Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures
CHAPTER IV
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE VERSUS SPIRITUALISM
And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them
that have familiar spirits, And unto wizards that peep and that mutter; Should
not a people seek unto their God? - ISAIAH. |
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my
saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that
thou hast a devil. - JOHN. |
The infinite one
Spirit |
MORTAL existence is an enigma. Every day is a mystery.
The testimony of the corporeal senses cannot inform us what is real and what is
delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures of
Truth. Whatever is false or sinful can never enter the atmosphere of Spirit.
There is but one Spirit. Man is never God, but spiritual man, made in God's
likeness, reflects God. In this scientific reflection the Ego and the Father
are inseparable. The supposition that corporeal beings are spirits, or that
there are good and evil spirits, is a mistake. |
Real and unreal
identity |
The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade
of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal. The questions are: What are
God's identities? What is Soul? Does life or soul exist in the thing
formed? Nothing is real and eternal, nothing is Spirit, but God and His
idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is
simply a belief, an illusion of material sense. The identity, or idea, of all
reality continues forever; but Spirit, or the divine Principle of all, is not
in Spirit's formations. Soul is synonymous with Spirit, God, the
creative, governing, infinite Principle outside of finite form, which forms
only reflect. |
Dream-lessons |
Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see a
flower, that you touch and smell it. Thus you learn that the flower is a
product of the so-called mind, a formation of thought rather than of matter.
Close your eyes again, and you may see landscapes, men, and women. Thus you
learn that these also are images, which mortal mind holds and evolves and which
simulate mind, life, and intelligence. From dreams also you learn that neither
mortal mind nor matter is the image or likeness of God, and that immortal Mind
is not in matter. |
Found wanting |
When the Science of Mind is understood, spiritualism
will be found mainly erroneous, having no scientific basis nor origin, no proof
nor power outside of human testimony. It is the offspring of the physical
senses. There is no sensuality in Spirit. I never could believe in
spiritualism. The basis and structure of spiritualism are alike material and
physical. Its spirits are so many corporealities, limited and finite in
character and quality. Spiritualism therefore presupposes Spirit, which is ever
infinite, to be a corporeal being, a finite form, a theory contrary to
Christian Science. There is but one spiritual existence, the Life of which
corporeal sense can take no cognizance. The divine Principle of man speaks
through immortal sense. If a material body in other words, mortal, material
sense were permeated by Spirit, that body would disappear to mortal sense,
would be deathless. A condition precedent to communion with Spirit is the gain
of spiritual life. |
Spirits obsolete |
So-called spirits are but corporeal
communicators. As light destroys darkness and in the place of darkness all is
light, so (in absolute Science) Soul, or God, is the only truth-giver to man.
Truth destroys mortality, and brings to light immortality. Mortal belief (the
material sense of life) and immortal Truth (the spiritual sense) are the tares
and the wheat, which are not united by progress, but separated. Perfection is
not expressed through imperfection.Spirit is not made manifest through matter,
the anti-pode of Spirit. Error is not a convenient sieve through which truth
can be strained. |
Scientific phenomena |
God, good, being ever present, it follows in divine
logic that evil, the suppositional opposite of good, is never present. In
Science, individual good derived from God, the infinite All-in-all, may flow
from the departed to mortals; but evil is neither communicable nor scientific.
A sinning, earthly mortal is not the reality of Life nor the medium through
which truth passes to earth. The joy of intercourse becomes the jest of sin,
when evil and suffering are communicable. Not personal intercommunion but
divine law is the communicator of truth, health, and harmony to earth and
humanity. As readily can you mingle fire and frost as Spirit and matter. In
either case, one does not support the other. Spiritualism calls one person,
living in this world, material, but another, who has died today a sinner
and supposedly will return to earth tomorrow, it terms a spirit. The
fact is that neither the one nor the other is infinite Spirit, for Spirit is
God, and man is His likeness. |
One government |
The belief that one man, as spirit, can control
another man, as matter, upsets both the individuality and the Science of man,
for man is image. God controls man, and God is the only Spirit. Any other
control or attraction of so-called spirit is a mortal belief, which ought to be
known by its fruit, the repetition of evil. If Spirit, or God, communed with
mortals or controlled them through electricity or any other form of matter, the
divine order and the Science of omnipotent, omnipresent Spirit would be
destroyed. |
Incorrect theories |
The belief that material bodies return to dust,
hereafter to rise up as spiritual bodies with material sensations and desires,
is incorrect. Equally incorrect is the belief that spirit is confined in a
finite, material body, from which it is freed by death, and that, when it is
freed from the material body, spirit retains the sensations belonging to that
body. |
No me-diumship |
