IN THE MASTERTON LIBRARY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8469, 22 June 1907, Page 5

IN THE MASTERTON LIBRARY.

No. VI. "IN TUNE WITH THE INFINITE." —Ralph Waldo Trine. This is a type of book that is exceedingly difficult to deal with owing to the practical impossibility of avoiding something of a controversial nature. Of late years there has sprung up quite a large crop of new religious or quasi psychological cults —each with its own particular prophet or seer; ta and they appear to consist in the main of a confused elaboration and impractical application of certain well-known and accepted principles of life and conduct. It is widely known that the mind has a very considerable influence on physical health. To keep the patient cheerful, to distract his mind from business cares, to occupy him with pleasant thoughts, to send him away for a change—these are all oldestablished recognitions of the influence that the mind has on our physical well-being, especially in cases where the trouble is not at all, or in the main, organic. If anybody with a natural turn for language wants to start a popular form of religion jn an easy way, without having

to go through any course of study or training, all he requires to do is to take hold of the fundamental axiom that the mind has an influence upon the body, and, with the aid of confusion of metaphor and analogy of doubtful accuracy, to hold forth on the subject for hours on the platform or to fill up a respectable sized volume. The attraction to the public consists in the practical results that are claimed by the exponent, prophet seer, or whatever else he may choose to call himself. Keep bright thoughts, avoid worrysj devote yourself to ,a doctrine of love of your fellow men, and you will be be cured of all your illnesses, and save doctor's bills. This type of cult, so far as it urges the advisability of keeping a kindly and cheerful view of life, and one's fellow men and living, as_. far as possible, in tune or at one with the Divine Power is most excellent. But in so far as it urges the material advantages that accrue, it is rather a degradation of religion, and when it pretends to be a cure-all it becomes a dangerous doctrine. The writer remembers hearing a Mrs Worthington during a lecture in Wellington, explaining how the mind could cure disease. One searcher after truth v got up in the body of the hall, and asked effect the particular brand of mental science under con- -■ I sideration would have upon a man if he got his leg taken off. The lecturer paused for a moment in anxious thought, and then proceeded to use the blush as an illustration as follows: —"Some disquieting thought occurs to a person and he blushes, i Physically a blush is simply an acceleration of blood circulation' to the head. If by thought the circulation is accelerated there is no logical reason why by thought the circulation should not be retarded and the bleeding stopped." The truth-searcher ' was discomforted but was understood to mutter into his beard that he would prefer to trust to a tourniquet. The book now under consideration sets up a quasi religious cult based upon two axioms—first," that the mind has a tremendous power over the body; second, that if a] man recognises that the/Divine Spirit is everywhere around him and puts his mind in a receptive attitude there will be ah inflow of the Divine Spirit, and he will live a truly happy life. To the second maxim, with its well expressed illustrations and amplifications, no exception can be taken, and the reader who reads with discrimination can get much good from the book. The second maxim in itself is admittedly sound. But it is pushed to an absurd extreme. The ' true position is that the mind and'the body are the complement of each other. An unhealthy frame of mind will'react upon the body it is true, but it is equally true that an unhealthy body will react upon the mind, and the reaction of the body upon the mind is far more powerful than the reaction of the mind upon the body. If the ideal physician comes across a man with a gloomy countenance and an engorged liver, be says, "Be cheerful and happy, and your physical condition will improve." The common or garden medico, however, says: "Take a liver pill and you will soon get over your fit of the blues"—and practical experience tends to showthat the medico has the best of the argument. There is very little in mental and moral philosophy that has not been explored ages ago, and the whole corelative functions of mind and body were truly summed up by 4 the ancients when they laid it down as a maxim td keep "a sound mind in a sound body." In mcdern days we have the trite copy book maxim, "Be good and you will be happy"—and these two maxims include all the practical principles that should guide any man who desires to live his life as far as possible in a state of health and contentment.