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I. Forms and Backgrounds of Inherited Christianity
Certain Qualities Common to All Religions—Christianity Historically Organized Around a
Transcendent God and a Fallen Humanity—The Incarnation; the Cross the Supreme Symbol of
Western Theology—The Catholic Belief in the Authority of an Inerrant Church—The
Protestant Church Made Faith the Key to Salvation—Protestantism and an Infallibly Inspired
Bible—The Strength and Weakness of This Position—Evangelical Protestantism the
Outcome—Individual Experience of the Believer the Keystone of Evangelical Protestantism—Readjustment
of Both Catholic and Protestant Systems Inevitable.
II. New Forces and Old Faiths
The Far-reaching Readjustments of Christian Faith in the Last Fifty Years—The Reaction of
Evolution Upon Religion—The Reaction of Biblical Criticism Upon Faith—The Average
Man Loses His Bearings—The New Psychology—TheInfluence of Philosophy and the
Social Situation—An Age of Confusion—TheLure of the Short Cut—Popular Education—The
Churches Lose Authority—Efforts at Reconstruction—An Age of Doubt and a Twilight-Zone
in History—The Hunger of the Soul and the Need for Faith—Modern Religious
Cults and Movements: Their Three centers About Which They Have Organized Themselves.
III. Faith Healing in General
The Bases of Faith and Mental Healing—Cannon's Study of Emotional Reactions—The
Two Doors—The Challenge of Hypnotism— Changed Attention Affects Physical States—The
Power of Faith to Change Mental Attitudes—Demon Possession—The Beginnings of
Scientific Medicine—The Attitude of the Early and Medieval Church—Saints and Shrines—Magic,
Charms, and the King's Touch: The Rise of the Faith Healer.
IV. The Approach to Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy
Mesmerism—The Scientific Investigation of Mesmerism—Mesmerism in America; Phineas
Quimby an Important Link in a Long Chain—Quimby is Led to Define Sickness as Wrong
Belief—Quimby Develops His Theories—Mary Baker Eddy Comes Under His Influence—Outstanding
Events of Her Life: Her Early Girlhood—Her Education: Shaping Influences—Her Unhappy Fortunes.
She is Cured by Quimby—An Unacknowledged Debt—She Develops Quimby's Teachings—Begins
to Teach and to Heal—Early Phases of Christian Science—She Writes "Science and Health" and
Completes the Organization of Her Church.
V. Christian Science as a Philosophy
Christian Science a Philosophy, a Theology, a Religion and a System of Healing—The
Philosophic Bases of Christian Science—It Undertakes to Solve the Problem of Evil—Contrasted
Solutions—The Divine Mind and Mortal Mind—The Essential Limitations of
Mrs. Eddy's System—Experience and Life—Sense-Testimony—The Inescapable Reality
of Shadowed Experience.
VI. Christian Science as a Theology
Science and Health Offered as a Key to the Scriptures—It Ignores All Recognized Canons
of Biblical Interpretation—Its Conception of God—Mrs. Eddy's Interpretation of Jesus
Christ—Christian Science His Second Coming—Christian Science, the Incarnation and the
Atonement—Sin an Error of Mortal Mind—The Sacraments Disappear—The Real Power
of Christian Science.
VII. Christian Science as a System of Healing and a Religion
Christian Science the Application of Philosophy and Theology to Bodily Healing—Looseness
of Christian Science Diagnosis—The Power of Mental Environment—Christian
Science Definition of Disease—Has a Rich Field to Work—A Strongly-Drawn System
of Psycho-therapy—A System of Suggestion—Affected by Our Growing Understanding
of the Range of Suggestion—Strongest in Teaching That God Has Meaning for the
Whole of Life—Exalts the Power of Mind; the Processes—Is Not Big Enough for the
Whole of Experience.
VIII. New Thought
New Thought Difficult to Define—"The Rediscovery of the Inner Life"—Spinoza's Quest—Kant
Reaffirms the Creative Power of Mind—Utilitarianism, Deism and Individualism—The
Reactions Against Them—New England Transcendentalism—New Thought Takes
Form—Its Creeds—The Range of the Movement—The Key-Words of New Thought—Its
Field of Real Usefulness—Its Gospel of Getting On—The Limitations and Dangers of Its
Positions—Tends to Become a Universal and Loosely-Defined Religion.
IX. The Return of the East Upon the West. Theosophy and Kindred Cults
Historic Forces Carried Early Christianity West and Not East—The West Rediscovers
the East; the East Returns Upon the West—Chesterton's Two Saints—Why the West
Questions the East—Pantheism and Its Problems—How the One Becomes the Many—Evolution
and Involution—Theosophy Undertakes to Offer Deliverance—But Becomes
Deeply Entangled Itself—The West Looks to Personal Immortality—The East Balances the
Accounts of Life in a Series of Reincarnations—Theosophy Produces a Distinct Type of Character—A "Tour de Force"
of the Imagination—A Bridge of Clouds—The Difficulties of Reincarnation—Immortality Nobler, Juster and
Simpler—Pantheism at Its Best—and Its Worst.
X. Spiritualism
The Genesis of Modern Spiritualism—It Crosses to Europe—The Beginnings of Trance-Mediumship—The
Society for Psychical Research Begins Its Work—Confronts Difficulties—William James Enters the Field—The
Limitations of Psychical Investigation—The Society for Psychical Research Gives Intellectual Standing to
Spiritism—The Very Small Number of Dependable Mediums—Spiritism a Question of Testimony and
Interpretation—Possible Explanations of Spiritistic Phenomena—Myers' Theory of Mediumship—Telepathy—Controls—The
Dilemma of Spiritism—The Influence of Spiritism—The Real Alternative to Spiritism—The Investigations of Émile
Boirac—Geley's Conclusions—The Meaning of Spiritism for Faith.
XIXI. Minor Cults: The Meaning of the Cults for the Church
Border-land Cults—Bahaism—The Bab and His Successors—The Temple of Unity—General
Conclusions—The Cults Are Aspects of the Creative Religious Consciousness of the
Age—Their Parallels in the Past—The Healing Cults Likely to be Adversely Influenced by
the Scientific Organization of Psycho-therapy—New Thought Will Become Old Thought—Possible
Absorption of the Cults by a Widening Historic Christianity—Christianity Influenced
by the Cults—Medical Science and the Healing Cults—A Neglected Force—Time and
the Corrections of Truth.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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