It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any
part of the reality of intelligent existence, or that Spirit and matter,
intelligence and non-intelligence, can commune together. This error Science
will destroy. The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece of the spiritual, nor
can the finite become the channel of the infinite. There is no communication
between so-called material existence and spiritual life which is not subject to
death. |
Opposing conditions |
To be on communicable terms with Spirit, persons must
be free from organic bodies; and their return to a material condition, after
having once left it, would be as impossible as would be the restoration to its
original condition of the acorn, already absorbed into a sprout which has risen
above the soil. The seed which has germinated has a new form and state of
existence. When here or hereafter the belief of life in matter is extinct, the
error which has held the belief dissolves with the belief, and never returns to
the old condition. No correspondence nor communion can exist between persons in
such opposite dreams as the belief of having died and left a material body and
the belief of still living in an organic, material body. |
Bridgeless division |
The caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful insect,
is no longer a worm, nor does the insect return to fraternize with or control
the worm. Such a backward transformation is impossible in Science. Darkness and
light, infancy and manhood, sickness and health, are opposites, different
beliefs, which never blend. Who will say that infancy can utter the ideas of
manhood, that darkness can represent light, that we are in Europe when we are
in the opposite hemisphere? There is no bridge across the gulf which divides
two such opposite conditions as the spiritual, or incorporeal, and the
physical, or corporeal. In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step,
never a return to positions outgrown. The so-called dead and living cannot
commune together, for they are in separate states of existence, or
consciousness. |
Unscientific investiture
|
This simple truth lays bare the mistaken assumption
that man dies as matter but comes to life as spirit. The so-called dead, in
order to reappear to those still in the existence cognized by the physical
senses, would need to be tangible and material, to have a material investiture,
or the material senses could take no cognizance of the so-called dead.
Spiritualism would transfer men from the spiritual sense of existence back into
its material sense. This gross materialism is scientifically impossible, since
to infinite Spirit there can be no matter. |
Raising the dead |
Jesus said of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth;
but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Jesus restored Lazarus by the
understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body
had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or
died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as
those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it. When you can
waken yourself or others out of the belief that all must die, you can then
exercise Jesus' spiritual power to reproduce the presence of those who have
thought they died, but not otherwise. |
Vision of the dying |
There is one possible moment, when those living on the
earth and those called dead, can commune together, and that is the moment
previous to the transition, the moment when the link between their opposite
beliefs is being sundered. In the vestibule through which we pass from one
dream to another dream, or when we awake from earth's sleep to the grand
verities of Life, the departing may hear the glad welcome of those who have
gone before. The ones departing may whisper this vision, name the face that
smiles on them and the hand which beckons them, as one at Niagara, with eyes
open only to that wonder, forgets all else and breathes aloud his rapture.
|
Real Life is God |
When being is understood, Life will be recognized as
neither material nor finite, but as infinite, as God, universal good; and the
belief that life, or mind, was ever in a finite form, or good in evil, will be
destroyed. Then it will be understood that Spirit never entered matter and was
therefore never raised from matter. When advanced to spiritual being and the
understanding of God, man can no longer commune with matter; neither can he
return to it, any more than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will man
seem to be corporeal, but he will be an individual consciousness, characterized
by the divine Spirit as idea, not matter. Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are
unreal. When divine Science is universally understood, they will have no power
over man, for man is immortal and lives by divine authority. |
Immaterial pleasure |
The sinless joy, the perfect harmony and immortality
of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness without a single
bodily pleasure or pain, constitutes the only veritable, indestructible man,
whose being is spiritual. This state of existence is scientific and intact, a
perfection discernible only by those who have the final understanding of Christ
in divine Science. Death can never hasten this state of existence, for death
must be overcome, not submitted to, before immortality appears. The recognition
of Spirit and of infinity comes not suddenly here or hereafter. The pious
Polycarp said: "I cannot turn at once from good to evil." Neither do other
mortals accomplish the change from error to truth at a single bound. |
Second death |
Existence continues to be a belief of corporeal sense
until the Science of being is reached. Error brings its own self-destruction
both here and hereafter, for mortal mind creates its own physical conditions.
