at this point. No treatment of chronic unbelief is complete without a study of the most notorious of all chronic unbelievers—Friedrich Nietzsche. The World War made us all somewhat familiar with his philosophy. Nietzsche was neither a freak nor an accident in the intellectual life of Germany. He was the direct and legitimate product of his natural environment and personality. We regret that the limits of this article will not permit us to go into this subject more thoroughly. But we can sketch its outlines. Nietzsche furnishes us with the best example we have of the operation of the psychological law of reversed effort. True to type, he also comes from a very religious home. He descended from a long line of ministerial ancestry, his father being a Lutheran clergyman. When Nietzsche was a boy of five his father died, and his mother took him and his sister to Naumburg where all of her family lived. There Nietzsche informs us he grew up under the petticoat government of his mother and aunts. From early childhood Nietzsche was pas- sionate, intense, proud, conceited, self-willed, supersensitive, eccentric. At first he was also deeply religious. This is an important psycho- CHRONIC UNBELIEF 61 logical fact. But as he grew to self-consciousness and became more independent and self-reliant he rebelled against the religious restrictions of his home. In time he became too much of a problem for his mother and aunts to handle. Their prim, precise, pious precepts, principles and practices first irritated, then infuriated him. ‘To assist in enforcing discipline, they invoked the aid of re- ligion, as many helpless parents do, insisting that their way is right and that God will punish those who do not obey. His natural waywardness and this petulant practice made a combination that stirred up in him an intense hatred of religion. His alert mind soon perceived that if he were to have any peace of mind one of two decisions must be made. It must either be Thy will, or mine. Jesus gained His marvellous peace of mind and strength of character by choosing the first alter- native. He said: “ Not my will, but thine, be done.” Nietzsche determined he would never make this choice. From the moment of this de- cision, he hated Jesus; His presence taunted and haunted him. ‘This early resistance and decision formed the nucleus-complex around which de- veloped his attitude of emotional hostility toward Christianity. Again we pause to call attention to the fact that Nietzsche’s unbelief in its inception, like all chronic unbelief, was not an intellectual, but rather a spiritual and moral problem. Dr. Paneth, his faithful friend, has shown that Nietzsche always worked from his feelings out- ward. We learn, then, that from early childhood Nietzsche fought his faith and fostered his doubts. 62 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF In his student days he came upon Strauss’ Das Leben Jesu. From the first paragraph this book fascinated him. By its mythical interpretation of the Jesus of the Gospels, Strauss brought great re- lief to Nietzsche’s troubled mind. ‘The Jesus of the Gospels was not a real historic personality he learned and this fact lessened the disturbing in- fluence of His haunting presence. A little later Nietzsche came under the influence of Schleier- macher, Ritschl, Voltaire, Wagner. But still he found no real peace of mind. Next to Jesus, the Church, which nourished His religion, infuriated him. In typical Voltairean style he attacked this. Here is one passage: The Christian Church is to me the greatest of all imaginable corruptions ; it has the will to the ultimate corruption that is possible. The Christian Church has left nothing untouched with its depravity, it has made a worthlessness out of every value, a lie out of every truth, a baseness of soul out of every straightforward- ness (Antichrist, sect. 62, quoted in The Will to Free- dom, by Figgis, p. 6). Calling Zarathustra to his aid, he sends him forth to preach and teach. Zarathustra is the antichrist who closely parallels the Jesus of the Gospels, only he always teaches opposite life- principles. It is impossible in such a short sketch to give any adequate idea of Nietzsche’s vehement opposition to the teaching of Jesus which he puts into the lips of Zarathustra. ‘Two short quota- tions will help to convey some idea of its general character. In one passage he says: CHRONIC UNBELIEF 63 I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no expedient is sufficiently poison- ous, secret, subterranean, mean—lI call it the one im- mortal blemish of mankind (Quoted by Figgis, Op. cit., p. 104). In another place he exclaims: That which deifies me, that which makes me stand apart from the whole of the rest of humanity, is the fact that I have unmasked Christian morality (Quoted by Figgis, Op. cit., p. 105). Volume after volume rolls from his pen reeking with anathemas against the Church, Jesus Christ, and Christianity. In the background of all of his writing is plainly evident his desire to be free from the obligations and restraints of religion. Zara- thustra is his ideal, and Zarathustra is free. He is free because he is ungodly. Again and again he insists that nothing is to be gained by being free from belief in God if one still remains in the prison-house of an ethical system which is de- rived from belief in God. His ideal group in society he portrays as those who are “ Beyond Good and Evil.” These are free indeed. Inci- dentally he taught that rulers belong to this class, and the ex-Kaiser believed him. All of this grow- ing out of his early failure successfully to adjust himself to the religious demands of his home and church. But never for one moment was this man, whose early childhood had been deeply religious, able to escape the haunting presence of the Jesus whose life-philosophy he rejected. Jesus’ response to the challenge of Calvary was: “ Not my will, 64 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF but thine, be done.” And He preached an ideal Kingdom of God in which by that response to God the individual becomes so socialized that he loves God and his neighbour. Nietzsche responded to the little challenge of childhood obedience in the home with the reaction: Not Thy will, but mine, be done. And he preached the doctrine of the superman who, to become the beast and monster (these are Nietzsche’s own words) necessary to attain to the ideal superman, has to accept the fact that he must hate both God and his neighbour. The life of each is the real answer to the value of his philosophy of life. That of Jesus is recorded in the Gospels. Nietzsche attempted the impossible—and the struggle was too great for him. Everything in his life went to smash. His married life, his home, his friendships, his career, his health, his mind. By the time he was forty-five his mind breaks and he goes to an insane asylum. His good physician endeavours to convince the world that his eyes caused his insanity, but the psychologist now knows too much about this type of insanity to ignore the psychological causes which contributed toward this end. Here are some of the items which must not be overlooked: All through his life Nietzsche played false with God’s great gifts to him—a brilliant mind and a Christian heritage. Instead of using his unusual mind in the service of God and truth, he perverted it in an effort to de- stroy God and the truth. With consummate con- ceit he exclaims, ‘That which deifies me,” as though he had attained to the rank of deity. CHRONIC UNBELIEF 65 In another passage he makes Zarathustra exclaim: “Tf there be a God, how could I bear not to be one?” In those words you have the essence of his challenge to God in defying His Will. From early childhood he poured all the energy of his soul and the brilliance of his mind into the futile attempt to make the reasonable unreasonable, and the unreasonable reasonable; to make good evil, and evil good; to make error truth, and truth error; to put light for darkness, and darkness for light; and the woe of the prophet, who was a good psychologist, fell upon him. In other words, he fought against elemental reality and truth; and in the last analysis, this 1s madness. It is the essence of atheism. The thing that saves most chronic unbelievers from Nietzsche’s fate is the simple fact that they do not take their unbelief so seriously. In the case of H. G. Wells and in that of Professor Leuba, their complex affects only their intellectual attitude toward the beliefs of historic Christianity. In the moral and psychological realms, inhibitions were encountered which obstructed its further invasion of their lives. In Nietzsche’s case he allowed his unbelief free range through his intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. When once unbelief gets such a full right of way through personality its true nature becomes revealed. It is a wholesome practice to examine one’s chronic intellectual hostility to certain religious beliefs and the Church. Destructive complexes have their origin in personal elements. Personal pride, personal stubbornness, personal conceit, per- 66 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF sonal sensitiveness, personal jealousies, personal animosities, personal ambitions, these are factors which need close watching. ‘They are able to turn great crises and little decisions into complexes around which life attitudes will develop and be- come set. When reduced to the last analysis self still remains the old problem. ‘This is important to bear in mind when we come in a later chapter to consider the cure for chronic unbelief. No doubt as this study has been progressing some have been wondering whether this complex idea cannot be worked both ways? Does it not become the cause of belief as well as unbelief? This question is right to the point. And we frankly confess that believers are no more free from suspicion of complex control than unbe- lievers. Our psychological natures are no respect- ers of complexes. They can be turned for or against belief with equal ease. In the one case we get chronic unbelievers, in the other, super-be- lievers. When any Christian, or minority group, establishes a sect around some peculiar doctrine upon which other equally intelligent and sincere Christians differ, the danger of a complex control is acute. A religious complex usually can be recognized by the fact that it invariably makes an exaggerated individualistic appeal quite out of harmony with the real spirit and ideals of Jesus, such as an appeal to self-conceit, self-flattery, self- interest, pride, personal ambition, etc., and is always a small minority affair. In other words, it never attains majority control, so it is not a normal religious experience. PART II SUPER-BELIEF OR MISBELIEF up is ay *. f Ras , Oh TS a be . la, 7 ie oH y Sy Wale tie’ III OCCULTISM ‘ ) } FE, now enter the second divisional area of our subject—super-belief or misbe- lief. The pendulum of the human will- to-believe has within its range the capacity to swing from the one extreme of the stub-belief of atheism to the super-belief of occultism. We would like to distinguish these extremes by defining sub-believers as those who believe less than the truth, and super- believers as those who believe more than the truth. But to avoid starting a fruitless discussion over, “What is truth?” we will put our proposition thus: Sub-believers are those who believe less than normal, and super-believers are those who believe more than normal. It is not necessary to stop at this point to define what is meant by normal re- ligious belief, for that is the subject of our next division. As sub-belief has a psychological cause, so also has super-belief. This overplus of belief is always a gratuitous contribution made by the im- agination to compensate for some shortage of spiritual satisfaction in real-life experiences. As acute unbelief springs out of the problems of the adolescent period, and chronic unbelief out of early childhood experiences, coming to expression and control in early adult life, so super-belief springs out of the complexes of middle life. For middle life has its critical problems as well as 69 70 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF childhood and youth. Until recently the Church has been so concerned with the problems of early life that it has sorely neglected those of middle life. The novelists were the first to shift the scene of their plots from the pre-marriage stage to that of domestic problems in the home. For a number of years they have been featuring the crises of the “ dangerous forties.” Then, spiritual healers and the psychoanalysts revealed the root of the trouble. Middle life has suddenly taken on new impor- tance. It is the period in which we reap what we have sown as individuals, in the physical, moral, spiritual, social, intellectual and psychological de- partments of our lives. And the harvest is usually an awakening surprise. Another figure may help to make this subject a little clearer. From twenty-five to forty most of us give little heed to the fact that we are spending more in each of these departments of our personality than we are earn- ing. Asa result, while we are at the very height of our efficiency, and our earning capacity is at its best, we thoughtlessly tap the reserves which we have stored up in childhood and youth for old age, and thus eke out the deficits which daily accumu- late in our physical, moral, spiritual and psycholog- ical income. And each department of personality runs a separate bank account. It is quite impos- sible to continue indefinitely spending more than is ' earned, without some day facing the conse- quences. Rudyard Kipling writes of the “ unfor- giving minute.” In a certain sense, every minute of every day is unforgiving. Nature is long- OCCULTISM 71 suffering, but unrelenting and honest. She holds us to strict account for all of our prodigality and improvidence. She tests our thrift. Middle life seems to be the time set by her for straightening out her long-running accounts. When some of these demands are pressed, many middle-lifers are forced into bankruptcy. Some fail physically, some morally, some spiritually, some socially, some intellectually, some psycholog- ically. Medical science lays most of the break- downs in middle life which bankrupt health to neglect of the laws of health. Their slogan is: “Keep physically fit.’ They recommend the ““oym’” and exercise. Moral, spiritual and psy- chological breakdowns are due to religious indif- ference, neglect of the laws of moral and spiritual health. Keep morally and spiritually fit is the slogan of psychology. And the day is not far distant when this science will recommend the Church and religious experience. The reasons will soon be obvious. Middle life is a peculiarly critical period for woman. It demands of her many very radical ad- justments. Some of these are well known. We wish to call your attention to some that are seldom recognized. Take the psychological one. It is at this time of life that the children in the home who have required so much of her heart, head and hands begin to slip away one by one to college, business, to homes of their own; and the mother finds life strangely empty and lonely. At this trying period, when the husband should be the one to rise to the emergency and supply some of 72 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF the sorely needed affection, sympathy, interest and companionship, which are so necessary to make up for these heavy losses, he has become such a set middle-lifer that he is psychologically incapable of rising to the occasion. ‘To add to this deficiency, he has allowed himself to become so opinionated that congenial conversation with his wife upon any vital topic is quite impossible. No subject is really open for discussion with him in his own home. Then, he has accumulated a surprising number of annoying habits, disturbing peculiari- ties, odd idiosyncrasies, none of which appeared during courting days, which, combined with his other deficiencies, make his contribution to the do- mestic situation of middle life something of a spiritual and psychological liability rather than an asset. Where women have never married, other prob- lems arise in their spiritual and psychological lives which are equally difficult. Then, middle life has its general harvest of failures; disappointments, sor- rows, accidents, misfortunes, sicknesses, declining powers and declining attractiveness, separations, deaths, to heap upon the already heavily burdened human spirit their increase of perplexities and de- mands. All of these, woman’s sensitive nature feels much more intensely than the average man. That the normal woman bears up so heroically and complains so little is evidence of her amazing moral, spiritual and psychological strength of character. That she needs spiritual help to meet these massing problems of middle life, needs no proof. The fact that we have featured the middle OCCULTISM 73 life problems of women does not imply that men in any way are exempt. They have their full share. To return to our financial figure. If you have been thrifty during the years from twenty-five to forty, physically, morally, and spiritually, as well as economically, and earned enough to meet all of the necessary demands made by life along these lines, and laid aside a little for “ rainy days” and old age, nature’s collector will have no terrors for you. ‘The climacteric period of middle life will be passed without difficulty, and will usher in the comfortable period of enjoyment of a well-earned competency. But if you have been a prodigal, wasting your portion of the inheritance in riotous living, you will be unable to settle with nature’s collector, when he comes around, as he surely will, demanding the settlement of your long running ac- count. You may think that you can dodge him, but this cannot be done. He comes in the guise of acute or chronic illness to the physical bankrupt, as domestic disaster to the psychological bankrupt, as the wages of sin to the moral bankrupt, as tragic sorrow, crushing disillusionment, irritating per- sonal neglect, or some blow of this nature from which recovery is not experienced in a normal manner, to the spiritual bankrupt. In many cases, nature’s collector does not come as an exceptional crisis, but as the slow, wasting pangs of a famish- ing soul, which long indifference to religion has left ravenously hungry for spiritual food. It is this unnatural shortage in one or more of these departments of personality which stimulates the 74 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF middle-lifer to speculate in the super-beliefs of oc- cultism. Why? Because the occult world is enshrouded with mystery, peopled with super-normal beings, and rationalized by super-beliefs. The word means, hidden, covered, concealed. Ghosts, spirits, witches, magicians, medicine-men, astrologers, alchemists, clairvoyants, mediums, and a host of super-normal or psychic beings people this realm, and make it an uncanny place to tarry. But there is nothing to be feared in it but the dark of its occult corner. And when the light has been | thrown into this by a knowledge of its hidden mysteries, even this loses its terrors. It will en- courage the reader to recall that the progress of human knowledge has already greatly reduced the territory over which the occult originally held sway. Only a few refined varieties of this pseudo- science and religion remain to throw their fas- cinating spell over the minds of certain types of people. Let us fearlessly face these spectres of the mind, and, if possible, lay them one by one, so that a stronger faith may become our own... The monotheism of the Bible was the first rational religious faith to invade the domains of the occult and wage relentless war against its pur- veyors of super-beliefs and superstitions. Cen- turies before modern science uttered its first word along this line, the Bible taught that this is a rational universe, created and ruled by a Personal God who is rational, intelligent, holy, just, true and loving. From the loins of this sublime truth, modern science in due time came forth. It is a OCCULTISM 79 wise science that knows its own mother. The prolonged conflict between science and religion has been kept alive by the prolific offspring of special sciences. ach new science has to grow up. During this process it has to pass through the try- ing adolescent period. Naturally it struggles to escape from the grip of the infantile complex into self-respecting, independent individuality. The mother of these sciences—monotheism—and their father—philosophy—have to be subjected to the rebellion against parental authority, which is char- acteristic of this developing period. Why can we not recognize these adolescent revolts? It is not science, but only the young growing sciences, which keep up this perpetual warfare between science and religion. Fach special science has to have its fling at mono- theism as well as at philosophy. But it is well for those who are unduly excited over the present agi- tation within the Church over this conflict between science and faith to realize the cause, and exercise a generous amount of patience and tact. For as each special science comes to full maturity it out- grows this adolescent spirit of conceit and rebel- lion, and as fast as its exaggerated egoism sub- sides, it settles down into a perfectly harmonious and useful member of the domestic family circle of truth. Why become disturbed if biology, psy- chology and medical science, the youngsters in the family of special sciences, have still not passed out of the adolescent period? Give them time, they will recover. And when they do grow up, mother and father,—monotheism and philosophy, 76 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF —will also be under obligation to recognize this fact, and give them the place and portion of the estate of knowledge to which they are the rightful heirs. When these grown-up responsibilities are properly readjusted, domestic friction at this point will be reduced to a minimum. Naturally occultism, that strange combination of pseudo-science and pseudo-religion,—by nature the common foe of both science and religion,— loses no chance to make the most of these little domestic differences in the family circle of truth. For it is always in those periods in which these dif- ferences are causing the most friction, that oc- cultism and super-beliefs thrive. Spiritism, Mor- monism, New Thought, Christian Science, The- osophy, were all born in such a period of conflict during the nineteenth century. Therefore it should surprise no one to find them enjoying a revival under similar conditions at the present time. All super-believers are victims in some form of the religio-scientific complex. Their limited knowledge of science or religion, or both, makes it impossible for them, in the hour of their great spiritual need, to develop sufficient faith either in science or religion to help them out of their trou- ble. Because of this serious dilemma, the sci- entific way to chronic unbelief, with which we will become familiar in the chapter on Belief in a Per- sonal God, and the way to normal religious belief, are both effectually closed to them. Yet they are in dire need of spiritual help, and they now realize this, and they must have some scientific theory or philosophy of life which will make them feel at OCCULTISM. va home in this material universe. Here occultism finds its opportunity. It outflanks both science and religion by offering the benefits of both, entirely independent of the knowledge of modern science, philosophy or normal religion. Every super-belief cult opens up a newly-discovered private right of way to truth without the normal demand of acquir- ing knowledge through the laborious process of education; and a private line of communication with the Divine for which the founder of the cult has obtained by special revelation an exclusive and perpetual franchise. Truth cannot be reached by any detour. An examination of a few typical super-belief cults will make these characteristics plain. Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy is careful to in- form us that she did not obtain the truth of Chris- tian Science by any of the natural, human processes of acquiring scientific knowledge or religious truth. She says: No human pen nor tongue taught me the Science contained in this book Science and Health (Science and Health, p. 110). In another place she says: I should blush to write of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’”’ as I have, were it of human origin and I, apart from God, its author (Quoted from Religion-Medical Masquerade, p. 57). It is her claim that the fundamental truth of Christian Science was miraculously revealed to her by God. The details of this revelation will be 78 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF found discussed in The Non-Sense of Christian Science, in the chapter on Non-Sense Revelations. Her qualifications for receiving this great revela- tion direct from God, she thus explains: God has been graciously preparing me during many years for the reception of this final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of scientific mental healing (Science and Health, p. 107). How she had been preparing herself for the pub- lication of Science and Health we have shown. In attempting to teach her system, three great ob- stacles were encountered. The Bible and normal religious belief, the testimony of the physical senses, the facts of science and the human reason. All of these normal regulators of truth and de- fenses against the inroads of error flatly contra- dicted the fundamental principles of her science. Therefore they must in some way be overthrown. The religious teaching of the Bible she renders inoffensive, by throwing away the old key of knowledge and sensible interpretation of the plain meaning of the Scripture text which Protestantism placed in the hand of every individual, and sub- stituting for this a new key of “ spiritual interpre- tation,” which she keeps in her own hands. No one can understand the teaching of the Bible with- out first obtaining this key from her. How suc- cessful she is in eliminating normal religious belief from her pathway, I have shown in the chapters on Non-Sense and the Bible and Non-Sense Christianity. When she encounters the opposition of the OCCULTISM 79 physical senses and the human reason, she adopts other tactics. She sweeps them aside by denying their right to bear testimony concerning the truth. Here is one statement: The five physical senses are the avenues and in- struments of human error (Science and Health, p. 293). In another place, she writes: Corporeal sense defrauds and lies: it breaks all the commands of the Mosaic decalogue to meet its de- mands (Science and Health, p. 489). “Divine Truth” as it is found in Science and Health is exactly opposite to human truth. Upon this point Mrs. Eddy says: Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the material senses, and thus tears away the foundations of error. Hence the enmity between Science and the senses (Science and Health, p. 273). To make this point doubly clear she says: We cannot . . . perceive divine Science with the material senses (Science and Health, p. 167). The first essential for perceiving the “ Divine Truth” as it is in Christian Science is: “ Relin- quish all theories based upon sense perception (Science and Health, p. 249). ‘There is no dis- puting Mrs. Eddy’s statement that her “ divine science”? cannot be perceived by the aid of the material senses and the human reason. One does not have to read far in Science and Health to be 80 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF convinced of this truth. ‘The normal human being feels somewhat handicapped in starting out in the search for truth without the use of the physical senses, scientific knowledge already gained, and human reason. But those who are searching for the truth as it is in Christian Science experience no handicap from this cause. For they are en- dowed with a specially developed spiritual sense which operates quite independently of these nor- mal instruments of human personality, and they are furnished with a world in which none of these instruments for acquiring knowledge are needed. Mrs. Eddy says: According to Christian Science the only real senses of man are spiritual, emanating from Divine Mind. Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensa- tion nor report goes from material body to mind. The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man (Science and Health, p. 284). This sixth spiritual sense and the personality in which “thought passes from God to man” with- out sensation or report going through the material body to Mind, are both the exclusive products of Mrs. Eddy’s non-sense world. We call it non- sense because Mrs. Eddy specially rejects all the testimony of the senses. ‘Therefore her world indeed is a non-sense world. Our interest at this time is to acquaint the reader with a typical pseudo- science, pseudo-religious cult. All occultism partakes of the same nature. ‘The testimony of the senses, all normal human knowledge, and the logical functioning of the human rea- OCCULTISM 81 son are equally discredited. In their place “ Di- vine Truth’’—never the human variety—is re- ceived direct from God. It will be interesting to note how every super-belief cult resorts to the same strategy to elude the destructive in- fluence of the facts of science, rational religious belief, and the indisputable testimony of the physi- cal senses. Let us take a hasty glance at another super-belief cult to check this up. New Thought. New Thought followers will be surprised to find their cult grouped among the occult super-belief cults. For they always aspire to teach a practical, sensible system of mental heal- ing. And in this respect it is a great improvement upon Christian Science. One of its ablest expo- nents is Horatio W. Dresser, author of a number of books upon this subject. In his late work, Spiritual Health and Healing, the whole modern theory is given. Originally New Thought taught mental healing exactly as does Mrs. Eddy in her chapter on Recapitulation. For Mrs. Eddy, Rev. Warren F. Evans, and Julius A. Dresser, the father of Horatio W. Dresser, were all at the same time patients and pupils of P. P. Quimby from whom they obtained their system of mental heal- ing. The rapid strides which Christian Science, the younger sister, made in the spread of its idea of mental healing after Mrs. Eddy established her church and made a religion out of it, forced the New Thought Movement of Dresser and Evans, though earlier upon the field, to switch back to the older idea of spiritual healing which Andrew Jackson Davis had made so famous twenty-five 82 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF years before. So that to-day in spite of its name “New Thought,” this movement stresses spiritual: healing as greatly superior to any system of mental healing. Mrs. Eddy’s rash denial of the existence of matter, sin, sickness and death, led the New Thought followers to endeavour to avoid these much-criticised points in Christian Science, and forced them to seek for some more rational and acceptable method of harmonizing the conflicts be- tween mind and matter in a system of mental healing. Horatio W. Dresser in Spiritual Health and Healing, gives us the very latest solution of this problem. He says: There is a discrete difference between spiritual and natural things. There is no interfusing or blending (piitO2 )i This makes interaction impossible. The next important fact is this: All power is in spiritual life, . . . there is no rival power (p. 103). Naturally then: We . . . look to the spiritual realm as the basis of causality, the one ultimate source of energy (p. 276). All of this leads to the conclusion that “ Real causes are spiritual” (p. 162). Up to this point everything is perfectly clear. But the problem is seriously complicated when Mr. Dresser concludes the sentence with this statement: “ Natural events OCCULTISM 83 are effects.” The normal mind finds some diff- culty in figuring out how this can be true. If there is a discrete difference between spiritual and natural things, and “there is no interfusion or blending,’ by what bursts of lawlessness are spir- - itual causes able to leap the impassable barriers of the spiritual realm and produce effects in the natural realm? With this larger philosophical problem of the relation between mind and matter, Mr. Dresser does not concern himself. New Thought strictly limits itself to the needs of hu- man personality. Its problem is spiritual health and healing; and its need is to find a way in which omnipotent and omniscient Spirit may gain access to human personality so that it can operate di- rectly upon the human spirit in preserving health and curing disease without the interference of the physical body, the material senses, or human rea- son. You will notice that this is exactly the same problem which confronted Mrs. Eddy in Christian Science. Modern New Thought provides a new way. Of course it is obvious that this cannot take place anywhere within the realm of human per- sonality where reason presides. So Mr. Dresser announces a new psychological discovery. He in- forms his readers that there is “in the innermost spirit of man” situated beyond the reach of rea- son, outside the margin of consciousness, where analysis cannot penetrate, a “‘ Secret Place” in which the Infinite Spirit comes into conjunction with the finite spirit. He says: 84 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF The secret place is the place for beginning to do things. . . . It is the place of conjunction be- tween the Divine and the human (p. 245). The important point for us to bear in mind is that the occult chamber of the New Thought Movement is a “ Secret Place”; and it is located beyond the reach of reason, outside the margin of consciousness, where analysis cannot penetrate. Here all the miracles of the cult originate and all of its super-beliefs are born. ‘The trouble with this theory is that the psychologist knows of no such “Secret Place” within human personality. Of course if he could discover its whereabouts, it would then not be beyond the reach of reason. The thing that puzzles us most is: How did the New Thoughters ever discover its existence, if it is beyond the reach of reason, outside the margin of consciousness, where analysis cannot penetrate? Is it not true that however attenuated the human spirit may become as it enters this secret place in the innermost of the spirit of man, it never reaches the vanishing point of cognizance? For the very instant that the slightest disturbance within the realm of thought, feeling and will occurs in human personality, it is at that moment well within the reach of reason and psychological analysis. This secret place of the New Thought philosophy is a strong rival for superiority over the occult corner in Christian Science where sin, sickness, pain and death stealthily steal into human personality, where they do not exist, and work such destructive havoc. When pressed very hard for an explanation of the OCCULTISM 85 ‘ presence of these “errors” in the human mind, Mrs. Eddy made this answer: Delusion, sin, disease and death arise from the false testimony of the material sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down (Science and Health, p. 301). An occult corner located “ outside the focal dis- tance of infinite Spirit”? is surely safe from the reach of human reason. And when this location is only a “supposed standpoint’’ based upon “ the false testimony of the material sense’ which pre- sents an “inverted image of mind” with “ every- thing turned upside down,” it is no wonder that the teaching of Christian Science strikes the rea- soning mind as absurd. It would be difficult for human ingenuity to surpass this description of an occult corner. But without it, the Christian Sci- ence system of mental healing and its philosophy of life become unthinkable. As does the New Thought system, without its “ Secret Place in the innermost spirit of man.” Theosophy. At the present time Theosophy is making a strong bid for popularity. Its growth in the United States during the last few years has been marked. The organization publishes a monthly magazine, and a quarterly, both very ably edited and surprisingly clever. A new store has been opened recently in New York City dispensing only Theosophical literature. As its name implies, Theosophy means Divine Wisdom,—not the or- dinary human kind. By this time this idea begins 86 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF to sound familiar. Madame Blavatsky, its founder, being a Jewess, quite irreligious, with a previous career as a prophetess and also as a spir- itistic medium, when she conceived the idea of starting a cult of her own, felt it necessary to de- vise a more practical and concrete way of approach to Truth and Reality. Through her marvellous psychic powers she discovered an entirely new order of superhuman beings called Mahatmas. With these Masters she was able to communicate. Now it happened that these Mahatmas possessed all knowledge and all superhuman power over the forces of nature so that they could perform mir- acles. It was from them that Madame Blavatsky received her knowledge of Divine Wisdom which she committed to her book, The Secret Doctrine —The Bible of Theosophy. And through their superhuman control over the laws of nature, they were able to assist her in performing the alleged miracles which she wrought in India while estab- lishing her new cult. At least this is Madame Blavatsky’s claim. Mrs. Besant describes the Theosophic Mahatmas as follows: A Mahatma was a man living in a human body, who in the course of evolution by means of repeated incarnations, had reached the highest possible point of human perfection—physically, intellectually, and morally; a man who had acquired all the powers of the human soul and acquired all the knowledge to be found on earth—literally a Divine man. Mahatmas have always possessed superhuman powers. They were able, indeed, to control the powers of nature (Quoted from The Theosophic Craze, p. 65). OCCULTISM 87 As Christian Science is dependent upon its oc- cult corner, and New Thought upon its “ Secret Place,” so Theosophy is dependent upon the exist- ence of these super-normal beings called Mahat- mas, and the special psychic powers of its founder and leaders which enable them to communicate with the “ Masters.” Mrs. Besant once said: If there are no Mahatmas, the Theosophical Society is an Absurdity (Lucifer, Dec. 15, 1890, quoted from The Theosopluc Craze, p. 65). And Mr. Judge, at one time the American Vice- President of the Society said: Now then, either I am bringing you a true message from the Master, or the whole T. S. and E. S. T.isa lie, in the ruins of which must be buried the names of H. P. B. and the Masters. All these stand to- Aa as they fall together (Quoted from Op. cit., p. oy! Thus Madame Blavatsky discovered another pri- vate right of way to Divine Wisdom through her Mahatmas. And the “ Divine Wisdom” which she left in The Secret Doctrine is to-day accepted as the true science and philosophy of life. | Everything went along most successfully with this new cult after it became well established in India, until Madame Blavatsky left India and journeyed to England in search of more worlds to conquer. During her absence, her followers who were left in charge of the cult in India, got into a wrangle which resulted in the dismissal from its ranks of two of her oldest associates, M. and Madame Coulomb, who had been her confederates years before when in Cairo, Egypt, she had been 88 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF a spiritistic medium. One of the first things these excommunicated followers did was to go direct to the Christian College in Madras, and confess to the missionaries all they knew about the mahatmas who had been responsible for Madame Blavatsky’s alleged miracles. The Christian College at Madras made a very thorough investigation of the whole affair and found the confessions of M. and Madame Coulomb to be verified by abundant evi- dence. ‘he matter was reported to the English Society for Psychical Research, and in 1884 they sent Mr. Richard Hodgson to India to investigate the reports. After spending three months in India, he returned and made his report which is found in the Proceedings of the Society for Psy- chical Research, 1885. His report confirms the confessions of M. and Madame Coulomb and the findings of the Christian College at Madras. All agree in pronouncing Madame Blavatsky’s ma- hatmas, the alleged letters which she received from them, their appearances, the miracles which they supposedly wrought through her, and the origin of The Secret Doctrine, fraudulent representations. In 1894 the Christian College published its findings in a little book entitled The Theosophic Craze. This book together with the Report by the Society for Psychical Research contain sufficient evidence to convince any open-minded person of the truth of their conclusions. So that if the truth of Theosophy hangs upon the slender thread of the truth of the existence of Madame Blavatsky’s mahatmas, it hangs by a very delicate thread. Theosophy becomes a pseudo-science when it ac- OCCULTISM 89 cepts The Secret Doctrine obtained by special com- munication from the mahatmas, as the sum of “Divine Wisdom” and truth. It is stressed in this modern age as the Science of Life. Let us quote one statement contained in the November, 1922, Theosophy, its monthly magazine. There we read: It was predicted by H. P. B. a few years before her death that The Secret Doctrine would one day become the text-book of science. Then follows this statement: Every verified pronunciamento of the scientists of our day is either clearly set forth, or unavoidably to be inferred from what is definitely stated, in The Secret Doctrine. The editorial concludes with this remark: Is it not inevitable that scientists will at last be- come aware of this startling fact as discovery after discovery further establishes it, and turn with grate- ful acknowledgment to Theosophy, and to H. P. B. who knew tt? H. P. B. stands for Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, to whom, as the revealer of ancient and eternal truth, Theosophists are endeavouring to convert the world. Incidentally the history of the origin of The Secret Doctrine is as amazing as that of Science and Health. Spiritism. In spiritism we have another pseudo- scientific, pseudo-religious cult. It also has its own private right of way which leads direct to the pos- session of Divine Truth. It reduces the process to the elemental one of communication by word of 909 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF mouth from personality to personality, or by the direct control by spirits of the means of com- munication such as the pencil, ouija board, tipping table, trumpet, slate, or book in which truth is found, etc. The occult corner in spiritism is the medium and the séance. Mediums are specially endowed psychics who possess the power to com- municate with spirits in the other world. Spirit- ism professes to obtain knowledge and truth di- rect from the spirits who are “there,” and know about what they are talking. Thus they are in position to bring us New Revelations of Truth direct from God. Sir Conan Doyle says: It seemed that all these phenomena, large and small, had been the telephone bells which, senseless in them- selves, had signalled to the human race: “ Rouse yourselves! Stand by! Be at attention! Here are signs for you. They will lead up to the message which God wishes to send (New Revelation, p. 40). In his second book The Vital Message he says: On the spiritual side I can speak with the force of knowledge from beyond (p. 16). If this be true, it is easy to see the advantage which the spiritist possesses especially when it comes to knowledge about life after death. Natu- rally the medium becomes the important factor in spiritism. Of these psychic persons, Sir Conan Doyle says: I consider that in these days of doubt and sorrow, a genuine professional medium is the most useful mem- ber of the whole community (Wanderings of a Spir- itualist, p. 20). OCCULTISM 91 Spiritism claims to be a psychic science. It professes to substitute facts for faith concerning life beyond death. The validity of its claim de- pends upon the reality of its communications. And science when physics, physiology and psychology have been heard in the case is no longer puzzled about the séance and its mysterious phenomena, and the expert psychologist is no longer puzzled over the medium. In The Biblical Review for April, 1920, we published a study of Sir Oliver Lodge’s “ Raymond” communications, and in the July, 1922, issue, we have a study of Sir Conan Doyle and his evidence for spirit communications. Shortly we hope to publish a book treating the whole subject. It is worth noting in conclusion that spiritism primarily makes its appeal neither to the scientist seeking knowledge nor to the the- ologian seeking religious truth, but to the tragically bereaved who have lost their religious faith and so have not been able to recover in a normal and healthy manner from the staggering blow of their personal loss. Groping around in the dark for some comfort and spiritual help, they are easy victims for spiritistic proselyters. It is unnecessary to continue our list of super- belief cults. Those we have studied are most rep- resentative and, with the exception of Mormonism which is unique and should be studied by itself, include all types worthy of consideration. Each is a curious blend of pseudo-science and parasitic religion functioning through the occult. Super- belief cults in religion may be likened to patent medicine panaceas in medical science. They seem 92 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF to work marvellous cures, and they do it in the same way. Since the law has compelled the publi- cation of the formulas of all patent medicines, the fact has been revealed that some of the most popular remedies rely upon one of three drugs for their efficacy—alcohol, dope, poisons. ‘The equiv- alents which these spiritual patent medicine panaceas employ are the poisons of error and half- truths, the alcoholic stimulant of unreasonable and unwarranted hope, and the dope of denial. Any of which spiritual drugs taken in large enough quantities will permanently injure the intellectual and spiritual organs of a person so that they are no longer capable of functioning normally upon scientific facts and philosophical and theological truth. For years the uninformed laity, in spite of continued warnings from physicians, were disposed to regard the patent medicine business with patron- izing benevolence and over-generous toleration. Personally they had no use for these concoctions, but as long as those who did take them seemed to be benefited, why worry? Not until the physi- cians, who knew all the while by what means the purveyors of these patent medicine panaceas were effecting their alleged marvellous cures, inaugu- rated a determined campaign of publicity and edu- cation which opened the eyes of the laity to the fact that not only were the addicts of these patent medicines injuring their own physical and moral constitutions, but that they were transmitting to their innocent and unprotected children these weaknesses, did toleration cease to become a vir- tue and take on the nature of a vice. Then it was OCCULTISM 93 that the law was passed which requires all patent medicines to print upon their labels the correct ingredients of their compounds. Thus driven out into the open, the injury from this source has been reduced by a very great margin. In the field of spiritual therapy the same ex- perience is being paralleled. The uninformed laity are disposed to regard most of the super-belief cults—the patent medicine panaceas of spiritual therapy—with patronizing benevolence and over- generous toleration. ‘The middle-lifers who take them, seem to get some good out of them, why worry? But when one investigates them thoroughly and becomes acquainted with the lives of most of their founders, the history of the move- ments from the beginning, their methods of opera- tion, their machinery of propaganda, their com- mercial interests, their scientific, philosophical, theological nature, and the injurious effects of these spiritual drugs upon the intellectual and spir- itual constitution of the children of the second generation, the desire to extenuate is overpowered by duty’s urge to expose. In this field also pub- licity is the only safeguard for the ignorant and unsuspecting. Public opinion should be aroused by a determined campaign of publicity and educa- tion to the point where all super-belief cults are forced out of their occult corners into the open and compelled to print upon their labels in plain language the exact ingredients of their spiritual panaceas. Then at least their converts will have a chance to know what they are taking. IV THE SUPER-BELIEFS OF SPIRITUAL HEALING HILE the New Thought Movement VW uses the term “ spiritual healing” to distinguish its system from that of Christian Science, which it styles ‘‘ mental heal- ing,” we employ the term to designate all those systems of healing which dispense with material aids and remedies in the treatment of patients and rely exclusively upon non-material means for ef- fecting cures. Before medical science had made the tremendous strides in the preservation of health and the conquest of disease which have marked its progress during the last century, such systems of healing thrived. The achievements of Materia Medica for a number of years discredited all of these non-material systems of healing to such an extent that they had little intellectual standing and slight recognition. ‘To-day, however, they are rallying their forces and edging their way back into considerable public recognition. Christian Science, New Thought, Spiritism, The Emmanuel Movement, Faith Healing, Bible Healing, Mind Cure, Hypnotism, Psychoanalysis, The Church of the Healing Christ, Divine Science, Metaphysical Healing, Vitality Societies, Zest Societies, etc., are a few among the many varieties which are doing business in America to-day. While each of these systems insists that it has 94 THE SUPER-BELIEFS 95 nothing in common with others of the same class, they all agree in their belief that sickness can be cured without the use of material remedies. They range from Christian Science which denies the existence of matter and asserts that knowledge of anatomy, physiology and medicine are the primary cause of disease, to psychoanalysis which calls to its assistance all the knowledge of physiology and psychology and is employed by educated and trained physicians, In order to understand these systems of spiritual healing, it will be necessary to acquaint ourselves with the fundamental prin- ciples of a few of the outstanding ones. Christian Science. By far the best known of all these systems is Christian Science. In The Non-Sense of Christian Science we have fully analyzed this system of healing, so that it will not be necessary to devote much space to it at this time. Mrs. Eddy takes up one by one all of the fundamental elements of medical science from physiology to sanitation, and after pointing out their fatal defects, rejects them all. For example, physiology she declares to be ‘“‘ one of the apples from ‘the tree of knowledge. Her readers are informed that the eating of the fruit of this tree of knowledge in disobedience to God’s command is the direct cause of most human illness. (See Science and Health, chapter, Physiology.) This knowledge is so destructive that even the innocent animals are victims of its spread. Mrs. Eddy cites several instances of this fact. We will give one: EME Bd You can educate a healthy horse so far in physi- 96 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF ology that he will take cold without his blanket, whereas the wild animal, left to his instincts, sniffs the wind with delight. The epizootic is an humanly evolved ailment, which a wild horse might never have (Science and Health, p. 179). How Mrs. Eddy knows that wild horses never have the epizootic is not revealed. But that physiology and Spirit cannot work together in her science of healing she leaves no doubt. Upon this point she says: We cannot obey both physiology and Spirit, for the one absolutely destroys the other, and one or the other must be supreme in the affections. It is im- possible to work from two standpoints (Science and Health, p. 182). If “the one absolutely destroys the other,” co- operation becomes impossible. Fortunately she claims that she had no need of the help of physi- ology or medical science. This important fact is thus stated: It is anything but scientifically Christian to think of aiding the divine Principle of healing or of trying to sustain the human body until the divine Mind is ready to take the case. Divinity is always ready. Semper paratus is Truth’s motto. Having seen so much suffering from quackery, the author desires to keep it out of Christian Science (Science and Health, p. 458). This confident assertion is written to inspire the faith of patients, and for propaganda purposes. To her healers, quietly on the side, she writes: Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian Sci- THE SUPER-BELIEFS 97 entists to leave surgery and the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while the mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental reconstruction and to the prevention of in- flammation (Science and Health, p. 401). And again, she writes: If from an injury or from any cause, a Christian Scientist were seized with pain so violent that he could not treat himself mentally,—and the Scientists had failed to relieve him—the sufferer could call a surgeon, who would give him a hypodermic injection, then, when the belief in pain was lulled, he could handle his own case mentally. Thus it is that we “prove all things; (and) hold fast that which is good” (Science and Health, p. 464). Evidently the surgeon and the hypodermic nee- dle are two things to which even Christian Scien- tists are going to hold fast as “ good.” It might be added that Mrs. Eddy herself always held fast to a physician or two. And when she adopted a son to be with her in her home, he chanced to be a full-fledged physician. And yet this is the book of which she says: “In this volume of mine there are no contradictory statements” (Science and Health, p. 345). Theoretically, however, Christian Science does not serve two masters—Mind and medicine. Mrs. Fiddy’s science of healing does not require medi- cine, for the cause of all disease is mental. Its etiology she boils down to this one fact: “A false belief is both . . . the disease and its cause ”’ (Science and Health, p. 393). She illustrates this fact by many interesting observations. Here is a . sample: 98 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF We are told that the simple food our forefathers ate helped to make them healthy, but that is a mis- take. Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this period. With rules of health in the head and the most digestible food in the stomach there would stiil be dyspeptics (Science and Health, p. 197). Since a “ false belief is both the disease and its cause,” the cure for disease is simple. Mrs. Eddy’s prescription is the following: The efficient remedy is to destroy the patient’s false belief by both silently and audibly arguing the true facts in regard to harmonious being (Science and Health, p. 376). Mrs. Eddy goes into great detail to prove that this one remedy applies equally to all kinds of dis- ease and human ailments from boils to broken bones, in spite of the passage quoted about the surgeon and broken bones. ‘This fact becomes clear when it is remembered that the cause of the false belief, which is both the disease and its cause, is knowledge. She puts the matter thus: One disease is no more real than another. All dis- ease is the result of education (Science and Health, Day): Without going any further into this subject, it must be evident that Mrs. Eddy’s science of heal- ing is based upon super-beliefs. New Thought. Having gained some knowledge of New Thought in the chapter on Occultism, it remains to learn the technic of its system of heal- ing. As has already been pointed out, in spite of THE SUPER-BELIEFS 99 its name “New Thought,” Spirit, not Mind, is the healing agent. The cause of disease is no longer a wrong thought, it is a wrong spiritual condition. Let us sum up again very briefly Mr. Horatio W. Dresser’s philosophy of the New Thought Movement as given in his recent book, Spiritual Health and Healing. Its principles are: All power is in spiritual life (p. 103). We look to the spiritual realm as the basis of causality, the one ultimate source of energy (p. 276). Real causes are spiritual, natural events are effects (De 102). ee There is a discrete difference between spiritual and natural things. . . . There is no interfusion or blending (p. 162). At this point Mr. Dresser launches into the new theory of New Thought which is featured as su- perior to Christian Science. So we read: What is it that possesses mind, that feels, thinks and wills? The human spirit. . . . Mind might bea faithful servant in each of us if we understood and had learned to control all the mental elements. It is spirit that controls. It is the mind that is brought into order (p. 243 f.). Spirit has another advantage over mind, it has a secret place in the innermost spirit of man, be- _ yond the reach of reason and analysis, where there takes place the “ conjunction between the Divine and the human.” Mr. Dresser makes this addi- tional observation concerning this secret place. He says: The ideal of this union is the Divine-human, the 100 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF Christ. The place is the region of the incarnation of the heavenly Heart in the human heart (p. 245). Thus man becomes his own saviour, and the in- carnation is enacted in every individual heart that seeks this secret place and takes advantage of the union it affords with Infinite Spirit. Here the finite spirit finds placed at its disposal the infinite resources of Omnipotent and Omniscient Spirit. Therefore it is Infinite Spirit which becomes the healing agent in New Thought. Mr. Dresser says: Man has no such powers in and of himself to work such wonders. In that larger estate it is God who achieves, not man (p. 103). In this claim, New Thought joins with Christian Science. For Mrs. Eddy insists that it is Divine Mind, not the human mind or mortal mind, which is her healing agent. New Thought does away with the necessity for spiritual senses which en- able the human mind to communicate directly with the Divine Mind, such as Mrs. Eddy’s idea re- quires. Every human soul has access to the in- nermost spirit of its being where this secret place is located, and there he finds Infinite Spirit wait- ing to help. While this theory of New Thought greatly simplifies the problem of gaining direct access to Infinite Spirit, yet it has this one serious defect. The psychologist finds no such secret place within human personality. It is an occult corner, as we have already shown, which cannot exist and at the same time afford the human spirit a chance to conjoin with the Divine Spirit without at that instance creating a disturbance in thought, feeling THE SUPER-BELIEFS 101 and will which instantly comes within the reach of reason and analysis. When then, New Thought is smoked out of its secret place into the open, and its system of healing analyzed, it is found to em- ploy the same psychological means for preserving health and curing disease as its rivals. Spiritism. One phase of spiritism upon which we have not touched is its system of healing. Spiritism was in the field of spiritual healing some years before either Christian Science or New Thought. In 1850 to 1860, it was claiming to be the second appearing of Christ because it healed the sick as Jesus did, the same claim Mrs. Eddy makes for Christian Science. Andrew Jackson Davis, the most famous of the early healing me- diums, published his book on The Physician in 1865. He claimed to perform his miracles of healing through the assistance of several dis- tinguished spirits, who at his call wrought cures. No less distinguished a spiritist than Dr. James H. Hyslop, at the time of his death, the secretary of the American Society for Psychical Research, in his latest book Contact With the Other World, published in 1919, devotes a whole chapter to Ob- session. In