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(from Occult Invasion,
Harvest House, 1998)
Religious leaders began to realize that if they
could join in a partnership with science they could sell their
particular religion to a wider audience. We saw how successfully
this scam was pulled off by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. When he
couldn’t sell his brand of yoga in the Western world as "The
Spiritual Regeneration Movement," he called it "The
Science of Creative Intelligence" and it became a success.
Maharishi was not the first to use this scheme.
Long before his day, Mary Baker Eddy had founded the cult of
Christian Science. Convinced that multitudes would be attracted to
"Christianity" if it were scientific, she turned Jesus
into a "scientist" who knew the "mental laws"
that allegedly govern this universe. Unfortunately, what Eddy taught
was not biblical Christianity based upon the true gospel of Jesus
Christ, but an esoteric interpretation of the Bible which only she
could explain. In spite of the Bible’s declaration that no
"Scripture is of private interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20),
Eddy insisted that her interpretation alone was the truth, as
expressed in her book Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures. Mrs. Eddy held that key and had now unlocked a new
understanding that all must follow—an audacious and absurd claim.
The absolute authority and infallibility claimed
by "Mother Eddy" is now wielded by the "Mother
Church," where all except the most minor decisions are made for
the branch churches and must be accepted without question. To this
day, every Christian Science church around the world must take its
Sunday lessons from the Mother Church in Boston, lessons which are
based upon the infallible interpretation of Scripture known only to,
and revealed only by, Mary Baker Eddy.
Here we have one of the first marks of a cult:
that the followers must accept without question whatever the cult
leader as the infallible authority decrees. A former Christian
Scientist of the third generation explains some of its teachings:
Mary Baker Eddy declares that there
is no sin and no hell, and that death is an illusion. No one needs
to be concerned about salvation because everyone will live
eternally....
Jesus was just a man, the perfect
example for us to follow. He didn’t die for our sins. Instead, he
demonstrated the unreality of matter, that all is mind, and that we
too can overcome the false beliefs of mortal mind....
We were warned not to read the Bible
without Key to the Scriptures.... We were always encouraged to
repeat the affirmations, "Christian Science is the complete and
final revelation" and "Christian Science is a perfect
science...."11
New Thought—Forerunner of the New Age Movement
Christian Science is part of the New
Thought movement that developed during the last half of the
nineteenth century. Phineas P. Quimby (1802-1866), whose
"studies in mesmerism [early hypnotism], spiritism and kindred
phenomena... laid the basis for a new structure in the world of
thought12... was regarded as the founder of the [New Thought]
mvement."13 New Thought’s basic teaching is (like that of
Hinduism) that everything is in the mind. We create our own world of
good or evil, of health or sickness, of prosperity or want by our
thoughts. The practice of hypnosis, which Quimby pioneered in
America, seemed to demonstrate this. Mary Baker Eddy was one of the
early patients he "healed" and her new interpretation of
the Bible was actually based upon Quimby’s teachings—a fact
which she refused to admit.
New Thought was the forerunner of
today’s New Age, which has popularized the same delusion under new
labels. New Thought was forced out of mainstream Christianity and
became the basis for a number of cults, which include (in addition
to Christian Science) Unity School of Christianity and The Church of
Religious Science (Science of Mind). Like Unity founders Myrtle and
Charles Fillmore, Ernest Holmes patterned his Science of Mind on the
same attractive delusion: "Man, by thinking, can bring into his
experience whatsoever he desires.… "14 In a proud
prophecy that has come to pass, Holmes declared, "We have
launched a Movement which, in the next 100 years, will be the great
new religious impulsion of modern times... [destined] to envelope
the world...."15
Among today’s well-known advocates
of Science of Mind are actor Robert Stack and singer Della Reese.
This "spiritual philosophy for the New Age" offers a
"specific method by which anyone... may relate consciously to
the Creative life Force ["God"] of the universe... for the
purpose of achieving whatever constructive objective is desired....
Health, abundance, security; love, peace, and happiness are...
within the immediate grasp of all who apply... principles... which
the Science of Mind explains."16 Having reduced God to a
Universal Principle that can be utilized according to scientific
laws, the creature has become the Creator!
Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller
Norman Vincent Peale, a 33-degree
Mason, and his chief disciple, Robert Schuller, kept New Thought
alive within mainstream Christianity—so that its tenets are even
widely embraced among evangelicals today. Schuller calls Peale
"the man who has impacted and influenced my thinking and my
theology and my life more than any other living person...."17
Peale borrowed from Fillmore the phrase "Positive
Thinking" (that made Peale famous)18 and credited Holmes with
making him into a positive thinker. 19
Charles S. Braden’s definitive work
on New Thought identifies Norman Vincent Peale as the one man
"through whose ministry essentially New Thought ideas and
techniques have been made known most widely in America."20
Peale continually spoke of the universe as "mental," of
God as "energy;" and of "prayer" as the
scientific technique for releasing God-energy according to definite
"laws." The following statements reveal Peale’s basic
Science of Mind teaching:
The world you live in is mental and
not physical. Change your thought and you change everything.21
Your unconscious mind [has a] power
that turns wishes into realities when the wishes are strong
enough.22
Who is God? Some theological
being...? God is energy. As you breathe God in, as you visualize
His energy, you will be reenergized!23
Prayer power is a manifestation of
energy. Just as there exist scientific techniques for the release
of atomic energy, so are there scientific procedures for the
release of spiritual energy through the mechanism of prayer....
New and fresh spiritual techniques are being constantly
discovered... experiment with prayer power.24
Prayer... is a procedure by which
spiritual power flows from God... releases forces and energies...
and brings many other astounding results. As in any skill or
science one must learn step by step the formula for opening the
circuit and receiving this power.
Any method through which you can
stimulate the power of God to flow into your mind is legitimate...
[any] scientific use of prayer.…25
Notes:
11. Personal interview with Carolyn Poole.
12. Horatio W. Dresser, ed., The Quimby
Manuscripts (Citadel, 1980), p. 9.
13. Charles S. Braden, Spirits in Rebellion:
The Rise and Development of New Thought (SMU Press, 1966), p.
20.
14. Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind
(textbook), p. 30.
15. James Reid, Ernest Holmes: The First
Religious Scientist (Science of Mind Publications, Los
Angeles), p. 14.
16. From the brochure "What Is the Science
of Mind?"
17. "The Plus Factor," published
excerpts from a Peale talk on Schuller’s "Hour of
Power," copyrighted 1985 by Robert Shuller, p. 3.
18. Braden, Spirits, p. 390.
19. Reid, Ernst Holmes, p. 14.
20. Braden, Spirits, p. 186.
21. Ibid., p. 387.
22. Norman Vincent Peale, Positive Imaging (Fawcett
Crest, 1982), p. 77.
23. Norman Vincent Peale, Plus: The Magazine
of Positive Thinking, Vol. 37, no. 4 (Part II), May 1986, p.
23.
24. Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of
Positive Thinking (Fawcett Crest, 1983), pp. 52-53.
25. Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of
Positive Thinking, New Condensed Edition (Center for Positive
Thinking, 1987), p. 17.
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