Death will occur on the next plane of existence as on this, until the spiritual
understanding of Life is reached. Then, and not until then, will it be
demonstrated that "the second death hath no power." |
A dream vanishing |
The period required for this dream of material life,
embracing its so-called pleasures and pains, to vanish from consciousness,
"knoweth no man . . . neither the Son, but the Father." This period will be of
longer or shorter duration according to the tenacity of error. Of what
advantage, then, would it be to us, or to the departed, to prolong the material
state and so prolong the illusion either of a soul inert or of a sinning,
suffering sense, a so-called mind fettered to matter. |
Progress and purgatory
|
Even if communications from spirits to mortal
consciousness were possible, such communications would grow beautifully less
with every advanced stage of existence. The departed would gradually rise above
ignorance and materiality, and Spiritualists would outgrow their beliefs in
material spiritualism. Spiritism consigns the so-called dead to a state
resembling that of blighted buds, to a wretched purgatory, where the chances of
the departed for improvement narrow into nothing and they return to their old
standpoints of matter. |
Unnatural deflections |
The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled
oak, the ferocious beast, like the discords of disease, sin, and death, are
unnatural. They are the falsities of sense, the changing deflections of mortal
mind; they are not the eternal realities of Mind. |
Absurd oracles |
How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing out
life and hastening to death, and that at the same time we are communing with
immortality! If the departed are in rapport with mortality, or matter, they are
not spiritual, but must still be mortal, sinning, suffering, and dying. Then
why look to them even were communication possible for proofs of immortality,
and accept them as oracles? Communications gathered from ignorance are
pernicious in tendency. Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would
destroy the supremacy of Spirit. If Spirit pervades all space, it needs no
material method for the transmission of messages. Spirit needs no wires nor
electricity in order to be omnipresent. |
Spirit intangible |
Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it
communicate with man through electric, material effects? How can the majesty
and omnipotence of Spirit be lost? God is not in the medley where matter cares
for matter, where spiritism makes many gods, and hypnotism and electricity are
claimed to be the agents of God's government. Spirit blesses man, but man
cannot "tell whence it cometh." By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are
comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the effects of one universal
God, the invisible good dwelling in eternal Science. |
Thought regarding death
|
The act of describing disease its symptoms, locality,
and fatality is not scientific. Warning people against death is an error that
tends to frighten into death those who are ignorant of Life as God. Thousands
of instances could be cited of health restored by changing the patient's
thoughts regarding death. |
Fallacious hypotheses |
A scientific mental method is more sanitary than the
use of drugs, and such a mental method produces permanent health. Science must
go over the whole ground, and dig up every seed of error's sowing. Spiritualism
relies upon human beliefs and hypotheses. Christian Science removes these
beliefs and hypotheses through the higher understanding of God, for Christian
Science, resting on divine Principle, not on material personalities, in its
revelation of immortality, introduces the harmony of being. Jesus cast out evil
spirits, or false beliefs. The Apostle Paul bade men have the Mind that was in
the Christ. Jesus did his own work by the one Spirit. He said: "My Father
worketh hitherto, and I work." He never described disease, so far as can be
learned from the Gospels, but he healed disease. |
Mistaken methods |
The unscientific practitioner says: "You are ill.
Your brain is overtaxed, and you must rest. Your body is weak, and it must be
strengthened. You have nervous prostration, and must be treated for it."
Science objects to all this, contending for the rights of intelligence and
asserting that Mind controls body and brain. |
Divine strength |
Mind-science teaches that mortals need "not be weary
in well doing." It dissipates fatigue in doing good. Giving does not impoverish
us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us. We have
strength in proportion to our apprehension of the truth, and our strength is
not lessened by giving utterance to truth. A cup of coffee or tea is not the
equal of truth, whether for the inspiration of a sermon or for the support of
bodily endurance. |
A denial of immortality
|
A communication purporting to come from the late
Theodore Parker reads as follows: "There never was, and there never will be, an
immortal spirit." Yet the very periodical containing this sentence repeats
weekly the assertion that spirit-communications are our only proofs of
immortality. |
Mysticism unscientific
|
I entertain no doubt of the humanity and philanthropy
of many Spiritualists, but I cannot coincide with their views. It is mysticism
which gives spiritualism its force. Science dispels mystery and explains
extraordinary phenomena; but Science never removes phenomena from the domain of
reason into the realm of mysticism. |
Physical falsities |
It should not seem mysterious that mind, without the
aid of hands, can move a table, when we already know that it is mind-power
which moves both table and hand. Even planchette the French toy which years ago
pleased so many people attested the control of mortal mind over its substratum,
called matter. It is mortal mind which convulses its substratum, matter. These
movements arise from the volition of human belief, but they are neither
scientific nor rational. Mortal mind produces table-tipping as certainly as
table-setting, and believes that this wonder emanates from spirits and
electricity. This belief rests on the common conviction that mind and matter
cooperate both visibly and invisibly, hence that matter is intelligent.
