Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 60

52 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.