this, he informs us that many diseases which physicians vainly endeavour to cure with medicine are the direct result of the invasion of human personality by evil-disposed spirits. To spiritists then, disease is caused not by wrong thoughts or a wrong spiritual condition, but by wrong spirits, that is, evil spirits. And such physical disturbances of mind and body cannot be cured save as these evil spirits are exorcized by 102 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF spirit mediums. Sir Conan Doyle holds the same belief and has warned those who disturb the tombs of the ancient dead that the spirits will revenge such desecration by inflicting sickness and death as a penalty. In Washington, D. C., a group of spiritists have developed this department of spirit healing to a high state of perfection. The Oriental University has among its many branches a healing depart- ment. One of its Bulletins contains this adver- tisement: We regret that we cannot bring details about an- other phase of Theomonism, that of healing spirits, a strong band of famous physicians and surgeons now in spirit land, who perform wonderful healings every Wednesday evening when Professor Holler is enabled by the spiritual X-ray to look into the bodies of pa- tients and detect the defects as well as observe the mode of healing by spirits. All that is in the way of giving full publicity to all of these most interesting, and from a scientific and utilitarian standpoint, most valuable, evidences is a lack of money. A word to the “ wise’ * ignoramus and the scoffing agnostics, as well as to slow ecclesiastics: Judge not what you do not understand, and avoid any attempt at placing yourself in an awkward position of explain- ing away facts: for you won't be able to disprove them! (December, 1913). The Theomonistic system of spirit healing has many attractive features which even “slow ec- clesiastics ” can appreciate. The discovery of the spiritual X-ray is one. Another is the opportunity it affords for consulting the most distinguished physicians and surgeons now in spirit-land for the THE SUPER-BELIEFS 103 price of a sitting with Professor Holler. When on earth these physicians and surgeons charged so much that most of us were not financially able to avail ourselves of their knowledge and skill. Now that they are in spirit-land they have no use for money and so practice “ for the love of it.” The Oriental University thrived until the recent move- ment was launched to exterminate the “ diploma mills’ which have been supplying quack doctors * with unearned medical diplomas. Unfortunately the “ Bishop-Doctor’’ who is president of this Uni- versity, we read, is one of those who is now under indictment in Washington for running a one-man school in which he offered 648 courses, and issued diplomas in medicine, theology, spiritualism, me- diumship, etc. Whatever we may think of spirit- ism’s system of healing, mediums are credited with as amazing a list of cures as other systems of spiritual healing. Faith Healing. Faith Healing and Bible Healing movements do not claim to have reduced their systems of healing to a science. Their advocates are content to accept them as miraculous, and therefore not to be explained scientifically. For this reason they do not come under the head of pseudo-sciences operating through the occult. Therefore we will not stop to discuss them at this time. Some light will be thrown upon many of their principles in our later discussion. Hypnotism and Psychoanalysis. ‘These methods of healing stand at the opposite extreme from Faith Healing. ‘They proceed upon the basis of the known rather than upon the unknown and the 104 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF occult. They use the scientific knowledge of psy- chology and medical science, they regard knowl- edge and training as essential, and endeavour to brighten the occult corners in their field of opera- tion rather than to protect them from reason and analysis. ‘Therefore they do not come under the super-belief cult classification. Couéism. No study of spiritual healing would be satisfactory to-day without a word about Coué- ism, one of the most popular systems for the mo- ment. Couéism represents the rationalistic branch of the spiritual healing movement. It does not make any alliance with religion. There is a rea- son for this. In France, the Roman Catholic Church occupies the whole field of spiritual heal- ing in which religious faith is an important factor. It has no successful competitors. This is why Christian Science has been able to make such lit- tle headway in France. One cannot go anywhere in that country without running across this phase of the Roman Catholic Church’s work. Cathedrals and churches are decorated with marble tablets, donated by those who have been healed. Stacks of crutches, canes, trusses, glasses, tobacco pipes, and other discarded aids of disability and infirmity are placed in prominent view. The relics of saints, and shrines of healing are scattered everywhere. All of those who are capable of being reached and healed by this branch of spiritual healing are cared for by the machinery of the Church. But there are in France many Protestants and free-thinkers and atheists, who are shut out from help of this kind. It is to this latter class that M. Coué’s sys- THE SUPER-BELIEFS 105 tem of healing is designed to appeal. In England and this country many Coué enthusiasts endeav- oured to persuade him to introduce the religious element into his method of healing. The Vice- provost of Eton College, England, pressed him hard to add the words “Thank God” to his formula. But, while M. Coué is perfectly willing that any one who so desires may make that addi- tion, he has steadily refused to incorporate the religious element into it. M. Coué is endeavour- ing to reach the large group of people to whom the religious brand of spiritual healing does not appeal. For this reason he does not directly con- flict with Christian Science, New Thought, Em- manuel Movement, Faith Cure, Bible Healing or any of these religious systems. And still he has a large clientele of neglected middle-lifers upon whom to work. M. Coué is not a pioneer in this field. Re- ligiously, temperamentally, and psychologically, France has always been a fertile field for spiritual healing. It was to Paris that Friedrich Anton Mesmer, the originator of Mesmerism, came, when he was driven from Austria. Mesmer was a phy- sician who claimed to have discovered a magnetic fluid which possessed unusual healing properties. By means of a large tub filled with bottles and water, a travesty on the electric battery, Mesmer generated spiritual electricity with which he worked some most marvellous cures. The reality of the cures was unquestioned, but the reality of the spiritual electricity or magnetic fluid generated by this battery soon fell under suspicion. | 106 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF After a few years it was discovered that there was no such thing as a magnetic fluid generated by Mesmer’s apparatus, therefore some other ex- planation of the cures had to be found. In 1785 the two Puysegur brothers, both of whom had studied under Mesmer, summed up the substance of Mesmerism in these words: “ Believe and Will.” With this discovery Mesmerism was uprooted from the soil of physics and transplanted in that of psychology, and the mysterious healing agent was rechristened “animal magnetism.” At Nancy, the home of M. Coué, and at Busancy, this new system of healing was made the subject of special study. In 1834, M. Charles Poyen, a French medical student, who had been healed by mesmerism and become a convert to it, came to America. He began a series of lectures and demonstrations on the mysterious power of mesmerism, or animal magnetism, as he called it. The scene of his ac- tivities was in and around Boston. ‘The account of his itinerary and the results of his demonstra- tions are published in a book which was issued in 1837, entitled The Progress of Animal Magnetism. The book gives the towns in which meetings were held. Among them are the towns in which Mrs. Eddy spent her younger days. Her family physi- cian became interested, learned the art of mesmer- ism, and used it upon his patients. Mary Baker was one of these; and she became such a sensitive subject that her physician made use of her at times for demonstrations. When she states that she was familiar with mesmerism, she is recalling these THE SUPER-BELIEFS 107 early days. M. Poyen made much of what he called “‘ absent treatment.” It was from this “ ani- mal magnetism” that Mrs, Eddy developed her idea of “‘ malicious animal magnetism.” M. Poyen’s demonstrations of the power of mes- merism fascinated a little clock-maker of Port- land, Maine, by the name of P. P. Quimby. Mr. Quimby, with whom we are already acquainted, became so interested in this mysterious power, that he devoted all of his spare time to experimenting with it. Like M. Coué, he discovered that in an unusual degree he possessed the ability to mesmer- ize others. It was not long before he gave up his craft of clock-maker and went on the road as a mesmerist and healer. During the first years, he took with him a helper named Lucius Burkmar, whom he mesmerized, and who in the mesmeric state was able to diagnose ailments and prescribe effectual remedies. After a time Mr. Quimby dis- covered that it was not Lucius, but himself, who was diagnosing the ills of his patients and pre- scribing remedies. Next, he discovered that he could cure his patients without prescribing ma- terial remedies, by the simple process of changing their wrong thoughts. Out of these discoveries he finally worked a system of mental healing with which he wrought many wonderful cures and be- came quite famous. ‘To him came Mrs. Eddy, Rev. Warren F. Evans, Julius A. Dresser, the father of Horatio W. Dresser, and many other people as patients. In those days, Mr. Quimby did not enjoy the popularity of aristocratic patron- age, as M. Coué to-day does. For his system of 108 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF mental healing seemed so mysterious that it was looked upon as akin to witchcraft—and Salem was only twenty miles away. We have taken the trouble to show how closely the experiences of Mr. Quimby parallel those of M. Coué, to let the reader know that both came di- rectly from mesmerism, or hypnotism, to spiritual healing. Had Mr. Quimbly lived in our day he would have been as famous as M. Coué for he was:a most successful healer. M. Coué emphasizes the rationalistic element. He insists that he is not a miracle-worker, he frankly admits that he does not cure his patients, he only teaches them how to heal themselves through autosuggestion. He does not profess to cure all ailments, he carefully selects his patients. And the unusual fact that he does not take any fee for healing, puts him in a class by himself and inspires confidence. ‘These features keep him from an- tagonizing orthodox medical science, psychology and the Church. In explaining the technic of his system he says that he appeals to the imagination instead of to the will, because the imagination has a more direct access to the subconscious mind, and the subconscious mind controls the activities of all the organs and involuntary operations of the physical body. We suspect that both physiology and psychology may find something lacking in M. Coueé’s knowledge of their sciences, but he has good scientific reasons for his appeal to the imagination. He says that most people struggle with the will, while he ignores the will and works with the im- agination. For, he says, when the will and the THE SUPER-BELIEFS 109 imagination are antagonistic, the imagination al- ways wins. When the will and the imagination are in agreement, they supplement each other. While the will is stubborn, the imagination is pli- able and can be controlled and directed. It is therefore the ideal faculty with which to work when one wants to get definite results. There is some truth in this statement, but it all depends upon the type of person with whom one is work- ing. The fact that M. Coué finds this true of those whom he succeeds in healing, reveals the type of persons with whom he deals. His knowl- edge of psychology is not sufficient to have ac- quainted him with the fact that those whom he sets aside as failures, are those in whom imagina- tion and will are working normally, and those with whom he succeeds are those in whom the will and the reason are not quite equal to their task. The technic of a Coué treatment is thus given: The patient tranquillizes himself, makes his mind as nearly blank as possible, and says articulately, pref- erably in a semi-detached and dreamy sort of way, “Every day in every way I am getting better and bet- ter.’ The second “ every” must be emphasized, and that the verbigerating articular does not get mixed in “his love,” he is recommended to make use of an improvised rosary, that is, a string with twenty knots tied in it, and in this he must “ autosuggest”” every morning before rising, and every night upon getting into bed (Journal of The American Medical Associa- tion, September 30, 1922). The psychological principles underlying Couéism will be discussed later. 110 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF Gayerism. We will now select a typical repre- sentative from the remaining miscellaneous group of systems of spiritual healing which have not at- tained the distinction of becoming widely known cults. Those who read the religious announcements in the New York Saturday daily papers, have often noticed the name of Gayer in large letters with the words: “ Most Worthwhile Meeting in Town.” It may be interesting to attend one of Dr. Gayer’s meetings which are held every Sunday afternoon at the Hotel Astor. A splendid account of his meeting and method is contained in the New York Tribune, December 11, 1922. It bears this head- line: “ Magic of Coué Pales Before Potent Chant of Healer Here.” The account runs: A white-haired ‘‘mental healer,’ his cadenced words clothed in the richest drapery of metaphor, lulled a fashionable audience into a semi-slumbrous conditon at the Hotel Astor yesterday afternoon, while he voiced his theories on self-healing. It was not the slumber of boredom that Dr. Gustav A. Gayer induced. It was a deliberate, carefully planned state of hypnosis, brought on by suggestion, by the careful choice of words, the studied music of tones, and lastly, by a stringed orchestra, at times the barest echo of his voice, and again rich and full in its suggestion of confidence. When his audience, which was 80 per cent. feminine, reaches what he calls the semi-conscious state, “eyes closed, minds receptive,” he turns on his batteries of autosugges- tion. It was a kind of intellectualized Couéism of high voltage that Dr. Gayer expounded. It was more sub- tle, less reiterative than the teaching of the little THE SUPER-BELIEFS 111 Frenchman, but the underlying idea of infinite capac- ity within one’s self, infinite power to triumph over sickness and difficulty was the same. For forty years Dr. Gayer has been a student of mental sick- ness. . . . He opened a mental clinic here some twenty years ago, and still holds a free clinic for the poor at his office on Saturday afternoons. Crowds flock to these meetings. Dr. Gayer’s principles are contained in these statements: Your faith and your will are hard at work to get you the legitimate things you want. Your subconscious mind responds to your sugges- tion and affirmations about yourself. Wage war against fear and worry. No accident, no weakness, no sickness can befall you. You are immune from trouble. You are enabled to realize your ambition through the strength of your will. It will be a good idea to read and reread the description of Dr. Gayer’s technic of getting his audience into the semiconscious state, that 1s, ready for him to “turn on his batteries of auto- suggestion.” This will help in understanding what follows. The Fundamental Principles of Spiritual Heal- ing. While each of these systems of spiritual heal- ing confidently affirms that it has discovered and is employing some original secret in its method of healing, a careful psychological analysis discloses the fact that they all use exactly the same prin- ciples. ‘The differences arise from the varying methods used to get the patient ready for sugges- 112 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF tion, and the element in consciousness which is stressed. Let us start with this proposition: Every act of consciousness is a unit in which thought, feeling and will form constituent parts. The varia- tions in these systems of healing arise from the fact that in one, thought, the rational element, in another, feeling, the emotional element, in another, the will, the volitional element is appealed to as dominant. Each of these elements has the capacity to respond. But the first preliminary necessity for a super-belief healing cult is to clear the way for its line of suggestion to work. Here, they all re- sort to varying devices which embody the same psychological principle. What the hypnotist accomplishes by putting his patient into an hypnotic sleep; what Dr. Gayer ac- complishes by his cadences, music and metaphor; what the Christian Science healer accomplishes by sitting down calmly by the bedside of the patient and “arguing both silently and audibly the facts of harmonious being,’ while reading a few pas- sages from the un-understandable pages of Science and Health; what the Roman Catholic Church ac- complishes by its use of glittering altars, flickering candles, images, pictures, elaborate ritual, cere- monies, incense, incantations and chants in an un- known language; what New Thought accomplishes by pushing the disturbed spirit back into the “ Se- cret Place” beyond the reach of reason; what the Theosophist accomplishes by its darkness, solitude, closed eyes, meditation, and psychical devices for bearing the spirit away from the physical body to the astral body, which is the hypnotic state; what THE SUPER-BELIEFS 113 the spiritist accomplishes through the séance, the semi-darkness, the mysterious passes and remarks of the medium, the trance state and the dark cab- inet; that, M. Coué accomplishes by getting his patients voluntarily to tranquillize themselves, make their minds as nearly blank as possible and repeat in a semi-detached sort of way his little formula, “‘ Every day in every way I am getting better and better,’ twenty times after retiring and twenty times every morning before arising. M. Coué describes his system as an appeal to the im- agination rather than to the intellect or will. In fact, it is nothing more or less than a simple device to produce slight hypnosis whereby the reason is unseated, all inhibitions removed and any rational or volitional reactions against the suggestions of M. Coué effectually forestalled. In this way sug- gestion is given the right of way while in the pres- ence of M. Coué, and also a chance to return morn- ing and night. In each system, by whatever de- vice adopted, the same result is obtained, light hypnosis is secured, then follows suggestion. The nature of the suggestion depends upon the end sought by the patient. Cures. Are genuine cures made? When con- fronted by this question, we are placed in the dilemma which so disturbed the rulers, scribes and priests in Jerusalem when Peter and John healed the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Tem- ple. ‘‘ Beholding the man which was healed stand- ing with them, they could say nothing against it” (Acts 4:14). Beholding so many who have been healed by every one of these systems of spiritual 114 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF healing standing in the midst of them testifying to the fact that they have been healed, we cannot deny the fact that cures are made. The only doubt which can be raised is as to the accuracy of the diagnosis, the permanency of the cure, and the effects of the method upon the patient. Nerves. Until the discovery of the wncon- scious mind and the progress made in the analysis of the causes of neurosis by psychoanalysis, the puzzle of spiritual healing could not be satisfac- torily unravelled. Orthodox medical science could only proceed negatively and eliminate one by one the suspected causes of the ailment, and finding no lesions and no organic trouble, set the ailment down to the already overburdened account of “nerves.”’ And nerves have been the undoing of most materialistic medical practitioners. When the physician finds no infections, no poisons, no organic trouble and nothing to mend or cut out, he can do nothing. Fortunately analytical psy- chology has shown us that there is something which can be done in this situation. Dr. Joseph- ine Jackson, in her most readable book entitled Outwitiing Our Nerves, gives this interesting item of information: So far as the modern laboratory can discover, the nerves of the most confirmed neurotic are perfectly healthy. They are not starved, nor depleted, nor exhausted; the fat sheath is not wanting, there is no inflammation, there is nothing lacking in the cell itself, and there is no accumulation of fatigue products. Paradoxical as it may sound, there is nothing the matter with the nervous person’s nerves (p. 10 f.). THE SUPER-BELIEFS 115 Dr. Jackson is undoubtedly referring here to the chronic neurotic whose troubles originate in some psychological cause. Acute cases of nervous breakdown do at times arise from physiological causes. But the nerves of the chronic neurotic are generally in exceptionally fine condition. The extra work which the imagination of the neurotic lays upon them helps to keep them exercised and healthy. The seat of the trouble Dr. Jackson gives in this passage: The trouble is real: the organs do “act up”; the nerves do carry wrong messages. But the nerves are merely telegraph wires. They are not responsible for the messages that are given them to carry. Behind the wires is the operator, the man higher up; upon him the responsibility falls. In functional troubles the body is working in a perfectly normal way consid- ering the perverted conditions. . . . The trou- bles are not with the bodily machine, but with the master. . . . The trouble in nervous disorders is in the personality, the soul, the realm of ideas, and that is not your body but you (p. 15). Dr. Jackson gives her diagnosis of the cause back of nervous trouble thus: ar The gist of the whole matter is this: in a neurosis, certain forces of the personality—instincts and their accompanying emotions—which ought to work har- moniously, having become tangled up with erroneous ideas, have lost their power of codperation and are working at cross purposes, leaving the individual mis- adapted to his environment. . . . The fact that the cause is mental while the result is physical should cause no surprise (p. 20). 116 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF Dr. C. G. Jung, one of the greatest of our ana- lytical psychologists, explains neurotic disturbances thus: The psychological trouble in neurosis . . . can be considered as an act of adaption that has failed (Analytical Psychology, p. 234). We do not believe that “instincts and their ac- companying emotions’? are as responsible for neurosis as failure to effect other adaptations. This fact will be seen later. Spiritual healers fail to distinguish between functional and organic cases. ‘This is not easy, for the difference cannot be discovered by symp- toms. ‘The nerves of the neurotic person commu- nicate to consciousness through the brain centers, symptoms and pains that exactly duplicate those of organic disease. And so far as the patient is concerned, symptoms are symptoms and pains in the head, back or stomach are pains, no matter what their cause. It is not to be expected that the uneducated and untrained spiritual healer who knows neither physiology nor psychology should be able to distinguish between functional and or- ganic disturbances any better than the patient. This is not all. Along the border-line between the two, functional ailments sometimes settle down into organic troubles, and organic troubles of a moderate type sometimes subside when the func- tional disturbances are removed. So that there is a vast area within which incorrect diagnosis can easily prevail. Only the physician thoroughly trained in physiology and psychology can hope to THE SUPER-BELIEFS 117 distinguish between the two, and so be in a posi- tion to treat each case according to its nature. Let us now see whether we can put into plain English the cause of nervous troubles. We have learned that these troubles are “ not with the bodily machine but with the master.” And as Dr. Jack- son says: “ That is not your body but you.” Dr. Jung goes to the root of the trouble when he says: “The psychological trouble in neurosis can be considered an act of adaption that has failed.” This statement interests us because it not only explains the cause of those troubles which have reached the stage of complexes, but also of many other psychological disturbances which are not yet abnormal in their displacement of the nor- mal functioning of thinking, feeling and willing. We have shown in our study of chronic unbelief that “erroneous ideas” are themselves often caused by this same failure to make a successful adaption of one’s self to one’s religious environ- ment. So that we cannot lay the blame upon the mind any more than upon the spirit. And when we carry this investigation further we find that we cannot lay it any more upon the mind and the spirit than upon the body. We quoted from Dr. Jackson’s somewhat exaggerated statements be- cause it usually takes some extreme statements to impress upon the average lay mind the truth con- cerning the psychological causes of nervousness. It is natural to give the physical causes their full weight. But in the last analysis, it will be found that nervous troubles are inseparably bound up with thinking, feeling, willing as they are con- 118 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF nected up through the intricate network of nerves, muscles and organs of our physical body. Super- belief healing cults have the habit of singling out one of the guilty parties and making that the scape- goat for all the rest. If by some lucky chance they succeed in getting hold of one of the guilty parties instead of those who are simply minor accessories to the wrong-doing, conditions improve. But the normal method of dealing with such a situation is to deal with all those parties in personality that have any share in the trouble, in full knowledge of the guilt each bears. The physical side of these traumas the medical profession are in position to relieve. Infections of the stomach, intestines, teeth, tonsils, and head, should receive prompt and intelligent attention. But we are interested at this time in those which can be diagnosed as psycholog- ical traumas. Let us enumerate some of the causes which in middle life create the psychological con- ditions from which neurosis comes. We have already learned that this type of trou- ble can always be traced to an adaptation that has failed. For even when a physical cause is in the background what happens is that the physical dis- turbances reduce one’s efficiency and strength to the point where inability to turn off work and fatigue in doing work, start up worry, and worry brings on sleeplessness and loss of appetite. In the end, from whatever cause the disturbance arises, it creeps back to a failure of adaptation to one’s environment. But we will confine our study to the psychological causes. Chronic unbelief shows that failure to adapt one’s self in childhood THE SUPER-BELIEFS 119 to the religious environment of home and social group, is capable of influencing throughout a life- time the motived-will-to-think and selective atten- tion so that a brilliant mind and a conscientious scholar will never be able honestly to give full weight to the facts of religious experience. Not only is this true intellectually, but also morally and psychologically. Wherever the old, unhealed life- wounds still fester, failure at adaption is indicated by reactions that will be exaggerated far beyond the normal; and a persistently perverted point of view will manifest itself. It is a wholesome ex- perience to check up one’s reactions with this in mind. With an impaired physical, intellectual, moral or psychological condition in the background, there will result a natural inability successfully to meet the normal and inevitable experiences of life. Some serious disappointment, some tragic sorrow, some unusual failure, some wounded pride, some disappointed ambitions, some indulgence of un- controlled temper, some disappointment in love, some disappointment in married life, some disap- pointment in religious experience, some moral con- flict in which the higher life-ideal has been forced unwillingly to surrender to a lower standard of conduct, some sin which has been committed under strong temptation upon the impulse of the mo- ment, to which one’s better nature has never be- come reconciled, and which has never been con- fessed; any one or a combination of these experi- ences will stir up intellectual, emotional, moral conflicts which lead to neurosis. For our own na- 120 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF tures are much sterner judges than we give them credit for being, and will demand that the final adaptions along all these lines shall receive the full and hearty approval of reason, feeling and conscience. Anything less than this full absolu- tion from guilt, and self-forgiveness, creates a psychological disturbance which manifests its pres- ence in every life reaction, and robs one of full happiness and peace of mind. In most lives, thanks to our moral and religious inheritances, early childhood training, and strength of charac- ter, these disturbances do not develop into serious complexes. ‘They simply reduce the measure of one’s happiness, contentment, optimism and faith in God and man, which reduction is accepted with stoical resignation as an inevitable part of life’s experience. But in persons of certain temperament, they keep alive conflicts of greater or less intensity. In the neurotic they create centers of resistance which influence the motived-will-to-think and direct selec- tive attention to such an extent