|
Poor post-mortem evidence
|
There is not so much evidence to prove
intercommunication between the so-called dead and the living, as there is to
show the sick that matter suffers and has sensation; yet this latter evidence
is destroyed by the Mind-science. If Spiritualists understood the Science of
being, their belief in mediumship would vanish. |
No proof of immortality
|
At the very best and on its own theories, spiritualism
can only prove that certain individuals have a continued existence after death
and maintain their affiliation with mortal flesh; but this fact affords no
certainty of everlasting life. A man's assertion that he is immortal no more
proves him to be so, than the opposite assertion, that he is mortal, would
prove immortality a lie. Nor is the case improved when alleged spirits teach
immortality. Life, Love, Truth, is the only proof of immortality. |
Mind's manifestations
immortal |
Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science
cannot help being immortal. Though the grass seemeth to wither and the flower
to fade, they reappear. Erase the figures which express number, silence the
tones of music, give to the worms the body called man, and yet the producing,
governing, divine Principle lives on, in the case of man as truly as in the
case of numbers and of music, despite the so-called laws of matter, which
define man as mortal. Though the inharmony resulting from material sense hides
the harmony of Science, inharmony cannot destroy the divine Principle of
Science. In Science, man's immortality depends upon that of God, good, and
follows as a necessary consequence of the immortality of good. |
Reading thoughts |
That somebody, somewhere, must have known the deceased
person, supposed to be the communicator, is evident, and it is as easy to read
distant thoughts as near. We think of an absent friend as easily as we do of
one present. It is no more difficult to read the absent mind than it is to read
the present. Chaucer wrote centuries ago, yet we still read his thought in his
verse. What is classic study, but discernment of the minds of Homer and Virgil,
of whose personal existence we may be in doubt? |
Impossible intercommunion
|
If spiritual life has been won by the departed, they
cannot return to material existence, because different states of consciousness
are involved, and one person cannot exist in two different states of
consciousness at the same time. In sleep we do not communicate with the dreamer
by our side despite his physical proximity, because both of us are either
unconscious or are wandering in our dreams through different mazes of
consciousness. In like manner it would follow, even if our departed friends
were near us and were in as conscious a state of existence as before the change
we call death, that their state of consciousness must be different from ours.
We are not in their state, nor are they in the mental realm in which we dwell.
Communion between them and ourselves would be prevented by this difference. The
mental states are so unlike, that intercommunion is as impossible as it would
be between a mole and a human being. Different dreams and different awakenings
be-token a differing consciousness. When wandering in Australia, do we look for
help to the Esquimaux in their snow huts? In a world of sin and sensuality
hastening to a greater development of power, it is wise earnestly to consider
whether it is the human mind or the divine Mind which is influencing one. What
the prophets of Jehovah did, the worshippers of Baal failed to do; yet artifice
and delusion claimed that they could equal the work of wisdom. Science only can
explain the incredible good and evil elements now coming to the surface.
Mortals must find refuge in Truth in order to escape the error of these latter
days. Nothing is more antagonistic to Christian Science than a blind belief
without understanding, for such a belief hides Truth and builds on error.
|
Natural wonders |
Miracles are impossible in Science, and here Science
takes issue with popular religions. The scientific manifestation of power is
from the divine nature and is not supernatural, since Science is an explication
of nature. The belief that the universe, including man, is governed in general
by material laws, but that occasionally Spirit sets aside these laws, this
belief belittles omnipotent wisdom, and gives to matter the precedence over
Spirit. |
Conflicting standpoints
|
It is contrary to Christian Science to suppose that
life is either material or organically spiritual. Between Christian Science and
all forms of superstition a great gulf is fixed, as impassable as that between
Dives and Lazarus. There is mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind-reading. The
latter is a revelation of divine purpose through spiritual understanding, by
which man gains the divine Principle and explanation of all things. Mortal
mind-reading and immortal Mind-reading are distinctly opposite standpoints,
from which cause and effect are interpreted. The act of reading mortal mind
investigates and touches only human beliefs. Science is immortal and coordinate
neither with the premises nor with the conclusions of mortal beliefs. |
Scientific foreseeing |
The ancient prophets gained their foresight from a
spiritual, incorporeal standpoint, not by foreshadowing evil and mistaking fact
for fiction, predicting the future from a groundwork of corpo-reality and human
belief. When sufficiently advanced in Science to be in harmony with the truth
of being, men become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled not by
demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit. It is the prerogative of
the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought which is in rapport with this
Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future. Acquaintance with the
Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind, to
foresee and foretell events which concern the universal welfare, to be divinely
inspired, yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind. |
The Mind unbounded |
To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by
corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for sound or sight nor upon
muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind-science by which
we discern man's nature and existence. This true conception of being destroys
