登陆注册
5237300000112

第112章 Lectures IV and V(16)

Believing that a higher power will take care of us in certain ways better than we can take care of ourselves, if we only genuinely throw ourselves upon it and consent to use it, it finds the belief, not only not impugned, but corroborated by its observation.

How conversions are thus made, and converts confirmed, is evident enough from the narratives which I have quoted. I will quote yet another couple of shorter ones to give the matter a perfectly concrete turn. Here is one:--

"One of my first experiences in applying my teaching was two months after I first saw the healer. I fell, spraining my right ankle, which I had done once four years before, having then had to use a crutch and elastic anklet for some months, and carefully guarding it ever since. As soon as I was on my feet I made the positive suggestion (and felt it through all my being): 'There is nothing but God, and all life comes from him perfectly. I cannot be sprained or hurt, I will let him take care of it.'

Well, I never had a sensation in it, and I walked two miles that day."

The next case not only illustrates experiment and verification, but also the element of passivity and surrender of which awhile ago I made such account.

"I went into town to do some shopping one morning, and I had not been gone long before I began to feel ill. The ill feeling increased rapidly, until I had pains in all my bones, nausea and faintness, headache, all the symptoms in short that precede an attack of influenza. I thought that I was going to have the grippe, epidemic then in Boston, or something worse. The mind-cure teachings that I had been listening to all the winter thereupon came into my mind, and I thought that here was an opportunity to test myself. On my way home I met a friend, I refrained with some effort from telling her how I felt. That was the first step gained. I went to bed immediately, and my husband wished to send for the doctor. But I told him that I would rather wait until morning and see how I felt. Then followed one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.

"I cannot express it in any other way than to say that I did 'lie down in the stream of life and let it flow over me.' I gave up all fear of any impending disease; I was perfectly willing and obedient. There was no intellectual effort, or train of thought.

My dominant idea was: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me even as thou wilt,' and a perfect confidence that all would be well, that all WAS well. The creative life was flowing into me every instant, and I felt myself allied with the Infinite, in harmony, and full of the peace that passeth understanding. There was no place in my mind for a jarring body.

I had no consciousness of time or space or persons; but only of love and happiness and faith.

"I do not know how long this state lasted, nor when I fell asleep; but when I woke up in the morning, I WAS WELL."

These are exceedingly trivial instances,[64] but in them, if we have anything at all, we have the method of experiment and verification. For the point I am driving at now, it makes no difference whether you consider the patients to be deluded victims of their imagination or not. That they seemed to THEMSELVES to have been cured by the experiments tried was enough to make them converts to the system. And although it is evident that one must be of a certain mental mould to get such results (for not every one can get thus cured to his own satisfaction any more than every one can be cured by the first regular practitioner whom he calls in), yet it would surely be pedantic and over-scrupulous for those who CAN get their savage and primitive philosophy of mental healing verified in such experimental ways as this, to give them up at word of command for more scientific therapeutics.

What are we to think of all this? Has science made too wide a claim?

[64] See Appendix to this lecture for two other cases furnished me by friends.

I believe that the claims of the sectarian scientist are, to say the least, premature. The experiences which we have been studying during this hour (and a great many other kinds of religious experiences are like them) plainly show the universe to be a more many-sided affair than any sect, even the scientific sect, allows for. What, in the end, are all our verifications but experiences that agree with more or less isolated systems of ideas (conceptual systems) that our minds have framed? But why in the name of common sense need we assume that only one such system of ideas can be true? The obvious outcome of our total experience is that the world can be handled according to many systems of ideas, and is so handled by different men, and will each time give some characteristic kind of profit, for which he cares, to the handler, while at the same time some other kind of profit has to be omitted or postponed. Science gives to all of us telegraphy, electric lighting, and diagnosis, and succeeds in preventing and curing a certain amount of disease. Religion in the shape of mind-cure gives to some of us serenity, moral poise, and happiness, and prevents certain forms of disease as well as science does, or even better in a certain class of persons.

