Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 60
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The Popular Culture Review
the evolutionary scale, a return to primitive existence.(41) Frank R.
Medina presents a comprehensive critique of Science in which he
proves himself an ardent advocate of Spencer:
From the standpoint of evolution. . . Christian Science
is a movement backward... to primitive m an... where
all phenomena were caused by spirits.. .[and] disease and
death... [were] produced by supernatural beings... It
(Christian Science) is a cult that retards the natural
evolution of religious ideas.. . it is a cult that retards secular
ideas as it mixes natural with supernatural which is
primitive. Christian Science, by rejecting secularism, is
barbarous —
While experience is the foundation of reality, continued the
writer, dreams are the foundation of supematuralism. Primitive man
could not distinguish his actual beliefs from his unconscious dreams
because, to him, both seemed real. As man progressed, his
intelligence evolved and his dark, irrational self became less
material and more spiritual. Christian Science proposed a return to
primitivism by returning to the dream beliefs of early humanity.
Therefore, Mrs. Eddy and her followers retarded human progress by
invoking the supernatural against sin, in defiance of the scientific,
rational age: "While the great white sun of science is strong in the
outer expanse, the new cult leads the world back into the deserted
caves of ignorance and holding up its glimmering lantern cries,
’Behold the light.”'(42)
Those who attacked the originality of Mrs. Eddy's thought
have presented strong evidence to justify their postion. However,
those who group "Eastern asceticism, Hinduism and Quimbyism
together(43) and call them all Christian Science precursors are
mistaken. The riddle of Christian Science is explainable in terms of
response to unique American problems. Spiritualism in New England,
the teachings of Thoman Lake Harris and Andrew Jackson Davis,
transcendentalism and pragmatism were reflected, to a greater or
lesser degree, in the spiritual, heavenly optimism of Mrs. Eddy.
Perhaps it is not the material exuberance fomented in a an age of
science and reform but neither was it the verdict of Spencer; it is the
link between the two.