that sensations, thoughts, words, looks, acts, events, personal ex- periences are liable to take on perverted and ex- aggerated characteristics. In some cases they de- velop into well-marked symptoms of particular dis- eases. From this wide range of possibilities, many results may follow. When the intellectual interest predominates in such a life, we get the chronic un- believer; when the emotions dominate we get the neurotic; when the will is dominant and the person is of the action type, we get the moral degenerate or wayward life. When all three together are af- THE SUPER-BELIEFS 121 fected we get the constitutional iconoclast or image breaker. The Cure. Suggestion is unquestionably one way to cure the pathological condition from which this type of trouble arises. The fact that hypno- tism and all systems of spiritual healing use this method so successfully is proof of the fact that all these people need is a little help to strengthen their irresolute wills and weak characters. It also re- veals how little it takes to turn the balance from failure to adapt, to successful adaptation. That is, things are not so very wrong, they are only a little wrong, and a little help in decision clears up the trouble. If this were the whole of the story, we could turn our problem over to these super-belief healing cults that use suggestion so successfully, and consider it solved. Upon this basis all super- belief healing cults are entitled to equal recognition and standing with orthodox medical science, and occultism to an honoured place beside a religion like historic Christianity. This would be to throw away the long progress of the centuries and to re- store occultism and superstition to their former supremacy. But the tariff which the intellect, feel- ings and will are compelled to pay upon the products of occultism and super-beliefs imported from the foreign realms of ultra-reason, or upon direct help contributed to one’s will in decision which is gained by way of the unconscious, when the reason is drugged by light hypnosis, is too high for the normal personality to think of paying. The Cost. When one consents to subject one’s self to the practice of even light hypnosis, and 122 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF forms the habit of allowing the mind to slip into the vague, tranquillized state where it is blank, and so passive and open to suggestion, both the intel- lect and the will are further weakened. Now this is the trouble to be cured. By this practice the emotions gain a control which, under the inspira- tion of the imagination, leads back to a condition from which the human mind has been for cen- turies struggling to escape. In this condition, one is in danger of developing the habit of throwing the responsibility for decisions upon stronger wills. That is, suggestion aggravates the very trouble from which the neurosis comes. Second. Not only reason and will, but also con- Science is taken off guard when light hypnosis is produced. And the unconscious mind is much more susceptible to suggestion than the con- scious mind where reason and conscience are on guard. ‘This opens the way for breaking down all the normal moral defenses of character. Any psychologist who has had experience with hypno- tism is aware of this fact. Here is where lies one of the destructive perils of light wines and beer. Light intoxicating stimulants do not generally pro- duce heavy hypnosis, that is drunkenness, but they do produce exactly the same psychological state which we know as light hypnosis. And when this passive condition of intellect and will is obtained with reason and conscience both off duty, sugges- tion is in control. ‘The moral atmosphere where drinking and revelling are being indulged, is not of the most elevating, and the way is opened for de- signs and purposes which are not of the best, but THE SUPER-BELIEFS 123 against which the victim has no normal powers to resist. This explains why the first steps from chastity are often made when drinking is first in- dulged. All of these evils and temptations are present when spiritual healers induce light hypnosis as the preliminary necessity for their line of suggestion. Fortunately to-day the psychology of spiritual healing is so little understood by those who prac- tice it, and healers are generally so sincere, honour- able and benevolent in their interest, that this dan- gerous aspect of the practice has not produced much serious trouble. But it does not take the designing long to discover what is going on. Those who are familiar with the history of spirit- ism during the last half of the last century when it was on its second lap, know that this evil power of suggestion opened the way for temptations that demoralized the movement of that day and wrought its ruin. If such a powerful, mysterious and potent force as suggestion is to be employed at all, those who are allowed to use it should possess intelligent knowledge of the technic of its physiological and psychological nature, and be subject to responsible regulation by State or Federal authority. It is be- cause of the evil consequences accompanying the use of suggestion that many of the leading hypno- tists have abandoned hypnotism and the use of direct suggestion upon the will with the reason and conscience off duty, and taken up psycho- analysis. The psychoanalyst does not induce light hypnosis or endeavour to force his idea upon the 124 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF patient’s mind to assist decision. This is what all neurotics long to have done for them. ‘They have a cowardly fear of making decisions, and physi- cians feel that it is a great mistake to encourage this desire. The analyst endeavours to lead his patient away from passive dependence and the receptive attitude induced by all suggestion systems, and compel him to use his own reason, powers of intelligent criticism, common sense, will and con- science. In other words, the effort is made to get the patient to start up his own human machinery, and let it do its own work. When this has been accomplished, the patient is capable of meeting the problems of life once more normally, which is, in- dependently and victoriously. Dr. Jung describes the system of analytical psychology thus: In psychoanalysis we are dependent upon the pa- tient and his judgment for the reason that the very nature of analysis consists in leading him to a knowl- edge of his own self. The principles of psychoanaly- sis are so entirely different from those of therapeutic suggestion that they are not comparable (Analytical Psychology, p. 208). The problem of spiritual healing is now clearly before us. Body, mind and spirit all combine to maintain health and produce disturbances which create ill-health. But of these disturbances, sev- enty-five per cent. are directly traceable to psycho- logical causes which upset both mind and body and thus produce functional diseases. Therefore in the adult as well as in the child, the care of the soul is three times as important as the care of the body. By common consent religion is by nature best THE SUPER-BELIEFS 125 adapted to furnish the soul with the nourishment, training, discipline and exercise necessary to keep it spiritually and morally fit. Mathematics, sci- ence and history throw a large balance on the side of the importance of religion. We have seen, and shall see further, that those who turn to super- belief cults are conscious of this religious need, which they have, for some thoughtless or foolish reason, denied their spirits. Having allowed a lifetime accumulation of inhibitions against the Church and historic Christianity to block the way for a return to these sources for help, these needy middle-lifers naturally turn to the occult. In the last chapter of The Non-Sense of Christian Sct- ence, we have analyzed the psychology of its appeal to this type of person. What is there said of Christian Science is in some degree true of all super-belief cults, they are ‘‘ Get-Truth-Happiness- Health-Quick Schemes.” The physically, intellec- tually, spiritually, or psychologically bankrupt middle-lifer needing speculative profits upon the little of life he has left to invest, is tempted to gamble. He needs the aid of the magical and the miraculous. But the miracles which these bankrupt middle- lifers desire wrought for their special benefit, can- not occur in this rational universe; this they know well, so they move over into the occult world where they are alleged to take place under the laws of its pseudo-science. If we have correctly ana- lyzed the nature of these super-belief cults, they lead us back to the pre-scientific age of magic. And we are not in ignorance of the moral and 126 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF spfritual effects of this type of thing. Among all primitive races, magic has invariably produced a deterioration in the moral, spiritual and intellectual life of the people who have come under its spell, while theism has always elevated them. As some one has well said: ‘‘ One leads to deviltry and im- morality. The other slowly works the race up to higher planes of life and conduct. To put them upon the same level is to misinterpret the whole proofs of the racial beginnings of religion.” It is also to mistake the source of the power back of all spiritual and moral progress. Benevolent patron- age and over-generous toleration of these super- belief cults as legitimate and satisfactory substi- tutes for medical science, psychology and theism is based upon profound and unpardonable igno- rance of their true nature and history. If nothing better were within reach, such a practice might be excusable, but deliberately to disregard and ignore the mightiest and most wholesome preventive and restorative force of this character known in his- tory, is not fair either to the individual or society. During recent years medical science has been devoting its genius to working out preventive measures. ‘To its hospitals and sanitariums it has added its preventoriums. ‘To its Materia Medica it has added serums and antitoxins, to anatomy and physiology, hygiene and sanitation, to pepsin, prescribed diet and the balanced ration. If it be true that seventy-five per cent. of those who seek the aid of physicians are suffering from ailments which have a psychological origin, is it not time for society to turn its attention more determinedly THE SUPER-BELIEFS 127 and intelligently to the subject of preventive meas- ures in this field? We believe that it can be scientifically demonstrated that the modern Chris- tian Church properly equipped and conducted in all of its departments of activity, developing the fourfold life—treligious, intellectual, moral, and social, cannot be equalled as a spiritual preven- torium. If physicians, psychologists and sociolo- gists should undertake to devise a preventorium for this very purpose they would be forced to duplicate the modern Christian Church, or provide some institution that is inferior. Is not consider- able of our present-day spiritual, moral and psy- chological trouble directly traceable to the fact that from sixty to eighty per cent. of the members of society, young and old, habitually absent them- selves from the Church’s worship and service? Thus their needy lives are robbed of the very pre- ventive and restorative spiritual forces which the Church is in a position to furnish. Our study of sub-belief, super-belief, occultism and _ spiritual healing has directed attention to the vast area of neglected spiritual life over which the occult still holds sway. That normal religious belief and re- ligious experience are the specifics for all troubles which spring up in this field, is what we hope to show in the next division of our subject. : 4 ull NaS Seat ce egy : fi f ae A waa Aa 4 PART III NORMAL RELIGIOUS BELIEF V BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD \ ), y E now enter the third divisional area of our subject—Normal Religious Belief. Its attractive features never stand out quite so clearly as when directly contrasted with those of its chief rivals—the realms of sub-belief and super-belief. In the subcredian catacombs where chronic unbelievers dwell in the midst of the sepulchral remains of dead religious beliefs, we found the dark, sunless atmosphere so enervating that it taxed our spiritual vitality to the limit. Our short stay in the underground domain of un- belief was long enough to make us glad to return to the sunlit surface where faith and hope shine. In the second divisional area, we were trans- ported up into the dizzy, ethereal heights of the supercredian realm, above the reach of reason, in what is called the domain of ‘‘ Divine Truth ”—as though truth could be anything more or less than truth—where occultism casts its mysterious and magic shadow over all the landscape. Here we were compelled to breathe intellectual air so rarefied that reason itself is extracted from it. Naturally such rarefied air has a tendency to produce in nor- mal human beings a sense of dizziness in which one’s mental equilibrium is easily lost. Only those whose intellectual lungs and spiritual heart are strong, should linger long in such strange religious regions. It is as much of a relief to come down Ny? 132 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF out of the clouds of misbelief into the natural realm of normal religious belief as it was to come up out of the subcredian realms of unbelief. There is no place like our spiritual homeland! Up to this time we have used the words normal religious belief without defining what we included in the idea, so that it now becomes necessary, be- fore we go farther, to mark off more distinctly the boundary of this third area. If sub-belief is believing less than normal and super-belief is be- lieving more than normal, what is normal religious belief? Who is to be the judge of what is normal? Instead of turning over this question to a small minority of experts, either theologians, scientists or philosophers, we propose to allow hu- manity as a whole to give the answer. No single group, however intelligent or honest, is capable of deciding this important question for their fellows. Humanity as a whole is the only unit in position to reach the truth. For it gathers up in its age- long racial inheritance the necessary data upon which to base a conclusion. Specialists are liable to exclude the testimony of those groups and in- dividuals against which they have prejudices. When humanity is made the judge, the child, the youth, the maiden, fathers, mothers, those in mid- die life, the aged, the ignorant, the learned, the rich, the poor, the good, the bad, the teachers, statesmen, physicians, scholars, missionaries, mer- chants, manufacturers, financiers, the labourer, the capitalist, every component part of society has a voice in the decision. selected groups are always partial, but a cross- BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 133 section of humanity representing the same general type of civilization automatically decides what is its normal religious belief. The belief which the majority of this most inclusive group finds to be the most natural, reasonable and spiritually satisfy- ing for the maintaining of the ideals and social institutions of the civilization they have reached, together with the intellectual, moral, social and spiritual ideals and character of the individual, is the normal religious belief of this group. So far as Western civilization is concerned it is an indis- putable fact that in its most highly civilized nations the great majority of people find the religious be- lief in a Personal God such as the Bible declares and Jesus reveals, to be the most natural, reason- able and spiritually satisfying. The moment we descend into the subcredian beliefs or ascend up into supercredian beliefs we leave the majority and join some minority group. What type of civilization these minority groups would build, the history of ancient civilizations in which they had their chance has shown. Be that as it may, we are on firm historical and scientific ground when we affirm that belief in a Personal God such as the Bible declares and Jesus reveals, is the normal religious belief of Western civilization. There- fore this normal religious belief will claim our at- tention in this chapter. Let your minds be relieved at the outset of the fear that we are going to plunge you into a deep discussion of the theological aspects of this sub- ject. We are going to confine our study strictly to the psychological phases of the problem. And 134 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF as the psychologist, for the last twenty-five years, has been trying hard to persuade the world to take him seriously as the only real theologian, we ought to have an interesting time. The psychological study of religion came into prominence in America in 1896, when Mr. James A. Leuba, then fellow in Clarke University, Worcester, Massachusetts, published the study of religious conversion with which we are already fa- miliar. The invasion of the religious realm by science is justified by the nature of psychology. Mr. Leuba says: The subjective facts of religion belong to psychol- ogy. It is the duty and privilege of that science to extend its beneficial sceptre over this realm. There can be no dispute over the claim that the subjective facts of religion belong to psychology, and that it is the duty and privilege of this branch of science to make its contribution to the cause of religion. We might credit psychology with a dis- interested scientific desire to assist the Church were it not for the next statement. Mr. Leuba adds: The time is particularly favourable for such an expansion; the power that ruled during the past cen- turies has grown senile, its authority is denied, and a painful anarchy prevails. Let psychology accept the succession that falls to it by right. This sounds very much like the premature obituary which the expectant heir to the throne might write for the still-reigning monarch. The designs which psychology has upon the throne of religious authority are clear. The Church has BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 135 grown senile, its sceptre has actually fallen out of its palsied hand, and anarchy prevails. To save the day, and reéstablish order within the realm of religion, psychology—the legitimate heir of the kingdom of the Church—proposes “to accept the succession that falls to it by right.” From the very beginning it is evident that psychology has been inspired by the ambition to become the queen of sciences, to make its professors supersede the preachers of the Church as authorities in the realm of religion, and psychological assemblies take the place of religious services. And in the life of many educated moderns this dream of succession has been realized. To them a treatise on religion by a professor of psychology is the last word on theology, and the number of Sunday gatherings announced in the religious columns of the New York Saturday dailies, bearing a variety of psy- chological titles, indicates that psychological assem- blies are becoming increasingly popular as substi- tutes for Christian worship. Among the many advantages which are expected to result from this succession, Mr. Leuba calls our attention to this one: The soul midwifery now extensively, but igno- rantly, practised by revivalists and pastors could be based upon a positive knowledge of the psychology of regeneration. This introduces us to the main theme of the thesis, which is a study of religious conversion. At first we rather resented the suggestion that the queen of sciences should so soon be dragged down 136 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF from her throne and set at work as a soul-mid- wife. But the delicate and regal task of soul mid- wifery is the most important in the world, at least when in charge of the queen of sciences. With “positive knowledge of the psychology of regeneration” the rebirth of souls should no longer be left in the hands of the bungling pastors and revivalists. Spiritual birth control should be- come an established reality in the Church, and the supply of converts reduced to scientific regulation. Converts can thus be made to order out of any human material the preacher may have on hand, provided the psychologist is given time enough to produce them. ‘This idea held attractive possi- bilities for ambitious pastors whose annual report of additions to the Church needed decided boosting or padding. Experience has revealed one serious defect in this very scientific and clever scheme. Wherever a professor of psychology has taken over the man- agement of the religious life of an individual or group, arid psychological assemblies have been sub- stituted for religious worship, the control has been present but the rebirths have been absent. Wherever this type of scientific psychology has been given full sway, the birth rate of souls has rapidly declined, the very regeneration it was to regulate has ceased to function, and one of the most distinctive types of religious experience has gradually become extinct. We who are psychol- ogists are convinced that this suicidal practice is not due to psychology. In some way the net re- sults of the experiment seem to indicate that the BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 137 psychologist has bungled the profession of soul midwifery even more clumsily than the pastor and the revivalist. To the pastor and the Church, this defect is vital; to the psychologist it is a mere incident not worthy of consideration. As soon as the old species of convert disappears from the religious realm, the psychologist removes the label “ re- ligious”’ from its dead body and stamps it upon the remnants of moral consciousness which yet survives from the racial inheritance, and proclaims these the only important subjective facts of re- ligious consciousness anyway. ‘Thus an entirely new type of religious personality is brought into existence. We will allow Mr. Leuba to describe it. He says: Religious men there are, who have no belief in an interfering Providence, and consequently none in prayer. Responsibility they feel toward none but themselves, and those affected by their doings. Im- mortality of the “ego” they possibly cannot even hope for. Adoration, worship, devotion, piety in the common acceptance of the term, are incompatible with these negations. Outwardly they have no cult, return no thanks, and ask for nothing from the pow- ers of the world, for they know them to be deaf to such supplication and insensible to human thankful- ness. The most exalted religious consciousness is consistent with the negative intellectual creed sketched above (American Journal of Psychology, Vol. VII). It may be true that “the most exalted religious consciousness is consistent with the negative in- tellectual creed sketched above,” but this all de- pends upon one’s definition of religion. One thing is 138 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF certain those religious experiences which Professor James has selected for study in his Varieties of Religious Experience, and those religious person- alities which the Bible and religious history have been in the habit of featuring as most typical are all excluded. If one starts the study of religion with this body of data eliminated, it is quite simple to build up an entirely new type of religion. We have taken the pains to outline a few of the ideas with which psychology started its study of religion. If one will examine the quotations above given from Mr. Leuba’s maiden thesis in the psychology of religion it will be apparent that the atheistic and humanistic theories which are so valiantly defended in Professor Leuba’s recent books, A Psychological Study of Religion, and The Belief in God and Im- mortality are already accepted as the basis of pro- cedure at the outset, and are not the result of years of investigation within the field of psychology of religion. In the study of Religious Conversion, as the letters which we have in our possession show, Mr. Leuba first eliminated the distinctively re- ligious elements which the writers all included, and confined his study to another class of psychological experiences. When Professor William James published his Varieties of Religious Experience, Professor Leuba wrote a long critical review of this book, selecting out this religious factor which Professor James included and gave first place, and endeavoured to prove that Professor James had erred in recognizing its reality. At the very be- ginning of his study of the subject of religious phenomena Professor Leuba was the victim of a BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 139 complex which influenced his motived-will-to-think and hopelessly biased his selective attention in gathering facts for consideration. His failure to overcome this trauma, or life-wound, which caused a maladjustment in his life toward the religion of historical Christianity, has made him a chronic unbeliever. In The Belief in God and Immortality, he tells us that 86.8 of the eminent psychologists in this country are afflicted with the same unfortunate malady. Consequently they also suffer, as do all of their pupils, from the same perverted point of view. ‘These eminent psychologists are perfectly honest in their belief that they have given religion a fair and unbiased chance to prove the existence of an objective God. They have searched the historical origins of religious customs, rites and ceremonies, they have analyzed the conscious and the unconscious mind and they find no disturb- ances either in thought, feeling or will which can be stamped as clearly indicating the presence of Deity operating in human personality. These findings are of great value; they are psycholog- ically correct as far as they go. But why expect to find “special disturbances’? when God always works through the natural channels of the uni- verse and personality to accomplish His purposes? That some vital factor in religious experience has eluded the analysis of these psychologists is now becoming very evident. The characteristic of twentieth century science is the discovery of forces and elements whose existence the nineteenth century scientists failed to find. 140 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF The late Dr. Charles P. Steinmetz in an article in Harpers’ Magazine, entitled Science and Religion, gives a good illustration of this point. He says: In studying the transformations of matter, the chemist records them by equations of the form: (1) 2He + O02 =2H,O0 . . For nearly a hundred years chemists wrote and accepted this equation ; innumerable times it has been experimentally proven by combining 4 parts of hydro- gen and 32 parts of oxygen to 36 parts of water vapour; so that this chemical equation would appear as correct and unquestionable as anything can be. Nevertheless, it is wrong, or rather incomplete. It does not give the whole event, but omits an essential part of it, and now we write it: (2) 2He + Og = 2HeO + 203,000 J. which means: The matter and the energy of 2 gram molecules of hydrogen, and the matter and energy of 8 gram mole- cules of oxygen, combine to the matter and energy of 2 gram molecules of water vapour and 293, 000 joules, or units, of free energy. Dr. Steinmetz points out that because this “ free energy ” appeared as flame, heat, mechanical force, when these chemical elements were put together, it was regarded as a mere incident. But it is now recognized that “ energy” is an essential part of matter. A similar discovery has been made by psychologists concerning the emotions in person- ality. Until recently, they, like free energy, were disregarded as incidental accompaniments of cer- tain psychological states. The discovery of the unconscious mind has established them as an elemental part of the psychological phenomena in BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 141 which they appear. Omit them, and you no longer have the same psychological states. Scientific dieticians for years thought they knew all of the elements in food. But long experimenting at last revealed the presence of vitamin, an hitherto un- discovered food element, whose presence is neces- sary for health. Like the free energy of the chem- ist and the emotions of the psychologists, vita- min was always present and operating, but un- discovered. And now Einstein appears upon the scene with his theory of Relativity and caps the climax of the discovery of the hitherto unknown forces in the universe by pointing out that mass, equality, gravitation, time and space are all pos- sessed of factors not yet recognized by science. These discoveries have made the great scientists very humble. ‘The universe constructed upon the theories of nineteenth century science no longer exists for the modern scientist. The next great discovery of the unknown may be that of the “Unknown God.” The trend of modern scientific discoveries during the last twenty years has all been in this direction. Whatever modification of Einstein’s theory of relativity finally forces its way into modern scientific conceptions, there will never be a complete return to the pre-Einstein scientific universe. His theories will no doubt undergo as radical changes as Darwin’s theory of evolution, but the new theories will all be coloured by his discoveries. And this newly constructed scientific universe, which has been on the way for many years, gives God as good a standing-ground as any 142 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF of the facts of science which are back of the visible and invisible universe. And this is all that the theologian has a right to ask of material science and psychology. One fact which is now established is that the new epistomology lays down as the condition of any observed fact that con- tribution made by the observer. The frame of reference in which the observer is located alters the character of his observations. The non- religious scientist is simply out of the frame of reference so that the psychological data of actual experience are not within his range of observation or knowledge. Therefore the irreligious psychologist is forced to borrow all of his data from the dead experiences of others. What they recall, what they have re- flected upon, what has been embalmed in a book, is taken into the laboratory and dissected