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"Mental Science" people mean when they talk about "going into the Silence."
Mme. Guyon gained her idea of "Quietism" from one who had gained his from the adepts and scholars of India.
"New Thought" goes back to the same reservoir of human knowledge and religious attainments. Mme. Guyon often went to the extreme, which means fanaticism, and lost her balance, as so many devoutly religious people do.
She refused to have an aching tooth extracted, believing it was right to suffer since the pain was sent. She lost all interest in the world in which she lived, and unless engaged in establishing hospitals, or in other charitable works, or in her large correspondence on religious matters, she found happiness only in solitude and quiet, frequently lying absolutely motionless for hours in the woods.
It is a good thing to be alone a portion of every day, and it is a good thing to commune with one's own soul. There is no growth possible otherwise. But it is a sensible thing to keep in touch with humanity and to walk along earth's highways, interested in and interesting to one's fellow beings.
Any religion which eliminates human sympathy and common sense is on the road to fanaticism.
Just as Mme. Guyon was absurd in refusing to draw the aching tooth, so the modern spiritual fanatic is absurd and almost criminal at times, when he allows a member of his family to die without trying "old thought" means of cure.
There is a spirituality capable of preventing disease.
But once it fails and allows the enemy to creep in, then, if he is not quickly put to rout, let practical methods make their attempts at cure.