the belief of spiritualism at its very inception, for without the concession of
material personalities called spirits, spiritualism has no basis upon which to
build. |
Scientific foreknowing
|
All we correctly know of Spirit comes from God,
divine Principle, and is learned through Christ and Christian Science. If this
Science has been thoroughly learned and properly digested, we can know the
truth more accurately than the astronomer can read the stars or calculate an
eclipse. This Mind-reading is the opposite of clairvoyance. It is the
illumination of the spiritual understanding which demonstrates the capacity of
Soul, not of material sense. This Soul-sense comes to the human mind when the
latter yields to the divine Mind. |
Value of intuition |
Such intuitions reveal whatever constitutes and
perpetuates harmony, enabling one to do good, but not evil. You will reach the
perfect Science of healing when you are able to read the human mind after this
manner and discern the error you would destroy. The Samaritan woman said:
"Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the
Christ?" It is recorded that Jesus, as he once journeyed with his students,
"knew their thoughts," read them scientifically. In like manner he discerned
disease and healed the sick. After the same method, events of great moment were
foretold by the Hebrew prophets. Our Master rebuked the lack of this power when
he said: "O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not
discern the signs of the times?" |
Hyprocrisy condemned |
Both Jew and Gentile may have had acute corporeal
senses, but mortals need spiritual sense. Jesus knew the generation to be
wicked and adulterous, seeking the material more than the spiritual. His
thrusts at materialism were sharp, but needed. He never spared hypocrisy the
sternest condemnation.. He said : "These ought ye to have done, and not to
leave the other undone." The great Teacher knew both cause and effect, knew
that truth communicates itself but never imparts error. |
Mental contact |
Jesus once asked, "Who touched me?" Supposing this
inquiry to be occasioned by physical contact alone, his disciples answered,
"The multitude throng thee." Jesus knew, as others did not, that it was not
matter, but mortal mind, whose touch called for aid. Repeating his inquiry, he
was answered by the faith of a sick woman. His quick apprehension of this
mental call illustrated his spirituality. The disciples' misconception of it
uncovered their materiality. Jesus possessed more spiritual susceptibility than
the disciples. Opposites come from contrary directions, and produce unlike
results. |
Images of thought |
Mortals evolve images of thought. These may appear to
the ignorant to be apparitions; but they are mysterious only because it is
unusual to see thoughts, though we can always feel their influence. Haunted
houses, ghostly voices, unusual noises, and apparitions brought out in dark
seances either involve feats by tricksters, or they are images and sounds
evolved involuntarily by mortal mind. Seeing is no less a quality of physical
sense than feeling. Then why is it more difficult to see a thought than to feel
one? Education alone determines the difference. In reality there is none.
|
Phenomena explained |
Portraits, landscape-paintings, fac-similes of
penmanship, peculiarities of expression, recollected sentences, can all be
taken from pictorial thought and memory as readily as from objects cognizable
by the senses. Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes
what it sees. It feels, hears, and sees its own thoughts. Pictures are mentally
formed before the artist can convey them to canvas. So is it with all material
conceptions. Mind-readers perceive these pictures of thought. They copy or
reproduce them, even when they are lost to the memory of the mind in which they
are discoverable. |
Mental environment |
It is needless for the thought or for the person
holding the transferred picture to be individually and consciously present.
Though individuals have passed away, their mental environment remains to be
discerned, described, and transmitted. Though bodies are leagues apart and
their associations forgotten, their associations float in the general
atmosphere of human mind. |
Second sight |
The Scotch call such vision "second sight", when
really it is first sight instead of second, for it presents primal facts to
mortal mind. Science enables one to read the human mind, but not as a
clairvoyant. It enables one to heal through Mind, but not as a mesmerist.
|
Buried secrets |
The mine knows naught of the emeralds within its
rocks; the sea is ignorant of the gems within its caverns, of the corals, of
its sharp reefs, of the tall ships that float on its bosom, or of the bodies
which lie buried in its sands: yet these are all there. Do not suppose that any
mental concept is gone because you do not think of it. The true concept is
never lost. The strong impressions produced on mortal mind by friendship or by
any intense feeling are lasting, and mind-readers can perceive and reproduce
these impressions. |
Recollected friends |
Memory may reproduce voices long ago silent. We have
but to close the eyes, and forms rise before us, which are thousands of miles
away or altogether gone from physical sight and sense, and this not in dreamy
sleep. In our day-dreams we can recall that for which the poet Tennyson
expressed the heart's desire, the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a
voice that is still. The mind may even be cognizant of a present flavor and
odor, when no viand touches the palate and no scent salutes the nostrils.
|
Illusions not ideas |
How are veritable ideas to be distinguished from
illusions? By learning the origin of each. Ideas are emanations from the divine
Mind. Thoughts, proceeding from the brain or from matter, are offshoots of
mortal mind; they are mortal material beliefs. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious,
and eternal. Beliefs proceed from the so-called material senses, which at one
time are supposed to be substance-matter and at another are called spirits. To
love one's neighbor as one's self, is a divine idea; but this idea can never be
seen, felt, nor understood through the physical senses. Excite the organ of
veneration or religious faith, and the individual manifests profound adoration.