and ex- amined. This is important. But it seriously limits the field of knowledge of the non-believer. Biological facts are as important to this field of study as dead experiences. And these are always obtained through the examination of living organ- isms and living experience. Those in whose life religion is actually functioning in its normal manner, and who supplement this religious ex- perience by a study of other lives in which it is also naturally functioning, possess first hand bio- logical data. Evelyn Underhill says: Indeed, all who are not thoroughgoing materialists must regard the study of the spiritual life as in the truest sense a department of biology; and any ac- count of man which fails to describe it, as incomplete. BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 143 Where the science of the body is studied, the science of the soul should be studied too (The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day, p. 245). Many years before Einstein pointed out the contribution of the observer to the correct knowl- edge of any fact, Professor James insisted upon this truth at least within the range of those facts which deal with sentiments and emotions. He said: In all matters of sentiment one must have “ been there” one’s self in order to understand them. One can never fathom an emotion or divine its dic- tates by standing outside it (Op. cit., p. 325). In another place he extends this idea to cover the difference between perception and reflection. He remarks: There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late (Op. cit., p. 457). If this point is well taken, the less religious a person, the less qualified is he to comprehend the mysteries of religious experience; and the more religious a person is, the more readily will he be able to fathom them. ‘This principle is in strict accord with all art and science. So that by the terms laid down by science, the non-religious per- son is ruled out as unqualified to understand the nature of the genuine, first-hand data of religious experience. His handicap cannot be overcome, save through some vital religious experience. Along this same line M. Bergson says: | 144 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF If intellect is charged with matter and instinct with life, we must squeeze them both in order to get the double essence from them (Creative Evolution, p. 178). The discovery of the unconscious mind has brought the previously despised “ instinct” to the fore again. We are now told that “the story of the life of man and the story of the life of mind begin with instincts.” Biology and psychology start with instincts as the racial inheritances with which the human being is endowed. ‘These in- stincts are found stored away for safe keeping in the depository of the unconscious mind. In the biology of the physical life, the mental life, the moral life, they are given first place. In the biol- ogy of the spiritual life they have not yet come into their own. ‘This is destined to be the next field for investigation. Let us survey it. When we squeeze instinct, in addition to the physical, mental and moral urges which come forth and are found to be parts of the libido, or desire, there also oozes out an insatiable longing of the human spirit for a larger, fuller, spiritual life. This elemental instinct pushes the heavily, racially burdened human spirit forward in three distinct directions—the intellectual, the social, the moral. And in none of these lines is this spirit satisfied with the humanistic limitations which psychology and sociology have sought to impose upon it. Fach of these urges introduces a new creative element into the life of the individual. These urges of the spirit are the mightiest of all those which have become historically recognized. They BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 145 command: the physical, mental and moral urges obey. This instinct gives the human spirit no rest until its cravings for a fuller life in all three departments is seriously striven for, and in an in- creasing degree realized. ‘The degree of peace and satisfaction which a human being experiences cor- responds to the measure of this attainment. This is what the psychologist has in mind when work- ing for the unification of life. But he fails to per- ceive that this unification cannot be successfully gained save as each aspect of the psychic life— thought, feeling and will are satisfied in a larger than individual, larger than social way. ‘This urge of the spirit demands cosmic unification. And this can never be attained without the help of Monotheism. The greatest modern philosophers have not over- looked this cosmic urge. Professor Eucken in a lecture, which the author had the privilege of hearing him deliver at the Yale Club in 19138, among other things said: The chasm between the finite and infinite is bridged by inner life, which is in relation to both. Man is thus clearly discerning his kinship with uni- versal life. He is a voluntary coodperator in the movement of the universe which is toward spiritual life. There is a coherent relation. If man were but a part of this great materialistic evolution, a cog in the machine, it would be folly for him to attempt to lift himself above it, and try to change things, and thus aspire to spiritual perfection. As a matter of fact man has at no sphere in life accepted a ready-made, appointed place, that he must be content with. He has always felt himself superior, 146 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF and as a superior being he has set himself to changing things and making them better. This is the secret of all progress. The desire to make things better, and man’s feeling that it is possible. In a remarkable essay on Reflex Action and Theism, Professor James makes this interesting statement about God. He says: Into this debate about his existence, I will not pretend to enter. I must take up humbler ground, and limit my ambition to showing that a God, whether existent or not, is at all events the kind of being which, if he did exist, would form the most adequate possible object for minds framed like our own to conceive as lying at the root of the universe. My thesis, in other words, is this: that some outward reality of a nature defined as God’s nature must be defined, is the only ultimate object that is at the same time rational and possible for the human mind’s con- templation. Anything short of God 1s not rational, anything more than God is not possible, if the human mind be in truth the triadic structure of impression, reflection, and reaction, which we at the outset al- lowed (The Will to Believe, etc., p. 116). Given the human mind constructed as psychol- ogy agrees it is constructed, on this triadic struc- ture with which we have been dealing, Professor James concludes: “ Anything short of God is not rational, anything more than God is not possible.” We might accept this statement as sufficient for psychology. But this is only our starting point. We now wish to show that every great historical religion, every parasitic religion, every scientific substitute for religion, is forced to make some provision which will recognize the three instinctive urges which the triadic structure of the human BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 147 mind creates. They are personalized in the Chris- tian doctrine of the Trinity, and they form the basis for the three normal religious beliefs which give the subjects of this division of our study. This may seem a long way around to arrive at our subject—Belief in a Personal God. But the human spirit leads the psychologist by this route. Why does the chronic unbeliever deny the exist- ence of a Personal God? ‘To give him full credit for sincerity, he honestly believes that his scientific knowledge has made such belief impossible. But the psychologist knows that this is not the real reason. For some reason, he has lost his religious belief in a Personal God, and is compelled to seek some other cosmic substitute for it that will ap- pease the irresistible instinctive urge of his spirit for a satisfactory relation with the cosmic reality in which he finds himself such a very small factor. The scientific theory, or faith, that this is a rational universe governed by law offers him the most intellectually satisfying substitute within his grasp, and it promises him the best security. One fact only mars the peace of the irreligious scientific mind; it is the belief in the existence of an om- nipotent, omniscient Personal God at large in this law-governed universe. A God with whom His Children can communicate through prayer. A God who answers prayer. You will notice that Professor Leuba gives this secret away in his maiden thesis in the passage already quoted, when he remarks: “‘ who have no belief in an interfering Providence and consequently none in prayer.” The presence of an omnipotent God in this uni- 148 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF verse upsets all the calculations of the materialist’s scientifically established relations to reality. The peace of mind which scientific faith brings, is dis- turbed when it encounters an “ interfering God.” Therefore the chronic unbeliever strives to get back his peace of mind by denying the existence of this disturbing God. As soon as he has done this in thoroughgoing fashion, his inner life is somewhat unified, and a certain kind of peace of mind is obtained. If one’s problem is moral, as was Nietzsche’s, the same tactics are used. ‘The moral issue, in spite of every attempt to reduce it to purely social dimensions, is ultimately cosmic. And every living soul feels this deep down in the heart. The moral imperative has its ultimatum resolved into two alternatives: Either my will or ‘ Thine” be done. Ina civilization where the normal religious belief is monotheistic, there is no escape from the surrender of one’s will to the righteous demands of a Sovereign God, except through virtual denial of His sovereignty or existence. The chronic, unre- pentant sinner saves his spiritual life from com- plete disorganization by denying the existence of God. Nietzsche kept incessantly reiterating the words: “God is dead. God is dead.” Brought up in a Christian home, he was forced to keep this idea in the foreground of consciousness to keep up his fight against Christianity. But the strain was too much for his mind. Had he not come from a Christian home, with high moral ideals and strong religious faith, his fight would not have ‘ been so fierce, or so disastrous. BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 149 Here is another angle of this same truth. Why did Mrs. Eddy deny the existence of the material universe? For the very same psychological reason that the materialist, the chronic unbeliever, and the chronic sinner, deny the existence of God. There is always some cosmic urge in the back- ground of such radical denials. The new scien- tific theories which were raging around New Eng- land in her early years, upset all of her inherited religious beliefs. But this new science was even more incomprehensible to her untutored mind than the old Calvinistic theology which it attacked. And she believed there were many others in the same predicament. So she chooses the other horn of the dilemma, and straightens out her intellectual and spiritual perplexities by denying the existence of the very material universe which modern science was making such a disturbing reality. This course is as natural and as psychologically justifiable as the course which the chronic unbeliever and atheist adopt. And it brings the same unification of per- sonality and peace of mind,—and no more. Why does the spiritist force himself to believe in spirit communication? He honestly believes that his knowledge of the scientific proofs of spirit communication compel this belief. But as we have already shown, this evidence is powerless in itself to make converts. The real psychological reason for adopting this belief is because his spiritual concern has been suddenly extended be- yond the limits of self and society, the range of humanism, by the death of a very dear loved one. It now has cosmic dimensions and it must have a 150 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF costnic faith to support it. ‘The mourner has lost his faith in a Personal God which is the natural bridge over this great chasm between this world and the next, and his acute, tragic bereavement re- quires some substitute belief which will satisfy the grieving spirit, and give some hope of immortality. Whittier could sing: I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. To one who can say even that, this religious faith is sufficient. It is cosmic, it is personal. But the spiritist is always a person who has lost this faith. Scientific faith has no comfort to furnish. Its creed is annihilation of individuality. Spiritism is another curious blend of science and religion, obtained by sacrificing the essential char- acteristics of both. It retains the names only, and for those who can accept this as a science and a religion, it brings some comfort. It makes no demand on religious faith. It produces the de- parted spirit and allows the mourner to communi- cation with him. This procedure it styles psychic science. It bridges the chasm between the finite and the infinite, this life and the next, through the medium and the control. ‘The cosmic urge which is back of spiritual healing we will take up in the chapter on prayer. Is it not curious how closely sub-belief and super-beliefs hang together from whatever angle they are viewed? All the essential varieties of cosmic faith in which the human spirit is led to } BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 151 put its trust are before us. Remaining systems represent some variation or blend of these. The pure scientific faith—materialism and humanism —denies the existence of God to get a right of way for science. It is born out of a lack of faith in the dependability of Personality in God. Its weak spot is in the spiritual or moral life of the in- dividual. The pure idealistic faith—such as Christian Science—has for its background a lack of faith in human reason. Its weak spot is always intellectual inability to master the scientific ex- planation of the universe and the philosophical relation between mind and matter. The intellec- tually strong and the spiritually weak prefer to take a chance on the side of science and human reason. ‘The intellectually weak prefer to take a chance on the side of super-belief religious cults. Between these two extremes are myriads of blends with these two points of view. Some with the balance turning in favour of science, and some in favour of religion, All such systems have the same fatal defect, they are one-sided. They do not include the whole of reality. To deny the objective reality of the material universe is to leave out one element in the cosmos which we human beings cannot ignore. To deny the objective reality of the spiritual universe is to leave out one of the essential elements of reality of which we are a conscious part. No such bisected reality will permanently satisfy the cosmic urge of the human spirit. M. Bergson has well said: The metaphysician that we each carry uncon- sciously within us . . . has its fixed require- 152 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF ments, its ready-made explanations, its irreducible propositions (Creative Evolution, p. 17). It is with this “ metaphysician that we carry unconsciously within us’ that we are now reckon- ing. All of its fixed requirements sooner or later must be met. By administering liberal doses of the anesthetic of utilitarianism or emotionalism it is possible to dope this metaphysician-within-us for atime. But the narcotic wears off, and the meta- physician-within-us awakens to demand with in- creasing insistence that its rightful requirements be satisfied. The individual does not always have a part in this awakening, but society and civiliza- tions do. That interpretation of the universe alone can survive and triumph which does full justice to the whole of reality, and thereby satis- fies the threefold urge of the instinctive human spirit. ‘That the Christian idea of God fulfills all of these requirements more perfectly than any other conception, we believe can be rationally and scientifically proven. In concluding this chapter let us note a few reasons. First. It offers a rational interpretation of the universe without denying the existence of, or cur- tailing in any degree, the objective reality of the material universe and the reign of law; and, with- out denying the existence of, or curtailing in any degree, the objective reality of the spiritual world. It makes its Personal God the creator of matter and spirit, the ruler of heaven and earth. Second. It insists that any ultimate explana- tion of reality, the reality which the facts of science—especially biology, sociology, and psychol- BELIEF IN A PERSONAL GOD 153 ogy—treveal, must be reduced to terms of Pur- posive Good Will. And Purposive Good Will, beginning with capitals, involves Personality. Third. It insists that in the last analysis Per- sonality is far more dependable and satisfying as a cosmic conception to the human spirit than either Principle or Law. It is not subjected to the rigid mechanical limitations of these ideas, it is elastic, resourceful, creative. The psychologist cannot help reminding the materialist that the thing which most fascinates him in the new scien- tific conception of the universe is not the reign of law, but the underlying conviction that knowledge and mastery of the secrets of nature offer to human personality control over this law and in- finite possibilities of creative progress. And this in its last analysis, is faith in benevolent person- ality, not individual, but cosmic. ‘The easiest and most natural transition for the human spirit from the finite to the infinite, from the seen to the un- seen, from the temporal to the eternal, from matter to mind, from mind to matter, is through the con- ception of a Personal God. ‘There is no possible escape from dualism, if matter and mind are both to be accorded their legitimate place in this uni- verse, except through the conception of a Personal God. For in personality alone do mind and mat- ter function together with mind progressively in the ascendency. In a universe where personality is becoming increasingly dominant, controlling and creative, nothing below personality, nothing less controlling and creative than personality, nothing as little as human personality, nothing as enmeshed 154 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF in the material universe as mere humanity, noth- ing that so easily can furnish materialists and idealists with opposing theories, can hope per- manently to hold the intelligent faith and respect of the developing human spirit. The conception of a Personal God such as Jesus Christ presents satisfies both the instinctive urges of the human spirit and its most highly developed intellectual, spiritual, moral and psychological needs. It seems to be the very truth of reality for which the human spirit hungers and thirsts. The Psalmist was a keen psychologist when he cried out: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God” (Psalm 42:1), Let us return again to Professor James’ psy- chological analysis of this truth. He says: A God, whether existent or not, is at all events the kind of being which, if he did exist, would form the most adequate possible object for minds framed like our own to conceive as lying at the root of the uni- verse. My thesis, in other words, is this: Anything short of God is not rational, anything more than God is not possible (The Will to Believe, p. 115). The science of psychology in this statement comes very close to checking up in its conclusions with the passage in Genesis which says: “ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him” (Gen. 1: 27). Upon this point, science and religion are in agreement. Vi BELIEF IN PRAYER ARLYLE in his essay on The Signs of the Times, arraigns the political philosophy of his day because it addresses itself to the primary, unmodified forces and energies of man which spring from pure selfishness. Its fundamental principle he states thus: Men are to be guided only by their self-interests. Good government is a good balancing of these: and except a keen eye and appetite for self-interest, re- quires no virtue in any quarter. In 1912, Professor Rudolf Eucken wrote a little book entitled Back to Religion. In it he shows that the complete secularization of modern life has opened the way “ for a man to make his highest aim his own personal advancement and utmost selfish gain, in total unconcern for any one else ” (See p. 18). As long as this “utmost selfish gain”’ aim is confined to the struggles of a few isolated individuals, society is able to absorb its poison, and no serious social consequences result. But when Professor Eucken noticed that these same selfish principles which controlled individual conduct were gradually being extended to political, business, labour groups and to national ideals, he became alarmed. ‘Trusts and combinations give expression to them in the capitalistic groups, unions in labour groups, and nationalism in nations. Like Carlyle he cries out: 155 156 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF Self-interest is the single rule of action, the moral solidarity of mankind is relaxed and dissolved. The danger is imminent that the end may be a war of all against all (Bellum omnium contra omnes) (Op. cit., Doren Within two years of this warning, the World War was raging, and one nation was pressing its utmost selfish gain against the world in total un- concern for every other nation’s rights. Pro- fessor Eucken lived in a nation where the principle of self-interest had been exalted into a national ideal, and he saw the danger ahead. But no in- stinct is as blind and unreasonable as selfishness. The ordinary human powers never have been able successfully to cope with it. Now that the war is over, self-interest has made impossible a satisfactory peace. And even. in America where international strife does not dis- turb, the industrial war and the profiteers’ war “ of all against all” is raging. No permanent peace will be secured as long as each group sets its own personal advancement and utmost selfish gain above all else. As a great philosopher, Professor Fucken came to the conclusion that religion was the only power known to the human mind which possesses the ability to grapple successfully with the elemental selfishness in the heart of man. Therefore he started the slogan: “ Back to Re- ligion.” We have already noted some of the in- dividual consequences which have resulted from unbelief and misbelief. But before our age will ever rally around the standard of normal religious belief, it will have to be shown that cutting normal BELIEF IN PRAYER 157 religion out of the life of the individual leads to serious social consequences. For, if this religion is the vitamin of the spirit of man, this fact should become manifest in the life of the social organism as well as in the organism of human personality. Let us therefore take a little time to examine the present-day problems of the three fundamental in- stitutions of civilized society—The State, The Church, The Home. ! The State. When the controlling political philosophy of an age or nation assumes that “ Men are to be guided only by their self-interests,” and that “good government is a good balancing of these,’ statesmen have a right to become concerned for the fate of the civilization of that age, or the life of that nation. Democracy, at least, cannot hope to survive under such conditions, for its very life-principles are bound up with the general wel- fare. In America of late the old principle that “good government” is a good balancing of self- interests has created an entirely new phase of political manipulation. Political leaders no longer are content to win votes one by one through in- telligent and conscientious appeal to patriotic prin- ciples. They go after them en bloc. The labour bloc, the farm bloc, the capitalistic bloc, the wet bloc, the dry bloc, the veterans’ bloc, the Western bloc, the Southern bloc, etc., etc. The single motive to which this new bloc system of political manipulation appeals is self-interest. The sinister nature of the system lies in the fact that the mem- bers of each bloc farm out their personal moral, political and patriotic conscience to the leaders of 158 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF the bloc. They vote as a unit because it is to the interest of the bloc. And the bloc is a bloc of individual self-interests. During the recent elec- tion in New ‘York State, the writer knows a life- long prohibitionist who voted for Governor Smith, an out and out wet, simply because he belonged to a labour union, and the labour bloc was urged to vote for Smith. When loyalty to one’s bloc swallows up one’s moral and patriotic principles, democracy is transformed into an oligarchy which barters its principles for selfish- ness. And in any nation in which it is possible suc- cessfully to manipulate and carry political elections and secure legislative enactments of grave signif- icance to the national character by the bloc system, self-interest has already become the controlling political philosophy of the people. And some modern Thomas Moore might well sing: While yet upon Columbia’s rising brow The snowy smile of young presumption plays, Her bloom is poison’d and her heart decays! Even now in dawn of life, her sickly breath Burns with the taint of empires near their death. The true patriot cannot afford to close his eyes to the pernicious nature of this new develop- ment in political and legislative manipulation. So far as our great statesmen are concerned, they are all beginning to realize that a different spirit must be fostered in the affairs of State and industry if democracy is to survive. With striking unanimity they are turning to the same source for help to which Carlyle and Professor Eucken summoned BELIEF IN PRAYER 159 their readers. The England of Carlyle’s day and the Germany of Professor Eucken’s day refused to heed the warnings of their spiritual prophets, and both nations have had to pay the price of their spiritual and moral blindness. What will America’s response be? A few months before his death the late President Harding uttered these. memorable words: In spite of our complete divorcement of Church and State, quite in harmony with our religious free- dom, there is an important relationship between Church and nation, because no nation can survive if it.ever forgets Almighty God... . | Ji I were to utter a prayer for the republic to-night it would be to reconsecrate us in religious devotion, and make us abidingly a God-fearing people, a God- -loving peo- DICH: The failures of the past invariably have been pre- ceded by contempt for the law, by spiritual paralysis and moral looseness, all of which had their earlier reflex in the weakened influence of the Church. We know the helpful, exalting influence of our religious institutions. We shall be made stronger as they be- come stronger. Religion is the only power known to humanity equal to sublimating this instinct of selfishness to the heights of patriotic loyalty and service. This is why all psychologists recognize its biological value. The Church. ‘The second social institution which is having many serious problems to-day is The Church. We are not so surprised to find the “secularizing of life” which Professor Eucken has characterized as the dominant spirit of the age, 160 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF worming its way into the affairs of State, but we should hardly expect it to invade the sacred pre- cincts of the Church whose Lord stressed service. Yet the most distinctive forward movements of the Church which have been organized in late years have been surcharged with the spirit of the age which puts its trust in money and machinery. The materialistic spirit of our day seems to believe that ecclesiastical machinery will generate spiritual power. Whereas ecclesiastical machinery is a consumer, not a producer, of spiritual power. It is a useful and efficient distributer of spiritual power, but it does not generate such power. It takes more spiritual power to run a large church plant with much machinery and many social activi- ties than to run a small one with less machinery to keep revolving and less social activity to keep up to the high Christian standard. But it is difficult to impress this truth upon the modern mind. Even as ardent an apostle of spiritual values as Roger W. Babson, the statistician, has not escaped its perils. In a recent article in The Continent, he says: The Church is wondering why it is losing its grip on the masses. It wonders why lodges, mutual bene- fit associations, insurance companies and other or- ganizations are growing so rapidly while the Church is lagging behind. One real reason is that the Church is using outgrown methods to reach the people, while lodges and mutual benefit associations are using mod- ern insurance methods. Of course, Mr. Babson has not taken the trouble to orient these ideas to his own deep faith in BELIEF IN PRAYER 161 spiritual values, or he would see how subversive they are to his own true position. Mutual benefit associations and insurance methods make a direct appeal to self-interest. They are in strict accord with the spirit of the age. But the Church is committed to the spirit of self-sacrifice and service. It cannot serve two masters. It cannot success- fully serve God and mammon. In attempting to serve both, it always loses the help of each. It must choose this day whom it will serve. The issue is clear-cut: It must appeal to self-interest and temporal securities or to self-sacrifice and service. The first appeals to the immediate motive, and to what Carlyle characterizes as “the primary, un- modified forces and energies of man which spring from pure selfishness.”’ It accepts humanity as it is, and is content to let it remain on this lower level. The second appeals to the struggling urges of the human spirit in their fight for victory over the material world, which seeks their life. It be- lieves in moral and spiritual progress and refuses to accept human nature as it is, as the highest achievement of the human soul. Its task is sub- limation of the ego. It throws out its challenge to the higher nature of man, and is constantly sur- prised by the responses which it receives. Jesus had no hesitation in making His choice. He be- lieved in, and appealed unreservedly to, the highest in man. At the very outset of His ministry He said: Whosoever will come after me, let him deny him- self, take up his cross and follow me. For whoso- 162 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF ever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel’s, the same shall save it (Mark 8: 35-30). Those who are His disciples have already made the choice which discipleship demands, and so should His Church. When it remains unswerv- ingly loyal to the principles of Jesus Christ, the Church will be in a position to assist the State in its struggle against the disastrous spread of the principle of self-interest. The Home. ‘The home is the most elemental of all the social institutions of civilized society. Here, if anywhere, we should expect to find the disintegrating force of self-interest rigidly ex- cluded. If it should happen to creep in through the developing life of the children, it should never be allowed to disturb the mutual relations between husband and wife. Yet the divorce court fur- nishes an alarming record of the breakdown of the marriage relation and the break-up of the home. No phase of American life is causing more genuine concern than the present status of the marriage re- lation. Judge Lindsey of the Denver Domestic Relations Court, speaking in New York City re- cently, expressed himself as very pessimistic over the situation. He pronounced marriage a broken reed, and an institution which has collapsed under the strain of modern conditions. During the last four years, the relation between marriages and divorces has changed from four to one to two to one. Since 1890, a radical change has taken place. BELIEF IN PRAYER 163 Many remedies are suggested. It is urged that if it were made harder to get married and easier to get a divorce the situation would be improved. Judge Grant of Boston, President of Harvard Alumni Association, advocates the establishment of uniform Federal marriage and divorce laws. There is no doubt that there are important changes needed along these lines. Judge Lindsey regards the economic independence of women one of the vital reasons for the present state of affairs, and he does not see how under the conditions of modern civilization marriage can be saved. It is not our purpose to enter upon a discussion of the general phases of this most difficult problem. But some of its psychological aspects deserve more consideration than they have as yet received. The psychologist traces the collapse of the mar- riage institution back through the laws which govern both marriage and divorce, back through the new development of the economic independence of women, back of any alleged lowering of the moral standard on the part of husbands and wives, to the psychological maladjustments which trans- form these incidents into elements of discord. We will describe a case which is fairly typical. John and Helen were two equally popular young people. After a period of friendship, a court- ship of considerable length began in which each party marshalled all of their respective gifts and graces of personality to the one end of being agreeable, thoughtful and unselfish in their rela- tions with the other. And each found unusual satisfaction in so doing. Betrothal in due time 164 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF followed, and marriage in the end was the happy consummation of this relationship. ‘These two dominant personalities were now brought together in a much more intimate and constant contact. There was need for much more self-discipline and self-control, but for some reason the marriage ceremony brought to an abrupt end the previously marshalled control of temperament, temper, and selfishness. And traits which never made their appearance during courtship began to crop out. In every marriage one of three things is sure to occur. Either the stronger personality immedi- ately takes control of the situation and becomes the virtual head of the house; and the weaker per- sonality meekly submits and forms the habit of always giving in at the critical moment for the sake of peace; or, both generously give and take, like true sports, until an harmonious, workable adjustment has been established, personally bene- ficial to both, and domestic happiness results; or, being strong but undisciplined personalities, not possessing sufficient spiritual grace gracefully to yield when necessary, both insist upon having their individual tastes always gratified, and their whims always indulged. Now when an irresistible force encounters an immovable object, physics has quite a problem upon its hands. And when two such determined and strong personalities come together head-on, domestic happiness has quite a problem to solve. It so happens that John and Helen belong to this third group of young married people. It was not long after their marriage, that, relaxing the BELIEF IN PRAYER 165 splendid spirit of unselfishness, thoughtfulness and self-control, which had so increased the charm of their personalities during courtship, both began rather strenuously to indicate that they naturally expected the other to prove their love by cheer- fully yielding to the other’s wish. And when their desires were opposed, the irresistible force en- countered an immovable object, and a bitter struggle ensued. It is well to realize that no amended marriage or divorce laws, no change in the economic position of women will ever solve this problem in spiritual physics. There is only one way this can be done, it is by resolving these two static and kinetic forces, through the introduction of a third force from the outside. That third spiritual outside force is made available through religion, and in the case of John and Helen, they had shut this force out of their lives some years before. So watch a substitute creep in and ruin what otherwise might have been a happy marriage! Surprise and keen disappointment were experi- enced by both at this exhibition of such an un- expected lack of affection and sympathy. Strong, undisciplined personalities always expect others to give in to them, and they are at first amazed, then angered, when this is not done. For a time they nursed their grievances, then, being well disposed toward each other, they generously decided frankly to face the unfortunate situation of uncongenial tastes, and agreed to allow the other full liberty to go his or her own way. Naturally common interests became fewer and fewer, inevitably as the years went by the hours 166 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF of congenial companionship became less and less in number. Before they realized it, they had drifted so far apart that their relationship was almost formal. And, being attractive persons, each had found a friend who was genuinely in- terested in them, and sympathetic, and of con- genial tastes. Of course in each case this meant that a weaker and inferior companion had been found. But the same old pleasure of sympathetic companionship which was enjoyed in courtship was experienced, with the exception that all the concessions were made by the other party. From this point on, the way was short to domestic in- felicity, infidelity, and the divorce court. At the outset neither party had a thought of anything wrong. ‘The end was the inevitable result of the psychological failure of these two strong and un- disciplined personalities to make the necessary ad- justments required for their own good, and for a husband and wife who are going to live together in self-respect and mutual growing affection. This imaginary case can easily be duplicated in real life. Unless such psychological factors as these in the problem of marriage and divorce are faced and solved, all other remedies will ultimately fail to relieve the situation. Before the days of the emancipation of woman, the problem was not so acute. For in most cases woman did all of the adjusting; and when she did not, the man did. In the United States of America, woman has gained such a position of independence that the problem of marriage and divorce is somewhat unique. BELIEF IN PRAYER 167 In marriage to-day, both husband and wife are bound to have demands made upon their character and disposition which no human spirit in its primary, unmodified instinctive and impulsive reactions is capable of meeting. A Kansas editor in commenting upon Judge Lindsey’s pessimistic outlook upon marriage, sums the matter up in this fashion: The fact about marriage and the home, the only place where it is possible that children can be born and reared, is that the institution is still in advance of human nature. Just as humanity is not ready for peace and so must prepare for war and get it, so humanity is not altogether fit for the home and the family. By thus pleading the infirmity of human nature, a bid is made for general consent to lower the standards of marriage to its natural level. But, simply because some human natures have proven themselves unequal to the demands of home and family life why should the fact be ignored that there are conditions under which this very human nature can be made equal to the demands of mar- riage and the home? And why on the evolution- ary theory has humanity lapsed so markedly since 1890, and so rapidly since 1920? Why do those who are dealing with this problem devote all of their attention to the marriages that have failed? It is easy to understand why judges who sit on the benches of Domestic Relations Courts should have this side of the problem impressed upon their attention, and also lawyers who are constantly hearing of cases of domestic trouble. But divorces 168 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF are still news. And successful marriages are still in the majority. Why not study the secret of these successful marriages instead of trying to solve the problem by devoting attention exclusively to the failures? ‘The scientific method would be to insist that if one successful, happy marriage has been consummated, the possibility of the prop- osition has been established. It only remains now to obtain the secret, and repeat the experiment until it becomes known and communicable. In moral and spiritual problems the inclination is to relieve the strain by gearing down our moral and spiritual life-machinery to the speed of the failures. Why concede that the marriage laws are the only things that can be changed? Is there any reason why an intelligent effort should not be made to bring this frail human nature again up to the level of these ancient standards? ‘This is the constructive and progressive method. What has been dropped out of the lives of those who have made such tragic failures of their mar- riage venture? One thing is the vital influence of religion and the Church. In every new, higher social and moral adventure our human natures have needed the help of religion. The biological value of religion in the struggle of the human race up to its present moral and social heights 1s recog- nized. Dr. C. G. Jung, the great analytical psy- chologist, makes these most interesting observa- tions: At a time when a large part of mankind is begin- ning to discard Christianity, it is worth while to un- BELIEF IN PRAYER 169 derstand clearly why it was originally accepted (Psychology of the Unconscious, p. 258). The Christian Religion seems to have fulfilled its great biological purpose, in so far as we are able to judge (Op. cit., p. 85). The dynamic appearance of both religions (1. e., Christianity and Mithracism) betrays something of that enormous feeling of redemption which animated the first disciples and which we to-day scarcely know how to appreciate, for these old truths are empty to us. Most certainly we should still understand it, had our customs even a breath of ancient brutality, for we can hardly realize in this day the whirlwinds of the unchained libido which roared through the ancient Rome of the Cesars. The civilized man of the pres- ent day seems very far removed from that. He has become merely neurotic. So for us the necessities which brought forth Christianity have actually been lost, since we no longer understand their meaning. We do not know against what it had to protect us. For enlightened people, the so-called religiousness has already approached very close to a neurosis. In the past two thousand years Christianity has done its work and has erected barriers of repression which protect us from the sight of our own “ sinfulness ” (Op. cit., p. 80). This was all written before the World War. The history of what happened during the war is our answer to such superficial faith in human nature freed from the restraining power of vital religion. The wildest orgies of barbaric terrible- ness—Dionysian, Czesarian, Machiavellian, Bis- marckian—pale into May-day pleasantries in the presence of the terribleness of German atrocities. And the “whirlwinds of the unchained libido which roared through the ancient Rome of the 170 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF Cesars”’? seem like gentle midsummer zephyrs when compared with the euroclydon of unchained Kultur-libido which roared through the Europe of yesterday. If there has ever existed an age in which the biological usefulness of Christianity is needed, it is our age. ‘The need is international, national, ecclesiastical, domestic, individual. Look- ing back over the way we have come, does it not seem as though God is forcing modern civilization to recognize and accept its dependence upon Him, or stand by and witness the collapse of its most cherished dreams and institutions? ‘Too long separated from God and divorced from the per- sonal experiences of vital religious devotion, the human spirit quickly slips back into selfishness and brutality, and becomes unequal to the higher moral and spiritual demands of disinterested, unselfish, sacrificial service required to sustain international amity, democracy, a Christian Church founded upon the spirit of self-sacrifice and service, and a Christian home. If we allow the inner spiritual life to grow smaller, we cannot expect it to be equal to the stupendous task of sustaining the ideals and institutions of a civilization which grew out of a larger spiritual experience. Professor Fucken characterizes this age in the following manner: We moderns have set ourselves at work with all our might, have acquired technical perfection, have combined isolated achievements into great systems. t But while we have given every care and effort to the means and conditions of life, we have exposed ourselves to the risk of losing life itself, and BELIEF IN PRAYER 171 while performing astounding external feats, inwardly we have become smaller and smaller. Our work has separated itself from our souls, and it now reacts overmasteringly upon them and threatens to absorb them utterly (Op. cit., p. 9). Carlyle thus characterized the spirit of his age: “Thus is the Body-politic more than ever wor- shipped and tendered ; but the Soul-politic less than ever. Curiously enough this rule works both ways. We have already traced the development of self- interest from the controlling life-principle of the individual until it extends to business and political and national groups; in the same way the policy of worshipping and tendering the “ Body-politic ” to the neglect of the “Soul-politic,” reacts on the individual until he also comes to the conviction that the salvation of his body is of more impor- tance than the salvation of his own soul. Let us glance at the swing of this problem through the cycle it has described. The late Dr. Hyslop in his last book, Contact with the Other World, brings out this point most graphically. He says: Religion has become saturated with materialism and goes stumbling about blindly, groping for light and protection, while its erstwhile enemy, medicine, wears the crown of victory. The primary object of religion was to save the soul; that of medicine to save the body. As long as psychology could maintain that there was a soul and that its preservation was more important than that of the body, religion reigned supreme and medicine occupied a secondary place. The coffers of mankind were poured into the church. Materialism has turned the tables. Medicine 172 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF is now more lucrative than priestcraft. We do not believe we have any souls, but we are sure we have/ bodies (p. 432). This phase of the modern’s change of faith has been fostered by psychology and medical science. Note one result which has developed. We will let Dr. Hyslop present this. He continues: Materialism taught us to believe that, if we only had good enough doctors we could sin as we pleased. We consulted the physician and took his drugs in- stead of buying indulgences. The fact is that the one is no better than the other for buying release from moral responsibility (Op. cit., p. 438). We are now reaping the harvest of this mate- rialistic blunder. For, if the rapid growth of super-belief cults and spiritual healing systems teaches this age any truth it is that materia medica has its clearly defined limits. And that the care of the soul is as imperative as the care of the body. In fact, we learned that seventy-five per cent. of the ailments for which the physician or healer is sought are spiritual in their origin or nature. And the psychoanalyst has proven that the policy of ignoring or repressing wrong-doing, or sin, is one of the most prolific causes of neurosis. Not the confessional which offers a substitute for repent- ance, but confession and repentance are the natural, healthful remedies for wrong-doing and sin. The age that interprets sin in purely social terms is sowing the wind and is destined the reap the whirlwind. We are witnessing the heartening spectacle of the soul of the individual serving its BELIEF IN PRAYER 173 official notice upon the materialists of this age, that it will have its rightful share of consideration or ruin the whole cherished superstructure of modern civilization as sustained by The State, The Church, The Home. And it will go even farther than this in its re- venge, it will complete its ruin by destroying the very physicial body to whose selfish interests everything spiritual has been sacrificed. God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to per- form! It is most interesting to witness the two greatest sinners against the soul—psychology and medical science—whose hostile attitude toward re- ligion has helped to bring the present crisis down upon the heads of this age which put its trust in them, with their coats off digging like mad in the débris of the crash to extricate and save as many of the injured as possible through the spiritual means of suggestion, autosuggestion, psycho- analysis and the various branches of psychiatry. The desperation with which psychology and medical science are to-day struggling to repair the damage wrought by their materialistic blunders, opens the way for awakening humanity to the fundamental truth which religion has always em- phasized, that the soul needs care and nourish- ment as well as the body. And when this truth is sensed, religion will begin to come back into its legitimate place in the life of the individual and society. For it has no rivals and no equals as the preserver of the health of the spirit—the saviour of the soul. There is no more rational or scien- tifically sane wish possible than the one which the 174 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF friend who “loved Gaius in truth” expressed for him in these words: “ Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth”’ (8 John 2). Professor James pays this tribute to religion: Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the Subject’s range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power. A It seems to me that we ought to take it as meaning this added dimension of emotion, this enthusiastic temper of espousal, in regions where morality strictly so called can at best but bow its head and acquiesce (Op. cit., p. 48). It is at this point that we encounter the subject of this chapter—The Belief in Prayer. This also may have seemed a long way around, but the psy- chologist must follow the natural windings of the stream of life. And to our surprise we find that the great highways of life run parallel to the streams of life and in this way avoid the steep ascent and descent of short cuts. The intellectual difficulties involved in the problem of prayer are in this way widely scattered along the way. Those who wish to make the way of prayer difficult re- fuse to travel the great highways of life, and in- sist upon conducting their followers through by- ways and little travelled intellectual trails. This route tends to create the impression that the way of prayer is intellectually impassable. But even these routes lead at last to God. In The Science of Prayer we have purposely chosen one of these most difficult routes to show that they end at the throne of God. Provided one does not mind BELIEF IN PRAYER 175 rugged intellectual climbing, the Alpine heights can be scaled. In this chapter, however, we are not going to be called upon to take a very difficult intellectual route. The difficulties which we will encounter will be so widely scattered over the way, that they will be transformed into picturesque touches upon the landscape which relieve the mo- notony of the scenery. That prayer is one of the normal religious be- liefs requires little proof. At least when we allow our cross section of humanity to give its testimony. For it has been the heart of religious experience from the dawn of theistic faith, and is present in some form in all religions. The greatest religious geniuses of all centuries have drawn their. highest inspirations from it. The child finds it as natural to pray as to play. The ignorant and the learned kneel side by side in the House of God. In great crises, prayer becomes instinctive and spontaneous. At the front, every one prayed: and no one was ashamed to confess this fact. We sat around the shell holes and talked about it as naturally as about eating and sleeping. The suppression of the prayer impulse is a superimposed prohibition en- forced upon the instinctive impulse of the human spirit by fallacious reasoning and false intellectual pride. And the repression of this instinct is at- tended with disastrous spiritual consequences. As man is incurably religious, so also is he an in- curable pray-er. Professor James has this to say of prayer: Prayer . . . is the very soul and essence of 176 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF religion. . . . Wherever this interior prayer is lacking there is no religion (Op. cit., p. 464). The genuineness of religion is thus indissolubly bound up with the question whether the prayerful consciousness be or be not deceitful. The conviction that something is genuinely transacted in this con- sciousness is the very core of living religion (Op. cit., p. 406). If it be true that “in all matters of sentiment one must have been there one’s self in order to understand,” and that “‘ one can never fathom an emotion or divine its dictates by standing outside it,” then psychology sustains the position that the only persons who are qualified to decide whether the prayerful consciousness is or is not deceitful, are those who are acquainted with the prayer ex- perience. Prayer is a biological experience. Not the dissecting room of the psychologist, but the closet and the Church, are the places in which its genuineness and reality are to be tested. And those who have had the widest range of experi- ence in praying are the best authorities upon the subject. The great pray-ers like Moses, Elijah, David, Isaiah, Daniel, Paul, Jesus, are the ones to bear testimony to the reality of the prayer con- sciousness. The fact that non-pray-ers do not believe that anything is genuinely transacted in this act of prayer, means no more than the fact that those not “listening in” do not hear anything through radio. What the great artists see, not what the unartistic do not see, gives us great art. What the great musicians hear and reproduce, not what the unmusical do not hear or appreciate, gives BELIEF IN PRAYER 177 us great music. ‘The testimony of the non-artistic and the non-musical is of no value at all to the artist or musician. So in the case of prayer, the great pray-ers are the authorities. In art and music the masterpieces alone must win recognition for its geniuses. But in prayer, not only the masterpieces of prayer, and the wonders it has wrought, testify to its reality, the lives and the characters of the pray-ers impress the psychologist as much as these objective facts. Personal communion with God in prayer has en- abled pray-ers to achieve moral and spiritual leadership such as no non-pray-er has ever attained. We are now close upon the trail of a creative power. Psychology knows that no such natural, universal, timeless, persistent, wholesome, con- structive, creative power can be rooted in com- plete self-deception and superstition. Whence then does it arise? ‘The instinct from which it springs and to which it is related, is the cosmic urge of the human spirit which after it has found reality to be Purposive Good Will, or a Personal God, naturally reaches out its needy hands to this Reality for help. Prayer consciousness becomes in this way an additional proof of the correctness of this interpretation of reality, while at the same time this conception of reality verifies the genuine- ness of the prayer consciousness. The two stand or fall together. ‘This is why psychology when on its materialistic tact was so successful. First it reduced prayer to spiritual callisthenics, making it one with suggestion and autosuggestion, and then, having pulled this prop out of the belief in God 178 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF proceeded to assert that the idea of God is simply a subjective creation of the human mind. Only a prayerless life will accept this idea of God. Itisa curious coincidence that the course of individual unbelief usually follows exactly this same course. First, for one reason or another, the unbeliever loses faith in the reality of prayer, this is easy in this scientific world, then in time, prayer is dropped out of life’s habits; and then, interest in religion wanes until belief in God is no longer vital. In the life of the individual the two stand or fall to- gether; they are mutually dependent. Those who have been following our study up to this point will not be surprised to learn that all sub-belief and all super-beliefs have their origin either in the suppression or perversion of this ele- mental prayer impulse. Sub-belief suppresses it, super-belief perverts it. Prayer is now recognized as a specific for acute and chronic unbelief. In chronic unbelief the prayer instinct has been un- naturally suppressed during early childhood when the suppression has wrought the most serious psychological havoc. ‘This is why every chronic unbeliever raves at the thought of prayer with in- stinctive fear. He knows that if he prays, the fight is all over. Personal prayer, supplemented by intercession, will break up the complex of the chronic unbeliever when argument has failed. Argument and reasoning call into play only a part of one’s personality; the deepest reaches of one’s nature are left untouched. But prayer is a psy- chological experience which calls into action the whole thinking, feeling and willing functions of BELIEF IN PRAYER 179 consciousness together with the reserves of the unconscious mind. This is why it is so infinitely superior to the devices of super-belief cults and mechanical spiritual healing sciences. In argument we deal with the dead experiences upon which we have reflected, but the praying man calls into im- mediate action the live forces of his spiritual nature and tests them out in their social and cosmic rela- tions. With the unbeliever, allow him to limit his belief in prayer to its lowest terms consonant with sincere communion. Leave the form of prayer to be fought out between the pray-er and God, when spirit with Spirit doth meet. For prayer has in it much more than simple communion or peti- tion. The resources of prayer are as yet un- fathomed. In his Psychology of Religion, Pro- fessor Coe says: Prayer may be considered as dominant desire. But it is also a way of securing domination over desire. Here, then, is our greater problem as to the function of prayer. It starts as the assertion of any desire; it ends as the organization of one’s desires into a system of desires recognized as superior and then made one’s own (p. 318). Petition in prayer is only a superficial, the-| oretical difficulty which looms large in the mind of the non-pray-er. The pray-er has had too much experience in the process of the reorganization of his desires during prayer to be seriously disturbed by such an insignificant difficulty. Prayer may start with any kind of a little, selfish, foolish de- sire, but when sincerely pursued, it results in secur- ing dominance over our own selfish desires. It 180 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF begins with a desire to have our own little will done, but it ends with a voluntary surrender of our wills to the Will of God. The experience of Jesus in Gethsemane is typical. He knelt with this natural, human petition upon His lips: “ Abba Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me.” After an agonizing struggle, He ended his prayer with these words: “ Never- theless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (See Mark 14:36). Since, then, prayer possesses the power to transform desire, the question: “ For what shall I pray?’ becomes relatively unimpor- tant. It is infinitely better to pray for the most unreasonable things than to refuse to pray on the ground that we are not intelligent enough to know how to pray. Let the human spirit go to God with any petition! It is the going to God and the asking that are the psychologically potent experi- ences. The pray-er invites God to come into his life and assist in solving its problems. And God will not come in