I Was a Heathen Here's a first-hand account by one of America's leading Christian writers of what it's like to be a follower of false religions ■ hough I grew up in the United States, I was as much a heathen as any savage in darkest Africa. By Dorothy C. Haskin ingless phrase over and over again to ward off evil spirits. shadowed my life, making it a dark and mystic thing, I was too young to spend the day struggling through the mental calisthenics of these cults.
Mother went from Christian Sci ence to Unity, to Theosophy, to Numerology, to Astrology, with a dash of Palmistry, Reincarnation and finally Spiritualism. In Unity she was hopeful for awhile, but she soon found it to be merely a modified form of Christian Science. It didn’t bring her the health, peace and prosperity it promised. Theosophy and related meta physics absorbed her for many years, making her a morbid, brood ing, unhappy woman. I reflected her state of mind, becoming in my late teens a depressed, fear-bound girl. Numerology laid all our unhap piness to the fact that we were both incorrectly named. She changed both our first names which caused confusion for many years. Numer ology changed our names, but not our lives or our hearts. Palmistry proved to be a fatal istic method of fortune-telling, and while it interested my young mind, it offered no real help. After buy ing and studying many books on Palmistry we gave it up. I think Astrology was the worst. For years mother lived by her chart. If the day were an ill- omened day on the chart, she would not even use the telephone or bake a cake. She would remain in bed writing letters or reading more met aphysics. W e would keep the house dark and I usually read a dramatic novel, for though her beliefs over
M y mother’s parents had been Prot estant and, after an unsuccessful marriage, she was attracted by the promises of the cults which flour ish in so-called Christian America. M y earliest religious memory is walking down the street, when I was about eight years old, repeat ing the “ Scientific Statement of Being.” When other children were learning the Lord’s Prayer and the twenty-third Psalm, I was taught, “ There is no life, truth, intelligence nor substance in matter. A ll is in finite Mind and its infinite mani festations, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal truth, matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal, matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God and Man is His image and likeness, therefore man is not material, he is spiritual” (i Science and Health with K ey to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 468). I repeated these sentences be cause I was afraid of Animal Mag netism. Mother sent me to the Christian Science Sunday school, and though the tea'chers taught the nothingness of matter, they also taught that it could hurt me unless I repeated the “ Scientific Statement of Being” often enough. I used to walk down the street, repeating it over and over so no automobile or disease germ could hurt me. I was taught to trust the repeating of it the same as a savage chants a mean
If the day was not bad because of the astrology, it was bad because of her dreams* She lived with a dream book by her bedside. Before breakfast she looked up their mean ing. If she had dreamed something bad, we lived in dread until we received evil tidings. If she dreamed of someone dead, she expected to hear from the living and we watched for the mailman. She had only one dream that brought good luck. How relieved I was when she occasionally dreamed that! Every detail of my life was bound by superstition. If I forgot something when I left the house and had to come back for it, I had to go through the ritual of walking around a chair three times and sit ting down in three chairs for three minutes each to break the spell so I would not have the bad luck. What housekeeping I was taught was in reality a series of good luck taboos— no shoes on a shelf higher than one’s head, no umbrella open in the house, no hat on the bed and so on. All day long my actions were checked by the luck they would or would not bring. Fear was my con stant companion. Mother’s one sign of good luck was when her left hand itched. It meant we would receive money. Perhaps I would get work, or she would, or we would receive some of the ever over-due alimony. I
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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