Excite the opposite development, and he blasphemes. These effects, however, do
not proceed from Christianity, nor are they spiritual phenomena, for both arise
from mortal belief. |
Trance speaking illusion
|
Eloquence re-echoes the strains of Truth and Love. It
is due to inspiration rather than to erudition. It shows the possibilities
derived from divine Mind, though it is said to be a gift whose endowment is
obtained from books or received from the impulsion of departed spirits. When
eloquence proceeds from the belief that a departed spirit is speaking, who can
tell what the unaided medium is incapable of knowing or uttering? This
phenomenon only shows that the beliefs of mortal mind are loosed. Forgetting
her ignorance in the belief that another mind is speaking through her, the
devotee may become unwontedly eloquent. Having more faith in others than in
herself, and believing that somebody else possesses her tongue and mind, she
talks freely. Destroy her belief in outside aid, and her eloquence disappears.
The former limits of her belief return. She says, " I am incapable of words
that glow, for I am uneducated." This familiar instance reaffirms the
Scriptural word concerning a man, "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." If
one believes that he cannot be an orator without study or a superinduced
condition, the body responds to this belief, and the tongue grows mute which
before was eloquent. |
Scientific improvisation
|
Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational
processes. It possesses of itself all beauty and poetry, and the power of
expressing them. Spirit, God, is heard when the senses are silent. We are all
capable of more than we do. The influence or action of Soul confers a freedom,
which explains the phenomena of improvisation and the fervor of untutored lips.
|
Divine origination |
Matter is neither intelligent nor creative. The tree
is not the author of itself. Sound is not the originator of music, and man is
not the father of man. Cain very naturally concluded that if life was in the
body, and man gave it, man had the right to take it away. This incident shows
that the belief of life in matter was "a murderer from the beginning." If seed
is necessary to produce wheat, and wheat to produce flour, or if one animal can
originate another, how then can we account for their primal origin? How were
the loaves and fishes multiplied on the shores of Galilee, and that, too,
without meal or monad from which loaf or fish could come? |
Mind is substance |
The earth's orbit and the imaginary line called the
equator are not substance. The earth's motion and position are sustained by
Mind alone. Divest yourself of the thought that there can be substance in
matter, and the movements and transitions now possible for mortal mind will be
found to be equally possible for the body. Then being will be recognized as
spiritual, and death will be obsolete, though now some insist that death is the
necessary prelude to immortality. |
Mortal delusions |
In dreams we fly to Europe and meet a far-off friend.
The looker-on sees the body in bed, but the supposed inhabitant of that body
carries it through the air and over the ocean. This shows the possibilities of
thought. Opium and hashish eaters mentally travel far and work wonders, yet
their bodies stay in one place. This shows what mortal mentality and knowledge
are. |
Scientific finalities |
The admission to one's self that man is God's own
likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea. This conviction shuts the
door on death, and opens it wide towards immortality. The understanding and
recognition of Spirit must finally come, and we may as well improve our time in
solving the mysteries of being through an apprehension of divine Principle. At
present we know not what man is, but we certainly shall know this when man
reflects God. The Revelator tells us of "a new heaven and a new earth." Have
you ever pictured this heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control
of supreme wisdom? Let us rid ourselves of the belief that man is separated
from God, and obey only the divine principle, Life and Love. Here is the great
point of departure for all true spiritual growth. |
Man's genuine being |
It is difficult for the sinner to accept divine
Science, because Science exposes his nothingness; but the sooner error is
reduced to its native nothingness, the sooner man's great reality will appear
and his genuine being will be understood. The destruction of error is by no
means the destruction of Truth or Life, but is the acknowledgment of them.
Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance
of Life or Mind. The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man's
spiritual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge
gained from matter or through what are termed the material senses. |
Erroneous postulates |
Certain erroneous postulates should be here considered
in order that the spiritual facts may be better apprehended. The first
erroneous postulate of belief is, that substance, life, and intelligence are
something apart from God. The second erroneous postulate is, that man is both
mental and material. The third erroneous postulate is, that mind is both evil
and good; whereas the real Mind cannot be evil nor the medium of evil, for Mind
is God. The fourth erroneous postulate is, that matter is intelligent, and that
man has a material body which is part of himself. The fifth erroneous postulate
is, that matter holds in itself the issues of life and death, that matter is
not only capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but also capable of
imparting these sensations. From the illusion implied in this last postulate
arises the decomposition of mortal bodies in what is termed death. Mind is not
an entity within the cranium with the power of sinning now and forever.