unless invited. What happens in the reorganization of desires and the surrender of the selfish will of the individual to the greater good, is proof enough that some power outside of the natural unmodified desires of the individual has been at work. As sub-belief suppresses the prayer instinct, so super-beliefs pervert it. ‘This is the secret of their ready, but limited, psychological power. Spiritism substitutes communication with spirits for com- munion with the Spirit of God. In every Spirit- istic Church, communication with spirits forms the central feature of the religious service. Theosophy BELIEF IN PRAYER 181 substitutes meditation and communion with im- personal Reality through the release of the human spirit from the prison of the physical body and its entrance into the astral body. This lapse into light-hypnosis is one of the devices which the hu- man spirit has invented to provide the delusion that one is in communion with reality; conscious rea- son refuses to admit any such thing. ‘The experi- ence being limited to subjective states, is a poor substitute. Christian Science substitutes the “ un- derstanding’ of impersonal Principle for prayer to a Personal God. Mrs. Eddy says: The common custom of praying for the recovery of the sick finds help in blind belief, whereas help should come from enlightened understanding (Science and Health, p. 12). In another place she says: Who would stand before a blackboard, and pray the principle of mathematics to solve the problem? The rule is already established, and it is our task to work out the solution. Shall we ask the divine Prin- ciple of all goodness to do His own work? His work is done, and we have only to avail ourselves of God’s rule in order to receive His blessing, which enables us to work out our own salvation (Science and Health, p. 3). M. Coué places a little string with twenty knots, or Coué beads, in the hand of each patient and asks that his little formula be repeated twenty times every night before retiring and every morn- ing before arising. It is easy to see the simulation of the abandoned prayer habit in this practice. If 182 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF these perversions of the prayer instinct and habit work such wonders, what may we not expect of the genuine practice of prayer when given the same trial? None of these poor substitutes are employed except by those who have first aban- doned the habit of real prayer. If there is no escape from the use either of genuine prayer or some suppression or perversion of the practice, without the human spirit lapsing from a normal and healthy condition into ill-health, we are reduced to the choice of the genuine article or a substitute. And if the great problem is to fit this naturally selfish human spirit into its personal spiritual, social and cosmic environment, no sub- stitute has yet been discovered in this world to take the place of prayer. As soon as science discovered that the nitrog- enous substance now known as vitamin left out of the diet of animals and humans impaired health, and that as soon as it was replaced in food that it restored this impaired health, it announced its discovery that vitamin is essential to health. It is as easy to prove that prayer is essential to spir- itual health. For when prayer is dropped out of the spiritual life of any person the spiritual life is in some degree impaired. It is a psychological fact that missionaries as a group are much greater pray-ers than a cross section of any group of re- ligious workers in the home country. Even though when they first leave for the foreign field they may not have given prayer such a large place in their religious life, it does not take many years upon the foreign field to demonstrate that they BELIEF IN PRAYER 183 are not spiritually equal to their tasks without more prayer than they have previously found necessary. More than this, prayer is a creative power. It not only restores the enervated moral and spiritual forces of personality, and brings har- mony and peace by unifying conflicting and dis- organizing elements, thus preserving spiritual health, but it actually increases these moral and spiritual endowments. The pray-er becomes able to exercise greater moral and spiritual strength than he possessed before; he exhibits nobler spir- itual qualities than, without the assistance of prayer, he ever was able to manifest. We are now clearly within the realm of dynamics; the intellect, feelings and will are all the beneficiaries of this new power. From whatever angle we approach the problem of prayer, it brings us back to the relation of the human will to the Will of God. What then does psychology find one of the chief functions of prayer to be? Is it not the control of this independent human personality which God has endowed with what we call freedom of the will, so that this little human will may become a voluntary, intelligent, enthusiastic cooperator with Him in His Purposive Good Will? Ina world of personalities this must always be the great problem in the life of the individual, the home, the State, the Church, the universe. Personification, pan- theism and sacrifice were the early rational at- tempts to work out this problem. Monotheism and prayer are the evolutionary products of these ideas, if one wishes to arrive at them by a strictly empirical route. Psychology clearly reveals the 184 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF biological objective of prayer, for it makes no at- tempt to conceal from the pray-er its ultimate de- sign. It does not, as most non-pray-ers love to af- firm, encourage the human spirit to believe that this order of procedure can be successfully re- versed. Because nothing can be as good for the individual and society, as the unopposed fulfill- ment of God’s Purposive Good Will. The an- archistic, blasphemous idea is to try to bend God’s Good Will out of its gracious intent to grant the individual’s personal desires which are contrary to His purpose. In a universe where personalities occupy such an important place, we have now found at least one strictly scientific sphere within which prayer can function without conflicting with any other known material or spiritual force. Humanity might have been capable of reaching its present heights of moral and spiritual attainment in the life of the individual and society without pray-ers, but his- torically it has been laid under heavy tribute to the biological value of prayer. The greatest moral and spiritual leaders of the centuries have been pray-ers. Jesus Christ was a great pray-er. And the sacrificial personalities whose wills have been most enthusiastic and intelligent in their volun- tary cooperation with His Purposive Good Will have always been the greatest pray-ers. It remains for the non-pray-ers to surpass the pray-ers in this moral and spiritual achievement before they are in a position to expect humanity to accept their pray- less life as a biological substitute. Prayer, then, does not presume to interfere with, BELIEF IN PRAYER 185 or interrupt, the established order of things. On the contrary, it is a providential provision designed by the All-Wise Creator of this universe to pre- vent anything like the universal interference of our naturally selfish little human wills with His Fatherly purpose to make this life as near like heaven as possible, through having His Will done on earth as it is in heaven. It does not take a Calvinistic theologian to prove that the real inter- ferers with the general welfare of those who travel through this “ vale of tears and profiteers’”’ are the persons whose wills are most out of harmony with that Purposive Good Will which both sociology and psychology acknowledge to be back of their Humanistic theory of creative evolution. ‘Those who have allowed self-interest to dominate their lives are the ones who have always plunged hu- manity into its worst catastrophes, such as wars, profiteering, crime waves, commercialized vice, etc. Prayer gives religion a chance to function at its task of universalizing our instincts and emo- tions. And normal religious belief, which accord- ing to our definition has already secured the ap- proval of the majority, or it is not normal, is the natural unifier of separate free wills. If the human spirit has the cosmic nature which we pointed out in the previous chapter, if reality is to be interpreted in terms of Purposive Good Will, if society is the medium through which this human spirit functions, then one of the funda- mental problems of the individual is to bring one’s own free will into some satisfactory working agreement with this cosmic reality which is a con- 186 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF stituent part of its personality as well as of so- ciety and the universe. If this working agreement can be made so that its terms are voluntarily, in- telligently and enthusiastically accepted by the hu- man individual, whose will is free to choose to co- operate or not, we have established the highest and most ideal state of existence to be conceived, whether to be lived exclusively upon this earth or to be continued in another life. Prayer stands without an equal as the one divinely ordained means for accomplishing. this seeming miracle. Every fundamental principle of psychology pro- nounces it scientifically sound for prayer to func- tion toward this end in human personality. Of course, this consent has been forced from the un- willing lips of the psychologist by the undeniable historical fact that prayer has so functioned from the very first. Some religious people may be im- patient over this conclusion because it does not seem to assign a large enough sphere for the opera- tion of prayer. But it must be remembered we are now endeavouring to establish the scientific nature of prayer. If a legitimate place can be found for it in this modern scientifically conceived universe, it possesses all of its own potential possi- bilities, and will gradually make room for these as it functions. The fact that unbelief in its rea- sonableness and efficiency has reduced the pray-ers in this modern world to such a small number, is primarily responsible for the loss of faith in prayer. If we can once get religious people and religious institutions praying with intelligent and BELIEF IN PRAYER 187 enthusiastic conviction that prayer is necessary to the healthy religious life, and that it is biologically valuable for the individual and society, the de- velopment of its inherent powers will naturally follow. Professor James once summed up the es- sence of this chapter in this memorable passage: When all is said and done, we are in the end abso- lutely dependent on the universe; and into sacrifices and surrenders of some sort, deliberately looked at and accepted, we are drawn and pressed as into our only permanent positions of repose. Now in those states of mind that fall short of religion, the surrender is submitted to as an imposition of necessity, and the sacrifice is undergone at the very best without com- plaint. In the religious life, on the contrary, sur- render and sacrifice are positively espoused: even unnecessary givings-up are added in order that the happiness may increase. Religion thus makes easy and felicitous what in any case 1s necessary; and if it be the only agency that can accomplish this result, its vital importance as a human faculty stands vindi- cated beyond dispute. It becomes an essential organ of our life, performing a function which no other portion of our nature can so successfully fulfill (Op. Cie es its), Tennyson puts the problem thus: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them Thine. And prayer enables religion to perform this miracle. Vil THE BELIEF THAT JESUS IS THE CHRISs HEN we come to the belief that Jesus \) \ is the Christ, we reach the parting of the religious ways. In our belief in prayer we travelled with the large company of the religious of all religions; in our belief in a Per- sonal God, we travelled with the believers of ail theistic faiths as our companions; but when we press on beyond this point to the belief that Jesus is the Christ, we Christians are compelled to travel alone. It is inevitable that we should miss our comrades ; many noble souls are to be found among them, and many congenial friendships have been formed which it is hard to break. And there is certainty in numbers, so that the very act of sepa- ration raises doubts and makes us wonder whether in this further religious advance we are right. The gregarious and the herd instincts are strong. They encourage as a substitute program, the wide- spread effort to reduce all religious beliefs to their greatest common denominator, and then, the mak- ing of this common denominator the total sum of essential truth necessary for the foundation of practical religious faith. Those who advocate and approve of this proposition believe that it repre- sents an advance in religious diplomacy, and will strengthen the hold of religion upon the modern mind. But when this proposition is analyzed, it is found that it is most reactionary in its nature and 188 BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 189 has its rise in the loss of belief in the distinctive features of historic Christianity. Religious progress, like all other progress, is born of intensified specialization, and carried for- ward by the surviving fit. The same law of bio- logical evolution operates in this realm. The ques- tion is whether the distinctive characteristics of the new species are sufficiently superior to survive in the merciless struggle for victory. Only those ignorant of the genius of progress will stake their hope for the present and future of religion in such -areactionary program. The fate of historic Chris- tianity hangs upon the survival of its distinctive religious features, not those which it holds in com- mon with all other religions. The division which belief that Jesus is the Christ makes in the ranks of religious believers reduces our majority by a large number. So that Western civilization is separated from that of the ancient Eastern, by a clear-cut line of cleavage, and this becomes a normal religious belief in Christian lands only. Yet there is no doubt in which branch of civilization the greatest religious and social ad- vance has been made; and the religion which has led this advance is historic Christianity. If the signs of the times indicate anything, it is that the hope of the religious, social, political, moral, in- dustrial and international advance of the present and the future must be derived from the same source. At least there is no religion anywhere upon the horizon which can seriously be consid- ered as a rival. The social need Professor Ell- wood, a leading sociologist, puts in these words: 1909 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF The real religious problem of our society is to secure the general acceptance of a religion adapted to the requirements of continuous progress toward an ideal society, consisting of all humanity (Reconstruc- tion of Religion, p. 64). After examining the credentials of all existing religions to see how many meet these require- ments, he rejects all but Christianity. Of it he says: | The Christian Church undertakes no impossible task. It summons men to devotion to no impractical ideal. A Christian world is not only practicable; in the long run it will be found that no other sort is practicable (Op. cit., p. 306). When historic Christianity is analyzed for its most distinctive feature, it is not found in its God, its temples, its sacred book, its prophets, its pray- ers, its teaching, but in the personality of its founder, Jesus Christ. While the theologian and sociologist may have some difficulty in agreeing upon the essential element in this personality, the psychologist finds it in His Messianic conscious- ness. The life He lived is psychologically born out of His unquestioned acceptance of His Mes- sianic commission. Superficial thinkers and crit- ical scholars may content themselves with the im- pression that Jesus’ Messianic mission was only an incident in His life, but no profound scholar, friend or foe, has ever made this blunder. If the reader is not prepared to accept this statement at this point in our study, lay it on the table and re- serve a decision until we have finished. BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 191 To present this most distinctive feature of Christianity to this modern age in a way that it will realize its essential value, demands clear think- ing and interpretation. For this modern world is less inclined to feature the personality of Jesus than His teaching. And the Christological front is by far the most difficult to hold. It is exposed on so many sides, it can be attacked from so many different angles, it has more foes, and is psycho- logical, as well as historical. Its Biblical origin and theological and creedal expression have com- plicated the situation so that the facts, and the beliefs deduced from them by reasoning are often confused. The personality of Jesus has given rise to three different problems: The problem of His Messiahship, His Divinity, His Deity. The ma- jority of people jump from the one to the other of these problems as though they were synony- mous. It must be remembered that each has its own historical basis in fact, its own separate be- ginning in time, its own distinct reaction in re- ligious experience. Each of these beliefs must be made to stand upon its own historical and psy- chological foundation. As all scholarship, ancient and modern has made its greatest advances along the front of Jesus’ Messiahship, we will devote our study to this part of the Christological problem. In doing this we are lining up on the very Christological front upon which the great offensive of the early part of the nineteenth century was launched, and to which front the attack is again returning, after almost a century of trying to break through upon the fronts 192 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF of His Divinity and Deity. In spite of the pre- vailing impression, the reader may rest assured that the Christological fronts are not nearly as seriously threatened as the enemy would like to make one believe, and the enemy are not as strongly intrenched and armed intellectually as is imagined. It will be a valuable bit of “ intelligence ” infor- mation to learn the way the enemy broke through this Christological front in the early days of the nineteenth century. They did not open their of- fensive with a direct frontal attack upon the Deity of Jesus. Under the guidance of a very skillful leader, they withdrew their forces from the front line of creedal defenses, and adopted the strategy of a lateral attack upon the reliability of the Gospel accounts of His life and work. ‘This offensive was launched by a scholar of Jewish antecedents— David Friedrich Strauss. We emphasize the Jew- ish element in the problem, which is universally overlooked, because the reader is by this time well enough acquainted with the psychology of belief to scent trouble about the Messiahship of Jesus whenever a Jewish scholar bends his energies to the solution of the mystery of the personality of Jesus. The Jew is a victim of a deep-seated, racial complex at this point, which inevitably tilts the motived-will-to-think and selective attention to such an angle of hostility that, in spite of the very best of intentions, in spite, sometimes, of nominal conversion to Christianity, the belief that Jesus is the Christ is liable to be accepted only in a very modified form. BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 193 A way of escape from the necessity of the ac- ceptance of this particular belief is often eagerly welcomed. At least so it was in Strauss’ case. Curiously enough, he found plenty of encourage- ment along this line among the religious thinkers of his day. After much investigation of the situ- ation, he came to the conclusion that the time was ripe for starting this great offensive. It is a strik- ing coincidence that the movement began in the epochal year of 1830. For the third time we dis- cover that scientific discovery was not primarily responsible for this assault. As in the case of be- lief in a Personal God and in Prayer, the move- ment was already well under way before a single scientific discovery of any revolutionary nature had been made. If it is possible to impress the reader: with the fact that modern unbelief is not of scientific origin, we will have succeeded in proving that it has no legitimate right to claim modern science as its ally. Modern scientific data has been conscripted into its defense simply because most of the scientists upon the field were interested in using its data for this purpose. The mythical interpretation of the Gospels, which Strauss makes the basis of his Das Leben Jesu, published in 1835, was already a widely cur- rent critical theory before he employed it. Vol- taire had preceded him many years, dying in 1778. M. Dupuis in 1794 published a work which at- tacked all religions; he centered his fire upon the historical character of the evidences of Christian- ity. Schleiermacher for some years had been lec- turing along this line, and in 1830 Strauss came 194 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF under his influence as a student. It was here that he found the idea which appealed to him so strongly that he made it the controlling idea of all his thinking, and which his brilliant mind capital- ized and used to the discomfiture of historic Chris- tianity. With rare strategy, Strauss avoided denying the existence of the historical Jesus; he adopted the more subtle position of claiming that the Jesus of the Gospels was a mythical character in no way identical with the historical Jesus. Strauss was an able scholar, an influential thinker, a brilliant writer, and the time being ripe for this idea, his book produced a profound sensation. It crystallized German liberal Christological thinking and raised an issue which no longer could be avoided. All German Christian thinkers were compelled to reckon with it; they were placed upon the defensive. It was a great misfortune for his- toric Christianity that this work appeared in Ger- many where faith in the historical Jesus was none too strong, and where its defense was a compro- mise. With deep concern and intense sincerity the leading Christian thinkers of all succeeding gene- rations have had to grapple with the Christological problem as Strauss thrust it upon them. Let us trace for a moment the influence of this one book on German thought. As Professor Albrecht Ritschl, the theologian, felt the historical foundations of Christianity crumbling under the feet of the believers, he con- ceived the idea of saving Christianity by lifting it up out of the reach of historical facts. ‘To accom- plish this object he worked out his clever value- BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 195 judgment theory. According to this, historical facts have but a secondary value. Man’s great problem is to gain victory over this world; the mission of Jesus Christ is to assist him in this struggle. If any particular incidents in the life of Jesus Christ are helpful to this end, belief in them is of value. If, on the other hand, any of these incidents, such as the virgin birth, the baptism, the miracles, the resurrection, etc., are not helpful, if they do not make Jesus Christ the kind of a Christ you need, then you are not under obligation to believe them. By skillfully shifting the center of value of the life of Jesus into the moral realm, Ritschl was able to save Christianity from Strauss’ mythical theory and at the same time by reason of his belief, exalt Christ to the place where His deity became acknowledged. So that His highest Chris- tological value is conserved. This idea was eagerly welcomed by many Chris- tians, and Ritschl was proclaimed the saviour of Christianity and the Church. The power of its appeal cannot be appreciated until one has reached the point where the historical foundations of Christianity seem to be crumbling under one’s feet. The writer can remember when in the theological seminary, one of his professors, a thorough Ritschlian, presented this theory to the students’ disturbed minds. Scientific education, and critical Biblical scholarship had brought us to the place where we were no longer sure of any of these his- torical facts. The sense of relief which passed through our minds when we were informed that it was not necessary for us to believe any specific 196 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF historical event in the life of Jesus, if this event was not helpful to us in our struggle to gain vic- tory over the world, cannot be imagined. Taking for example the Divinity of Jesus Christ, our professor said: The divinity of Christ lies wholly in the ethical sphere according to Ritschl, but its mark is not per- fection, a quantitative and static notion, but efficiency, a qualitative and dynamic one; not what He was in Himself, but what He has done for us. At first thought this idea seems to be harmless and helpful. But as well-intended as it was so far as Ritschl was concerned, it opens the way to play fast and loose with historical facts. Nietzsche brought out its fallacy in a most disconcerting manner. In his student days he read Strauss’ Das Leben Jesu, and was fascinated by it. A little later he studied under Ritschl, both at Bonn and Leip- sig, and for his teacher he always had a high re- gard. But from him he accepted only the skeleton, not the content, of this value-judgment theory. Ritschl had found in the historical Jesus the very things which helped him in his life-struggle for victory over the world, but Nietzsche found in the historical Jesus just the opposite. So he turned the value-judgment theory around and worked it backward. He said that the teaching and example of Jesus inculcated humility of spirit and submis- sion to the will of God, and these ideas rob the human spirit of those masterful qualities of inde- pendence and self-interest which make man’s vic- tory over the world possible, and so shut the door BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 197 to the goal of his becoming a superman. There- fore the acceptance of this very Ritschlian value- judgment theory compels him to reject Christian- ity and oppose the teaching of Jesus. The vicious- ness of his anti-Christian hostility is well expressed in the quotation already used, which we will re- peat. He says: I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, sub- terranean, mean—lI call it the one immortal blemish of mankind. That which deifies me, and that which makes me stand apart from the whole of the rest of humanity is the fact that I have unmasked Christian morality (Quoted from Figgis, The Will to Freedom, p. 48). The inherent fallacy of Ritschl’s value-judgment theory lies in the fact that it shifts the founda- tion of Christianity from its objective, historical basis to a subjective basis, where it is within the power of any one to make of its historical facts as much or little as is desired. Every such shift, no matter how well-intended, is always in the end disastrous. Professor Adolph Harnack, the great Church historian, had too keen an historical instinct to be satished either with Strauss’ mythical interpreta- tion of the Gospels, or with Ritschl’s scant regard for the historical. He places great emphasis upon the historical Jesus. But, while he modifies Strauss’ extremes, he still takes amazing liberties in separating the historical Jesus from the Jesus of the Gospels. Here is an illustration of his way 198 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF of handling the problem, taken from his great work History of Dogma, In one place he says: Behind the only manifested life of Jesus later spec- ulation has put a life in which he wrought, not in subordination and obedience, but in like independence and dignity with God. That goes beyond the utter- ances of Jesus even in the fourth Gospel (Vol. I, p. 64, English Trans.). In What is Christianity? he sums up the prob- lem in these words: The Gospel as Jesus proclaimed it, has to do with the Father only and not with the Son. This is no paradox, nor, on the other hand, is it “ rationalism,” but the simple expression of the actual fact as the evangelists give it (p. 154). In another place in the same work he remarks: The sentence “I am the Son of God” was not inserted in the Gospel by Jesus himself, and to put that sentence there side by side with the others is to make an addition to the Gospel (Op. cit., p. 156). In thus vainly endeavouring to shift the Chris- tian’s belief from the Son to the Father, Professor Harnack unintentionally assists the very move- ment of Strauss, which he is striving to check. Professor Rudolph Eucken, the great philoso- pher, though not primarily concerned with theo- logical views, is deeply interested in religion. His two books, Back to Religion and Can We Still Be Christians? give clear proof of this fact. ‘The question raised by the title of the second-men- tioned book: “Can We Still Be Christians?” BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 199 brings from him this reply: “Our answer is that we not only can but we must be Christians’ (p. 218). This answer sounds most satisfactory. But we have learned by this time to press these confessions of faith to the point where their actual content is known. So in the case of Professor Eucken we must know what place he assigns to Jesus Christ in the Christianity he asserts we must accept. Upon this point he makes no effort to keep us in the dark. A single passage will clear up this question. He says: He (Jesus Christ) can no longer, however lofty and pure his humanity, be an object of faith and be worshipped as divine. Every attempt to take refuge in compromise is wrecked on a relentless Either—Or. There is no middle term between man and God, for we do not wish to sink back into hero-cult. Thus if Jesus is not God, and Christ not the Second Person of the Trinity, then he is man,—not a man like any of us, but still a man. We may reverence him as a leader, a hero, a martyr, but we cannot forthwith bind and pledge ourselves to him and yield him uncondi- tional submission. Still less can we make him the center of a cult, for that would now be nothing else than an intolerable idolatry (p. 34). This frank confession by Professor Eucken brings the movement started by Strauss to its cul- mination. Both friends and foes of the Church agree to abandon the historic Christian belief which centers in the Person of Jesus Christ. And this position is adopted with the express benevolent purpose of saving Christianity for the thinking people of Germany. ‘The sincerity of these great Christian thinkers of Germany is above suspicion, 200 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF but their efforts seem to have failed to accom- plish the very purpose desired. Germany ought to be in a position to prove the claims of many mod- ern American thinkers. There, liberty of thought, that “‘ New Freedom ”’ which sounds so attractive, absence of dogmatic domination, intellectual cour- age, daring acceptance of the pure humanity of Jesus, and all of those much-heralded panaceas for the Church’s ills, are enjoying unrestricted oppor- tunity to test their vitality and power. And they have the cordial support and hearty backing of the greatest religious thinkers of the nation, in State, University and Church. Those who believe that this is the type of Chris- tianity that will save the Church and State can never hope to have more favourable conditions under which to have this idea tested. What is the response of Germany to this type of Christian- ity? We will allow Professor EKucken himself to describe the deplorable condition of Christianity in this very Germany. He says: Despite all its reputation and influence, Christianity is being assailed by a passionate movement of protest which is growing in intensity and carrying all before it. . . . Unbelief was once confined to the few, and those chiefly in the upper strata of society; to-day it lays hold on large masses of people, plunging them now into dull indifference, now into a passion of iconoclastic hate. Figures prove conclusively that the interest in church services and observances is con- stantly decreasing and that the faithful are rapidly becoming a minority. In our great cities—in Ger- many, at least,—every attack or even aspersion on Christianity meets with rapturous applause (p. 1 f.). BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 201 This report upon the efficiency of this type of Christianity for building up the Church and in- creasing the hold of Christianity upon the masses is not any too encouraging. It is easy to under- stand why the enemies of Christianity and the Church should rally around the Christian leader who is attempting to establish this type of Chris- tianity in America. But it is difficult to under- stand how any intelligent student of the history of Christianity can entertain the hope that such a move will benefit the Church of Jesus Christ. Yet there are a few Christian leaders who have gained considerable publicity of late through advocating this very type of Christianity as the only hope of the Christian Church in the United States. If this were even a new idea, never tried, there might be some excuse for giving it consideration. But it has been given a fair trial under most favourable conditions in Germany, and both State and Church have suffered irretrievably from its influence. In fact from the days of Arius it has been repeatedly tried by various religious sects, and in no instance has the result been a success. The historian Pro- fessor T. R. Glover in his book, The Jesus of His- tory, has aptly summed up the history of all such movements in this striking passage: For those who believe, as we all do at heart, that the world is rational, that real effects follow real causes, and conversely that behind great movements lie great forces, the fact must weigh enormously that wherever the Christian Church, or a section of it, or a single Christian, has put upon Jesus Christ a higher emphasis—above all where everything has been cen- 202 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF tered in Jesus Christ—there has been an increase of power for Church, or community, or man. Where new value has been found in Jesus Christ, the Church has risen in power, in energy, in appeal, in victory. 