Aristocracy vs Liberty

Phineas Quimby was a very opinionated man. And having witnessed first-hand the American Civil War meant that he based his thinking on what he saw going on around him. Politically, he equated priests and doctors to the aristocracy, and noted that the minute anyone tries to dominate another by using their authority, the second one wants to break free from that control. Essentially, this is what it means to be human.

Slavery is a case in point, and the reason for the South wanting to secede from the Union. No man wants to be a slave to any form of government, but total freedom will devolve into anarchy, in the end. And that is where conservatism comes into play. Here’s what Quimby wrote:

The false assertion that disease is in any way connected with God leads to slavery which is opposed to every good thing. Slavery in mind or matter is of Satan. Science will explain it so that man will free himself from the opinion of priest and doctor and will allow their laws to stand as a warning to all generations as they pass along through the world of progression. Then evil ideas which once stood as truth shall be as a valley of dry bones, hated by all who see them. This will be the fate of the leaders of all kinds of slavery who have deceived the people through falsehood. This truth, springing like a phoenix out of the ashes, has become a prince of peace and he will establish his kingdom in the hearts of men. Then the devil in the form of religious and medical teachers will make war on the principle of freedom. Every artifice will be used to set the minds against science and every false belief will be appealed to in order to make a successful false issue. For instance, certain political leaders say that if the North had done right, this rebellion might have been avoided. Beware of such reasoning. Remember that freedom never makes war but Aristocracy always begins a quarrel, for if the reverse was true, then man could do evil that good may come. But he who loves the truth says, Let God be true and every man a liar. In other words, admit that Science is true and opinions false and then no one can arrive at a truth by admitting an error. To acknowledge slavery right is to allow an error that good may come. If the leaders can only establish the idea that the liberal party began the war, then everything will be brought up to make the Republicans responsible for the war. But if the truth is established that freedom is the natural condition of the mind and to oppose it and make war against it is fighting against God and Science, then every person will be very cautious how they speak against an institution that has caused so much bloodshed. Then a death blow will be struck at its roots and all that is heard is the gnashing of its teeth in the agonies of death. Its friends scattered throughout all the civilized world as warnings to tyrants and it will become a byword and reproach among nations and here endeth African Slavery.

White slavery or disease must go through the same process to meet its doom. The weapons will be reason and the warfare will be carried on upon the platform of intelligence. Its opposers will say to the party in favor of freedom, Go on, the people are too ignorant to listen to the words of wisdom. We have such a hold on the minds that they think their theory is as solid as a rock. But when the wind of science blows upon it while they are eating and drinking or talking and preaching their error, the storm will come and they will be swept away down the streams of time into the gulf of despair. And like the swine, they will be swallowed up in the ocean of forgetfulness. Before this takes place, men will doubt reason and question. Opposition to the old faculty will spring up; different arguments will be used till the idea that medicine must be used to cure disease is exploded. Parties spring up opposing drugs but believing in disease, and finally this sin will be denied. Then it will be a question to settle, Who invented disease or began it? And beware how you admit that it is from God, for this doctrine will be urged on the people. Abide by the truth that man is the inventor of the disease as he is of African slavery.

Quimby, Phineas. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby: His Complete Writings and Beyond (p. 247). Phineas Parkhurst Quimby Resource Center. Kindle Edition.

Now that might seem to be a very extended simile or metaphor, but his reasoning is logical: man is the inventor of the disease…politically and in health. Quimby is not the only one to say something similar.

Anti-COVID-19 vaccines, anyone?