How Healings Work?

Harmonious functions
	Question. — Does brain think, and do nerves feel, and
15	is there intelligence in matter?
	Answer. — No, not if God is true and mortal man a
	liar. The assertion that there can be pain or pleasure
18	in matter is erroneous. That body is most
	harmonious in which the discharge of the nat-
	ural functions is least noticeable. How can intelligence
21	dwell in matter when matter is non-intelligent and
	brain-lobes cannot think? Matter cannot perform the
	functions of Mind. Error says, "I am man;" but this
24	belief is mortal and far from actual. From beginning
	to end, whatever is mortal is composed of material hu-
	man beliefs and of nothing else. That only is real which
27	reflects God. St. Paul said, "But when it pleased God,
	who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me
	by His grace, . . . I conferred not with flesh and blood."


	Immortal birthright
30	Mortal man is really a self-contradictory phrase, for
	man is not mortal, "neither indeed can be;" man is im-


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1	mortal. If a child is the offspring of physical sense and 
	not of Soul, the child must have a material, not a spirit-
3	ual origin. With what truth, then, could the 
	Scriptural rejoicing be uttered by any mother, 
	"I have gotten a man from the Lord"? On the con-
6	trary, if aught comes from God, it cannot be mortal and 
	material; it must be immortal and spiritual.


	Matter's supposed selfhood
	Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit.
9	An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is 
	all that the eye beholds. Matter cannot see, 
	feel, hear, taste, nor smell.  It is not self- 
12	cognizant, — cannot feel itself, see itself, nor 
	understand itself. Take away so-called mortal mind,
	which constitutes matter's supposed selfhood, and matter
15	can take no cognizance of matter. Does that which we 
	call dead ever see, hear, feel, or use any of the physical
	senses?


	Chaos and darkness
18	"In the beginning God created the heaven and the 
	earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and
	darkness was upon the face of the deep."
21	(Genesis i. 1, 2.) In the vast forever, in the 
	Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit
	and its innumerable creations.  Darkness and chaos
24	are the imaginary opposites of  light, understanding, 
	and eternal harmony, and they  are the elements of
	nothingness.


	Spiritual reflection
27	We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects 
	no light. So evil should be denied identity or power,
	because it has none of the divine hues. Paul 
30	says: "For the invisible things of Him, from 
	the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being under-
	stood by the things that are made." (Romans i. 20.)


PAGE 480


1	When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Sci-
	ence, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where
3	the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is
	not, evil becomes nothing, — the opposite of the some-
	thing of Spirit. If there is no spiritual reflection, then
6	there remains only the darkness of vacuity and not a trace
	of heavenly tints.


	Harmony from Spirit
	Nerves are an element of the belief that there is sensa-
9	tion in matter, whereas matter is devoid of sensation.
	Consciousness, as well as action, is governed
	by Mind, — is in God, the origin and gov-
12	ernor of all that Science reveals. Material sense has
	its realm apart from Science in the unreal. Harmonious
	action proceeds from Spirit, God. inharmony has no
15	Principle; its action is erroneous and presupposes man
	to be in matter. Inharmony would make matter the
	cause as well as the effect of intelligence, or Soul, thus
18	attempting to separate Mind from God.


	Evil non-existent
	Man is not God, and God is not man. Again, God,
	or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the oppo-
21	site of good — that is, evil — which seems to
	make men capable of wrong-doing. Hence,
	evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis. Evil is a
24	false belief. God is not its author. The supposititious
	parent of evil is a lie.


	Vapor and nothingness
	The Bible declares: "All things were made by Him
27	[the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything,
	made that was made." This is the eternal
	verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness,
30	death were understood as nothingness, they would dis-
	appear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would
	vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the


PAGE 481


1	other. How important, then, to choose good as the 
	reality! Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing
3	else. God's being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and 
	boundless bliss. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
	there is liberty." Like the archpriests of yore, man is
6	free "to enter into the holiest," — the realm of God.  


	The fruit forbidden
	Material sense never helps mortals to understand
	Spirit, God. Through spiritual sense only, man com-
9	prehends and loves Deity. The various con-  
	tradictions of the Science of Mind by the ma-
	terial senses do not change the unseen Truth, which re-
12	mains forever intact. The forbidden fruit of knowledge, 
	against which wisdom warns man, is the testimony of
	error, declaring existence to be at the mercy of death,
15	and good and evil to be capable of commingling. This 
	is the significance of the Scripture concerning this "tree
	of the knowledge of good and evil," — this growth of
18	material belief, of which it is said: "In the day that thou
	eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Human hypotheses
	first assume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and
21	then assume the necessity of these evils because of their 
	admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the pro-
	curers of all discord.


	Sense and pure Soul
24	If Soul sins, it must be mortal. Sin has the elements 
	of self-destruction. It cannot sustain itself.  If sin is
	supported, God must uphold it, and this is 
27	impossible, since Truth cannot support error.  
	Soul is the divine Principle of man and never sins, —
	hence the immortality of Soul. In Science we learn that
30	it is material sense, not Soul, which sins; and it will be 
	found that it is the sense of sin which is lost, and not a
	sinful soul. When reading the Scriptures, the substitu-


PAGE 482


1	tion of the word sense for soul gives the exact meaning in
	a majority of cases.


	Soul defined
3	Human thought has adulterated the meaning of the
	word soul through the hypothesis that soul is both an evil
	and a good intelligence, resident in matter.
6	The proper use of the word soul can always
	be gained by substituting the word God, where the deific
	meaning is required. In other cases, use the word sense,
9	and you will have the scientific signification. As used
	in Christian Science, Soul is properly the synonym of
	Spirit, or God; but out of Science, soul is identical with
12	sense, with material sensation.
              
                        Science & Health ~ Chpt 14 ~ Pg 478-482   View/Dnld