2 On the other hand, where through a nebulous philosophy men have minimized Jesus, or where, through some weakness of the human mind, they have sought the aid of others and relegated Jesus Christ to a more distant, even if a higher, sphere— where,in short, Christ is not the living center of every- thing, the value of the Church has declined, its life has waned. That, to my own mind, is the most strik- ing and outstanding fact in history. There must bea real explanation of a thing so signal in a rational uni- verseu( pity) « But aside from this pragmatic test, which should be of great interest to the empirical, scientific mind of to-day, another difficulty has most unex- pectedly arisen which makes the acceptance of Jesus as a man whom we may revere as a leader, a hero, a martyr, but whom we cannot make the center of a cult without becoming idolaters im- possible. Before psychology entered the field of religion, it was a common practice for critics of a certain type to explain the Messianic words of Jesus as mere incidents in His teaching, or as ad- ditions placed in His mouth by the Gospel writers. But when trained psychologists began to analyze the religious consciousness of Jesus, they found that His Messianic consciousness was the one great obsession of His being, the only sufficient explana- tion of His most extraordinary career. Upon this point friends and foes are in agreement. From this discovery a new problem develops. For the psychologist is forced to admit that the Messianic BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 203 consciousness of the Jesus of the Gospels does not fall within the range of normal human conscious- ness. ‘Therefore only two alternatives remain: Either the Jesus of the Gospels is super-normal or abnormal. To the unbelieving psychologists only one of these alternatives is open, Jesus must have been abnormal. After having worked for seventy- five years to convince thinking people that He was a perfectly normal human being of a high order, it was indeed somewhat disconcerting to be con- fronted with the necessity of shifting so hastily to this most uncongenial view. But the “ relent- less Either-Or” held them in its clutches and there was no escape. Enter, at this point, the pathographers to de- fend this decision. For the benefit of those who are not acquainted with pathographers, we will de- scribe a pathographer as a specialist who endeav- ours to make a scientific diagnosis of the psychic health of an historic character from biography or autobiography. So in this case the pathographers begin to scrutinize the Gospel records of the life and sayings of Jesus to see what evidence can be found to prove that He was mentally unsound. They begin rather cautiously by pronouncing Him an ecstatic. Then they pronounce Him an epilep- tic, ending with the assertion that He was a para- noiac. While we are reluctant to disturb the feel- ings of the reader with the shocking details of the actual statements of these pathographers, yet every Christian thinker and student who enters the Christological field to-day is destined to encounter those who will defend the position of these pa- 204 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF thographers. Especially is this true among physi- cians and psychologists, so that thorough acquaint- ance with their general point of view is indispensa- ble. Mr. L. R. Washburn states their case in this single passage: It is difficult, if not impossible to account for the extraordinary career of Jesus upon the ground of sanity. There is only one way to explain the Gospels —either Jesus was insane or the person that wrote His life was (Quoted from The Psychic Health of Jesus by Bundy, p. 26). This conclusion seems to imply that Jesus had only one biographer, but while the pathographers do betray an amazing amount of ignorance of the New Testament, we really believe that most of them at least know that Jesus did have more than one biographer. ‘This statement which represents fairly accurately the position of the pathographers who have taken up the cause of the moderns at the point where psychology forced a new interpreta- tion, reveals a most refreshing situation. At last after seventy-five years of controversy the historic Church and the liberal scholar agree that the Jesus of the Gospels cannot be squeezed into the normal human mould. His consciousness of His Messianic mission makes Him either super-normal or abnor- mal. It is well to have all those who are starting out, in this belated day, to travel this cycle of be- lief realize at the outset where it ends. Especially those modern Christian leaders who are venturing to call psychology so confidently to their support. It has taken a hundred years to round out this BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 205 cycle, but it has reached its end, and it seems hardly necessary to start right out again in the twentieth century to repeat for America what Ger- many has so generously tested out for her. Thanks to the pathographers, the Christological problem has been narrowed down to the issue: Either the Jesus of the Gospels was insane or the writers of the Gospels were, or He was super- normal. After wading through the mass of litera- ture which these pathographers have written, and the amount of it is amazing, in their vain endeav- our to prove that Jesus was a paranoiac, one feels little concern over the ultimate issue. For search as these pathographers have with their powerful magnifying critical microscopic lenses to find some symptoms of psychic disorder in the personality of the Jesus of the Gospels, they have been able to accumulate less evidence, even from the Gospel narratives just as they are, to support their theory than in any other well-known human life. One constantly feels the urge of a desire to restrain these pathographers in their mad endeavour to es- tablish their pet obsession, lest unwittingly they convict themselves of the very insanity they are striving so desperately to fasten upon the mind of Jesus. Any single pamphlet or book with which we are acquainted, written to prove that Jesus was psychically unhealthy, furnishes much more evi- dence against the psychic health of its author than it is able to muster up against the psychic health of the Jesus of the Gospels. _ But as we accepted the proposition of the mod- erns given by Professor Eucken concerning the 206 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF pure humanity of Jesus and then followed that idea to its doom, so let us now, for argument, accept the proposition of the pathographers that Jesus is a paranoiac, and see what happens. A paranoiac is a person who is obsessed with a belief in which he can persuade no sane person to con- cur. The obsession of Jesus upon which the major claim for His insanity is based is that He is the Messiah, the Christ. The first test for His sanity is to find whether any sane person agrees with Him in this belief. While He was still upon this earth there were many sane persons who openly agreed with Him. And since His Ascension, there has been a steadily growing multitude who believe so firmly that He is the Christ that they have been willing to make any sacrifice, to die if need be, rather than surrender this belief. To-day the greatest institution in the world, The Church of Jesus Christ, is built upon this belief. The exist- ence of this stupendous institution committed to this belief, and numbering among its members mil- lions of the choicest minds and spirits of the world, establishes the belief that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ as a normal religious belief. A normal religious belief is a belief held by a majority of those who make up a certain type of civilization. This being true, the case of the pathographers is lost even before it has been fully presented to the world. The unbelieving psychol- ogists overreached their mark, when they rushed in to prove Jesus abnormal. For they leave all of those who follow the scientific evidence, with a super-normal Jesus on their hands. And theolo- BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 207 gians have no right to ask more than this of psy- chology. For it cannot go beyond the limits of normal, abnormal, super-normal. But if the Jesus of the Gospels be forced into the super-normal class, He stands somewhere between man and God, —the typical mediatorial position. And the “ re- lentless Ejither-Or’’ of Professor Eucken is found to be an easily shattered barrier. In the same mysterious way in which medical science and psychology, through spiritual healing, have been forced to pay tribute to religion, so God through this century of critical scholarship has patiently, but surely, been leading the sincere, scholarly mind that has taken the trouble to follow the evidence through, to the place where the Jesus of the Gos- pels is becoming better known. He has been pushed up through the normal, through the ab- normal, to the super-normal, or mediatorial posi- tion. Here we come upon what may be pro- nounced as the most important of all the contribu- tions which modern thinking has unwittingly made to the solution of the Christological problem. Let us glance at another phase of it. No sooner had German Christianity succeeded in reducing Jesus to human dimensions, than it was discovered that religious faith must be provided with a substitute to take the place of the Christ whom modern thinking has taken away. So the imagination was immediately set at work to create out of mind-stuff a Christ to meet the newly dis- covered need. And this need is strictly media- torial. The human spirit possesses an insatiable desire for some kind of a concrete mediator be- 208 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF tween the finite and the infinite, the human and the divine, man and God. And every non-theistic philosophy and science, and every super-belief cult unconsciously seeks to supply this mediator. Pro- fessor Drews gives psychology’s creation in this statement: Not the historical Jesus but the Christ as an idea, as an ideal of the divine humanity—must henceforth be the ground for religion. When we can and will no longer believe on acci- dental (!) personalities, we can and must believe on ideas”’ (Quoted from The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels by Thorborn, p. xix). The words, “ must believe on ideas,’ state the proposition. The religious mind is so constituted that it can and must either believe on “ personali- ties” or on “ideas.” And Professor Drews has arrived at the place where he is of the opinion. that ideas furnish a more reliable foundation for faith than historical personalities. ‘To those who have little acquaintance with this theory, it may sound somewhat attractive. But any one who has given much study to super-belief cults finds this proposal very familiar. This new type of Christ as an idea, has strong affinities for Mrs. Eddy’s Christian Science use of the word idea. It has such rare possibilities for manipulation that it has made a strong appeal to the Christless in the United States. The great psychologist, Dr. G. Stanley Hall, ex-President of Clarke University, has given excellent expression to the idea in his work entitled Jesus Christ in the Light of Psy- chology. He introduces the subject by inferring BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 209 that even historic Christianity made its Christ out of mind-stuff, and then goes on to show that mod- ern psychology has greatly improved upon the work of the historic Church in the Christ which it has produced. Upon this point he says: If the primitive Church made him, instead of his making the Church, the Church was then a mighty creative power. If he be conceived as the greatest projection that the folk-soul ever made, his figure and story are the most precious of all things, perhaps more potent as an ideal than as an antique reality. He continues along this same line: The Jesus of the Gospels died, but the idea of Jesus lives more truly now perhaps than he did then, and this is the true resurrection. The Jesus of history is crassly real. The Jesus of genetic psychology is the most precious and real thing ever made out of mind- stuff. Again he adds: If unconscious man-soul evolved him in the travail of ages, he becomes thus in a new sense the “ son of man,’ a Doppelganger of our inner, deeper, better nature. The believer’s insight and conviction are small and faint representatives of the same power that created this masterpiece of the race-soul, and faith in him is a flaming up in us of the age-long and eee aie collectivity and consensus that made it all. This most remarkable discussion of the histor- ical Jesus, Dr. Hall brings to a close with this statement: Whether we regard Jesus as myth or history, we all 210 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF need him alike. If I hold him a better and purer ~ psychological being than any other, although made warp and woof of human wishes, and needs and ideals, I insist that on this basis I ought to be called an orthodox Christian, because thus to me he re- mains the highest, best, and most helpful of all who ever lived, whether that life be in Judea or in the soul of man (Vol. I, p. 33 f.). In a further effort to convince the world that he is an orthodox Christian, Dr. Hall appends this confession of faith: As a result of all this, I believe I can now repeat almost every clause of the Apostles’ Creed with a fervent sentiment of conviction. My intellectual in- terpretation of the meaning of each item of it prob- ably differs toto caelo from that of the average orthodox believer. To me not a clause of it is true in a crass literal, material sense, but all of it is true in a sense far higher, which is only symbolized on the literal plane. The change from my boyhood belief in it all has been to me all gain and no loss. Nothing has been dropped or denied, but only the mental imagery by which it is apprehended is changed (p. XVill). We have quoted from Dr. Hall at length to give the reader an idea of the way in which this new, yet very old, school of mythical interpretation goes about making a Christ out of mind-stuff. To the adolescent struggling with an attack of acute un- belief and to the chronic unbeliever this sort of an indiscriminate blending of fact and fiction has its attractions. But nothing is more abortive of sane thinking than such procedure. It is unbe- lievable that Dr. Hall can take his own statements BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 211 seriously. For one who has lived in the atmos- phere of Mrs. Eddy’s non-sense world with its “spiritual” interpretation, these paragraphs read for all the world dike quotations from Science and Health. ‘Their kinship will be brought out later. Upon what ground a Jesus made wholly of mind- stuff becomes so much more satisfactory than an historical personality, Dr. Hall does not inform us. Nor does he explain how any article of the Apostles’ Creed can be “true in a sense far higher ” when it is the creation of the imagination —pure fiction, than when it is based upon his- torical facts—truth, which is always stranger than fiction. If there is anything within the realm of knowledge truer than fact and truth, all epistomol- ogy will have to be revised to make room for this new member of the family. Perhaps Dr. Hall has in mind something like Mrs. Eddy’s and Madame Blavatsky’s “Divine” truth. Both Professor Drews and Dr. Hall are scholars learned enough to recognize that their scheme which adroitly shifts the problem of the Christ from the objective his- torical foundation over into the realm of the sub- jective is nothing less than Ritschl’s value-judg- ment theory revived in a new guise; and is fraught with exactly the same old perils. In order to escape the trap into which they are being driven by the recoil of the scientific historical method of study which induction has unwittingly set for its anti-theistic and anti-Christian devotees, modern philosophy has decided that it also will have to double-cross reason and the will, so it is at present courting with all its ardour and devotion 212 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF the imagination as the most comprehensive single principle, capable of explaining creative evolution. This is strange company both for psychology and philosophy. For this is the native land of occult- ism and super-beliefs. Let us introduce these mod- ern psychologists and philosophers to their new friends. Professor Drews and Dr. Hall are not the first to have conceived the idea of creating a Christ out of “ pure mind-stuff.”” Those who have made a study of the super-belief cults of occultism find this religious realm already embarrassed by an abundance of christs, all created out of mind- stuff. This is so true that the exact thinker does not dare to employ the unqualified word “ Christ” lest some super-belief cult appropriate his words about Christ and conscript them in the service of its cause, as does Mrs. Eddy the New Testament writings. The Christian preacher, teacher and writer should always prefix the identifying word “ Jesus ” to the word Christ or Saviour, for other- wise, super-belief cults may claim that he is teach- ing their beliefs. The creation of so many counterfeit christs in- terests the psychologist. For it discloses the fact that the human spirit and modern society cannot exist without a Christ of some kind. Take away the personality of Jesus Christ and the distraught human spirit will instinctively resort to the pre- Christian, pre-scientific phantasy method of mak- ing good this loss. Professor Drews said: When we can and will no longer believe on acci- dental (!) personalities, we can and must believe on ideas. . . . Christ as an idea, as an ideal of the BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 218 divine humanity—must henceforth be the ground for religion. And Dr. Hall puts this psychological truth in these words: ‘ Whether we regard Jesus as a myth or history, we all need Him alike.” This testi- mony to humanity’s need for a Christ as a media- tor, is doubly impressive when it comes unso- licited from the enemies of the Christ of the his- toric Christian Church. The unfailing manner in which science, philosophy and their newly chosen colleagues, the super-belief cults, provide their ad- herents with christs is proof of this need. In an article entitled The Mediator or a Medium, pub- lished in the Biblical Review, April, 1920, we de- veloped this truth at some length. In this article, we show that it is only after the spiritist has re- jected The Mediator, that a medium is accepted. Madame Blavatsky, a Jewess, provides Theoso- phy with a Mahatma for its christ. Mrs. Besant’s, already quoted, description of a Mahatma brings this out. She says: A Mahatma was a man living in a human body, who, in the course of evolution by means of repeated incarnations, had reached the highest possible point of human perfection—physically, intellectually, and morally; a man who had acquired all the powers of the human soul, and had acquired all the knowledge to be found on earth—literally a Divine man. Mahat- mas had always possessed superhuman powers. They were able, indeed, to control the powers of nature (Quoted from The Theosophic Craze, p. 65). This is about as clever an imitation of the person- ality of the Jesus of the Gospels as any modern Jew has produced. 214 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF In Christian Science the “ Divine Mary Baker Eddy ” in whose loving memory all of its churches are dedicated, is The Lord. While in Science and Health the Principle of scientific mental healing is featured as the Christ Peter confessed, for all practical purposes the “ Divine” Mrs. Eddy through whom God revealed the “ Truth” of Christian Science, is the christ. She is the “ Mother ” who constitutes the third person in the Christian Science trinity, which is, Father, Son, Mother. In her autobiography Mrs. Eddy mod- estly remarks: No person can compass or fulfill the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the discoverer of Christian Science. Each individual must fulfill his own niche in time and eternity. The second appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the spir- itual advent of the advancing idea of God in Christian Science (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 96). (See further upon this point in The Non-Sense of Christian Science.) The christ of New Thought, as we learned, is the humanistic idea of the union of the Divine and the human which takes place in the “ Secret Place.” Mr. Dresser says: The ideal of this union is the Divine-human, the Christ. The place is the region of the incarnation of the heavenly heart in the human heart (Spiritual Health and Healing, p. 245). This list of christs might be indefinitely con- tinued, and to it might be added the “ Reason” of the rationalist, the ‘“ Law ” of the Materialist, BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 215 the “Idea” of the psychologist. When these ideas are spelled with capitals, to all intents and prac- tical purposes they are accepted as substitute medi- ators between the finite and the infinite, between God and man, in other words—christs. There is profound food for thought in this im- perious demand of the human spirit and social groups for a Christ of some description. Indi- viduals and minor groups may be cheated out of their rights, and worry along for a time with sub- stitutes. But history has proven that the demo- cratic State, the Church, the Christian home, that is—modern society—cannot be permanently cheated without disintegration. The indestructi- bility of the human need for the Christ is one of the greatest psychological facts of religion. Na- ture’s method is that of development. First the idea, then the desire, then the sense of need, then ~ nature creates that which meets this newly devel- oped need. The wish for a Christ or mediator is one of the earliest psychological reactions of the human spirit in its individual, social and cosmic environment. To meet this need, it created out of “mind-stuff ” the best substitutes it could manu- facture. In the fullness of time God sends a real mediator in the unique person of Jesus, the Christ. Wherever He has been accepted in the fullness of His Personality, He has met the Mediatorial need of the individual and society. Only where He has been rejected, or depersonalized, has a need arisen for something else. And the indestructibility of this Christ is one of the most amazing facts of history. 216 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF The Jews of His day tried crucifying Jesus, but the resurrection upset their calculations. The critics tried to evaporate Him into a myth, but after their chemical experiment, He remained the substance of a real historical person. ‘The psy- chologists then tried to dispose of Him by com- mitting Him to an insane asylum, but upon ex- amination He was found to be so much more sane than His conspirators, that His accusers, being afraid of being convicted themselves, have gone out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even until the last: and Jesus is left alone; the only perfectly sane person who ever trod this earth. After two thousand years of the trial and error method of arriving at the truth concerning Him, He stands at the beginning of the second quarter of the twentieth century, a more commanding and more baffling figure than at the beginning of the first Christian century. The Gospels are being studied again in the light of all the new knowledge which the past century and a quarter has brought to light, and the revelations of historical and psy- chological facts are among the most important from the standpoint of the Christological problem that have been discovered. This brings us back to our starting point. Is not one of the by-products of the acute and chronic unbelief with which we began our study, loss of faith in the Gospel of His Person and a stressing in its place the Gospel of His precepts? The normal religious health of the Christian and the Church cannot be sustained on this vitaminless diet. As a result the religious life of Christians BELIEF THAT JESUS IS CHRIST 217 thus fed grows gradually weaker until indiffer- ence, the languor of religious undernourishment, creeps on. Indifference has one unmistakable symptom, it is loss of spiritual appetite. Any crisis in life, or even the haunting memory of former religious health, makes such persons fit sub- jects for super-belief cult proselyters. All rival religions recognize that the personality of Jesus Christ is the unique feature of the Christian re- ligion. So they center their attacks upon the Christological front. His teaching they can take care of, if only they can persuade modern Chris- tians to keep His personality in the background. So successful have these rivals been of late, and so short-sighted many modern Christians, that many expiring religions are taking on a new lease of life. A New York Rabbi announced recently his sermon theme thus: “The Fundamentals of Judaism as a Religion for the World.” Not for two thousand years has Judaism indulged the dream of world conquest! The pathetic part of the situation lies in the fact that the modern Chris- tians who have retreated from the Christological front, think that this is good strategy. They hon- estly believe that the cause of Christianity can thus be advanced. But the whole history of the Chris- tian Church is against this delusion. C. $. Streat- field sums up Christian history in this thought-pro- voking passage: The creative, formative power of Christianity is the Personality of Christ. In that Personality, truly divine as well as human, the world has found the self- revelation of God. Let that Personality be obscured 218 ACUTE AND CHRONIC UNBELIEF or let it be robbed of its Divinity, and the world is thrown back on itself, and its own vain efforts, if haply it may by searching find out God—with the inevitable result that agnostic philosophy takes the place of definite and active faith (The Self-Inter- pretation of Jesus Christ, p. 42). Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? (Matt. 21: 42). 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