|
Knowledge of good and evil
|
In old Scriptural pictures we see a serpent coiled
around the tree of knowledge and speaking to Adam and Eve. This represents the
serpent in the act of commending to our first parents the knowledge of good and
evil, a knowledge gained from matter, or evil, instead of from Spirit. The
portrayal is still graphically accurate, for the common conception of mortal
man a burlesque of God's man is an outgrowth of human knowledge or sensuality,
a mere offshoot of material sense. |
Opposing power |
Uncover error, and it turns the lie upon you. Until
the fact concerning error namely, its nothingness appears, the moral demand
will not be met, and the ability to make nothing of error will be wanting. We
should blush to call that real which is only a mistake. The foundation of evil
is laid on a belief in something besides God. This belief tends to support two
opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth alone. The mistake of
thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of truth, leads
to belief in the superiority of error. |
The age's privilege |
Do you say the time has not yet come in which to
recognize Soul as substantial and able to control the body? Remember Jesus, who
nearly nineteen centuries ago demonstrated the power of Spirit and said, "He
that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also," and who also said,
"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth." "Behold, now is the accepted
time; behold, now is the day of salvation," said Paul. |
Logic and revelation |
Divine logic and revelation coincide. If we believe
otherwise, we may be sure that either our logic is at fault or that we have
misinterpreted revelation. Good never causes evil, nor creates aught that can
cause evil. Good does not create a mind susceptible of causing evil, for evil
is the opposing error and not the truth of creation. Destructive electricity is
not the offspring of infinite good. Whatever contradicts the real nature of the
divine Esse, though human faith may clothe it with angelic vestments, is
without foundation. |
Derivatives of spirit
|
The belief that Spirit is finite as well as infinite
has darkened all history. In Christian Science, Spirit, as a proper noun, is
the name of the Supreme Being. It means quantity and quality, and applies
exclusively to God. The modifying derivatives of the word spirit refer
only to quality, not to God. Man is spiritual. He is not God, Spirit. If man
were Spirit, then men would be spirits, gods. Finite spirit would be mortal,
and this is the error embodied in the belief that the infinite can be contained
in the finite. This belief tends to becloud our apprehension of the kingdom of
heaven and of the reign of harmony in the Science of being. |
Scientific man |
Jesus taught but one God, one Spirit, who makes man in
the image and likeness of Himself, of Spirit, not of matter. Man reflects
infinite Truth, Life, and Love. The nature of man, thus understood, includes
all that is implied by the terms "image" and "likeness" as used in Scripture.
The truly Christian and scientific statement of personality and of the relation
of man to God, with the demonstration which accompanied it, incensed the
rabbis, and they said: "Crucify him, crucify him . . . by our law he ought to
die, because he made himself the Son of God." The eastern empires and nations
owe their false government to the misconceptions of Deity there prevalent.
Tyranny, intolerance, and bloodshed, wherever found, arise from the belief that
the infinite is formed after the pattern of mortal personality, passion, and
impulse. |
Ingratitude and denial
|
The progress of truth confirms its claims, and our
Master confirmed his words by his works. His healing-power evoked denial,
ingratitude, and betrayal, arising from sensuality. Of the ten lepers whom
Jesus healed, but one returned to give God thanks, that is, to acknowledge the
divine Principle which had healed him. |
Spiritual insight |
Our Master easily read the thoughts of mankind, and
this insight better enabled him to direct those thoughts aright; but what would
be said at this period of an infidel blasphemer who should hint that Jesus used
his incisive power injuriously? Our Master read mortal mind on a scientific
basis, that of the omnipresence of Mind. An approximation of this discernment
indicates spiritual growth and union with the infinite capacities of the one
Mind. Jesus could injure no one by his Mind-reading. The effect of his Mind was
always to heal and to save, and this is the only genuine Science of reading
mortal mind. His holy motives and aims were traduced by the sinners of that
period, as they would be today if Jesus were personally present. Paul said, "To
be spiritually minded is life." We approach God, or Life, in proportion to our
spirituality, our fidelity to Truth and Love; and in that ratio we know all
human need and are able to discern the thought of the sick and the sinning for
the purpose of healing them. Error of any kind cannot hide from the law of God.
Whoever reaches this point of moral culture and goodness cannot injure others,
and must do them good. The greater or lesser ability of a Christian Scientist
to discern thought scientifically, depends upon his genuine spirituality. This
kind of mind-reading is not clairvoyance, but it is important to success in
healing, and is one of the special characteristics thereof. |
Christ's reappearance
|
We welcome the increase of knowledge and the end of
error, because even human invention must have its day, and we want that day to
be succeeded by Christian Science, by divine reality. Midnight foretells the
dawn. Led by a solitary star amid the darkness, the Magi of old foretold the
Messiahship of Truth. Is the wise man of today believed, when he beholds the
light which heralds Christ's eternal dawn and describes its effulgence?