同类推荐
  • 序听迷诗所经

    序听迷诗所经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 张氏可书

    张氏可书

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 先正读书诀

    先正读书诀

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 洞真太上说智慧消魔真经

    洞真太上说智慧消魔真经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 红铅入黑铅诀

    红铅入黑铅诀

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 佛说月灯三昧经

    佛说月灯三昧经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 青春和你不期而遇

    青春和你不期而遇

    身为资深网文迷的李子清,总想着来一段霸总甜甜爱,黑卡无限刷的倾城之恋,但网文跟现实压根不搭边。在看到班级名单时,李子清暗道:孽缘,多年兄弟竟成同班同学,对方还手握众多“黑料”,为了形象,李子清决定先下手为强。杨晨本以为那位在游戏里疯狂飙车又常摔死,喊打喊杀却又常伪装伏地魔的女生是个长得很强壮长相偏于男性化的糙妹子,没想到本人却像个柔不禁风的文艺女青年
  • 重生洪荒之三界妖尊

    重生洪荒之三界妖尊

    本书又名《妖尊I青帝传说》 洪荒太初,凶兽称王,各路先天大神都还处于成长期。王浩重生太初,意外发现自己成了十二品青莲,想到自己最终被三清瓜分的命运,王浩不由仰天吼叫:“我命由我,不由天!”
  • 极品人

    极品人

    古今中外举世闻名的爱情和各种艺术作品里的爱情,就是一种美丽的诱惑。正因为真正的爱情难寻,人类基于对爱情的渴望才生出许多想像,编出许多故事,无形中给爱情定出了一种标准。倘没有这个参照系,人间也许会少些爱情悲剧。实际上每个人的爱情都有自己的条件,自己的特殊性,跟谁的都不一样,尤其跟古今中外著名的爱情范例不一样,这才是你的。
  • 黑暗神曲自杀迷雾事件

    黑暗神曲自杀迷雾事件

    顾褐不是没有想过自杀,他知道这个家除了他还有妹妹顾白、妈妈孙思言都想过死,这个家不想死的只有他爸爸顾卓。他看看钟,快12点了,顾白该吃药了。他拿起一杯白水与药丸走去顾白的房间。他知道妹妹懂事听话,但长期在病痛折磨下,她学会了“故意”忘记吃药,他也会面带笑容轻声责备。与此同时,他不知道这样强留下妹妹活在人间是不是正确的事。路过琴房时,他听到里面传来一阵幽怨的钢琴声,像死神的劝道在耳边不停低喃。
  • 马政纪

    马政纪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 虚灵舟

    虚灵舟

    别人的机缘都要自己找,但柳真云不用。绝世传承你还要经过考验,等我在梦里,捞一下;极品武器你还要出手抢夺,等我在梦里,在捞一下;秘传知识你还要等价交换,等我在梦里,继续捞;梦里真好啥都有。
  • 痴情酷王爷:恋上替嫁小厨娘

    痴情酷王爷:恋上替嫁小厨娘

    “喝了它。”一碗堕胎药,葬送了她所有的温情与希望。“你还不配拥有本王的孩子。”冰冷的笑意迎向他绝情的双眸,毅然离开……再次出现,她已是为魔,为情而着魔,杀尽天下绝情男儿。可是,真正面对他时,她竟然下不了手……
  • 彼岸花开为君倾

    彼岸花开为君倾

    ??此文已出版,出版名为《彼岸花开为君倾》她是盗墓界的精英,一朝穿越竟在阴森恐怖的古墓,九死一生醒来竟被当做候爷的小妾,她可不是柔弱女!任你搓扁捏圆!,我的穿越我做主,我照样在这里混的风生水起,逍遥自在!<br/>那个候爷,你不是我的菜,哪里凉快哪里待着去。你就算把小三拍成黄瓜我也懒得看你一眼!<br/>那个惊采绝艳的王爷,想要娶我?做梦吧!我要前世今生两笔账和你一起算!<br/>??
  • 庄怀皇后

    庄怀皇后

    史书都以男人们为基准,记录着男人们的丰功伟绩,可谁又知道隐藏在他们身后的女人,有什么故事。这是大宋王朝一个连出身都记录不明的皇后的故事,她是杨家将的主角,她同样也是狸猫换太子的主角,隐藏在历史背后,究竟发生了什么……