|
Spiritual awakening |
Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in
the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. Material sense does not unfold
the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into
eternal Truth. Humanity advances slowly out of sinning sense into spiritual
understanding; unwillingness to learn all things rightly, binds Christendom
with chains. |
The darkest hours of all
|
Love will finally mark the hour of harmony, and
spiritualization will follow, for Love is Spirit. Before error is wholly
destroyed, there will be interruptions of the general material routine. Earth
will become dreary and desolate, but summer and winter, seedtime and harvest
(though in changed forms), will continue unto the end, until the final
spiritualization of all things. "The darkest hour precedes the dawn."
|
Arena of contest |
This material world is even now becoming the arena for
conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other
side there will be Science and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may
seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which
assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will
continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in
spiritual Truth. Mortal error will vanish in a moral chemicalization. This
mental fermentation has begun, and will continue until all errors of belief
yield to understanding. Belief is changeable, but spiritual understanding is
changeless. |
Millennial glory |
As this consummation draws nearer, he who has shaped
his course in accordance with divine Science will endure to the end. As
material knowledge diminishes and spiritual understanding increases, real
objects will be apprehended mentally instead of materially. During this final
conflict, wicked minds will endeavor to find means by which to accomplish more
evil; but those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They
will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and
cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection. |
Dangerous resemblances |
In reality, the more closely error simulates truth
and so-called matter resembles its essence, mortal mind, the more impotent
error becomes as a belief. According to human belief, the lightning is fierce
and the electric current swift, yet in Christian Science the flight of one and
the blow of the other will become harmless. The more destructive matter
becomes, the more its nothingness will appear, until matter reaches its mortal
zenith in illusion and forever disappears. The nearer a false belief approaches
truth without passing the boundary where, having been destroyed by divine Love,
it ceases to be even an illusion, the riper it becomes for destruction. The
more material the belief, the more obvious its error, until divine Spirit,
supreme in its domain, dominates all matter, and man is found in the likeness
of Spirit, his original being. The broadest facts array the most falsities
against themselves, for they bring error from under cover. It requires courage
to utter truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error
scream, until its inarticulate sound is forever silenced in oblivion. "He
uttered His voice, the earth melted." This Scripture indicates that all matter
will disappear before the supremacy of Spirit. |
Christianity still rejected
|
|
Christianity is again demonstrating the Life that is
Truth, and the Truth that is Life, by the apostolic work of casting out error
and healing the sick. Earth has no repayment for the persecutions which attend
a new step in Christianity; but the spiritual recompense of the persecuted is
assured in the elevation of existence above mortal discord and in the gift of
divine Love. |
Spiritual foreshadowings
|
The prophet of today beholds in the mental horizon
the signs of these times, the reappearance of the Christianity which heals the
sick and destroys error, and no other sign shall be given. Body cannot be saved
except through Mind. The Science of Christianity is misinterpreted by a
material age, for it is the healing influence of Spirit (not spirits)
which the material senses cannot comprehend, which can only be spiritually
discerned. Creeds, doctrines, and human hypotheses do not express Christian
Science; much less can they demonstrate it. |
Revelation of Science |
Beyond the frail premises of human beliefs, above the
loosening grasp of creeds, the demonstration of Christian Mind-healing stands a
revealed and practical Science. It is imperious throughout all ages as Christ's
revelation of Truth, of Life, and of Love, which remains inviolate for every
man to understand and to practise. |
Science as foreign to all religion
|
For centuries yea, always natural science has not been
considered a part of any religion, Christianity not excepted. Even now
multitudes consider that which they call science has no proper
connection with faith and piety. Mystery does not enshroud Christ's teachings,
and they are not theoretical and fragmentary, but practical and complete; and
being practical and complete, they are not deprived of their essential
vitality. |
Key to the kingdom |
The way through which immortality and life are learned
is not ecclesiastical but Christian, not human but divine, not physical but
metaphysical, not material but scientifically spiritual. Human philosophy,
ethics, and superstition afford no demonstrable divine Principle by which
mortals can escape from sin; yet to escape from sin, is what the Bible demands.
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," says the apostle, and he
straightway adds: "for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of
His good pleasure" (Philippians ii. 12, 13). Truth has furnished the key to the
kingdom, and with this key Christian Science has opened the door of the human
understanding. None may pick the lock nor enter by some other door. The
ordinary teachings are material and not spiritual. Christian Science teaches
only that which is spiritual and divine, and not human. Christian Science is
unerring and Divine; the human sense of things errs because it is human. Those
individuals, who adopt theosophy, spiritualism, or hypnotism, may possess
natures above some others who eschew their false beliefs. Therefore my contest
is not with the individual, but with the false system. I love mankind, and
shall continue to labor and to endure. The calm, strong currents of true
spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and
selfimmolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material
existence are seen to be a bald imposition, and sin, disease, and death give
everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God's
spiritual, perfect man. |
«
Previous | Table of
Contents | Next »
|