Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures
CHAPTER XII
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRACTICE
Why art thou cast down, O my soul [sense]? And why
art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him,
Who is the health of my countenance and my God. - PSALMS. |
And these signs shall follow them that believe: In
my name shall they cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues; they
shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt
them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. -
JESUS. |
A gospel narrative |
IT is related in the seventh chapter of Luke's Gospel
that Jesus was once the honored guest of a certain Pharisee, by name Simon,
though he was quite unlike Simon the disciple. While they were at meat, an
unusual incident occurred, as if to interrupt the scene of Oriental festivity.
A "strange woman" came in. Heedless of the fact that she was debarred from such
a place and such society, especially under the stern rules of rabbinical law,
as positively as if she were a Hindu pariah intruding upon the household of a
high-caste Brahman, this woman (Mary Magdalene, as she has since been called)
approached Jesus. According to the custom of those days, he reclined on a couch
with his head towards the table and his bare feet away from it. It was
therefore easy for the Magdalen to come behind the couch and reach his feet.
She bore an alabaster jar containing costly and fragrant oil, sandal oil
perhaps, which is in such common use in the East. Breaking the sealed jar, she
perfumed Jesus' feet with the oil, wiping them with her long hair, which hung
loosely about her shoulders, as was customary with women of her grade.
|
Parable of the creditor
|
Did Jesus spurn the woman? Did he repel her adoration?
No! He regarded her compassionately. Nor was this all. Knowing what those
around him were saying in their hearts, especially his host, that they were
wondering why, being a prophet, the exalted guest did not at once detect the
woman's immoral status and bid her depart, knowing this, Jesus rebuked them
with a short story or parable. He described two debtors, one for a large sum
and one for a smaller, who were released from their obligations by their common
creditor. "Which of them will love him most?" was the Master's question to
Simon the Pharisee; and Simon replied, "He to whom he forgave most." Jesus
approved the answer, and so brought home the lesson to all, following it with
that remarkable declaration to the woman, "Thy sins are forgiven." |
Divine insight |
Why did he thus summarize her debt to divine Love? Had
she repented and reformed, and did his insight detect this unspoken moral
uprising? She bathed his feet with her tears before she anointed them with the
oil. In the absence of other proofs, was her grief sufficient evidence to
warrant the expectation of her repentance, reformation, and growth in wisdom?
Certainly there was encouragement in the mere fact that she was showing her
affection for a man of undoubted goodness and purity, who has since been
rightfully regarded as the best man that ever trod this planet. Her reverence
was unfeigned, and it was manifested towards one who was soon, though they knew
it not, to lay down his mortal existence in behalf of all sinners, that through
his word and works they might be redeemed from sensuality and sin. |
Penitence or hospitality
|
Which was the higher tribute to such ineffable
affection, the hospitality of the Pharisee or the contrition of the Magdalen?
This query Jesus answered by rebuking self-righteousness and declaring the
absolution of the penitent. He even said that this poor woman had done what his
rich entertainer had neglected to do, wash and anoint his guest's feet, a
special sign of Oriental courtesy.
Here is suggested a solemn question, a question
indicated by one of the needs of this age. Do Christian Scientists seek Truth
as Simon sought the Saviour, through material conservatism and for personal
homage? Jesus told Simon that such seekers as he gave small reward in return
for the spiritual purgation which came through the Messiah. If Christian
Scientists are like Simon, then it must be said of them also that they
love little. |
Genuine repentance |
On the other hand, do they show their regard for
Truth, or Christ, by their genuine repentance, by their broken hearts,
expressed by meekness and human affection, as did this woman? If so, then it
may be said of them, as Jesus said of the unwelcome visitor, that they indeed
love much, because much is forgiven them. |
Compassion requisite
|
Did the careless doctor, the nurse, the cook, and the
brusque business visitor sympathetically know the thorns they plant in the
pillow of the sick and the heavenly homesick looking away from earth, Oh, did
they know! this knowledge would do much more towards healing the sick and
preparing their helpers for the "midnight call," than all cries of "Lord,
Lord!" The benign thought of Jesus, finding utterance in such words as "Take no
thought for your life," would heal the sick, and so enable them to rise above
the supposed necessity for physical thought-taking and doctoring; but if the
unselfish affections be lacking, and common sense and common humanity are
disregarded, what mental quality remains, with which to evoke healing from the
outstretched arm of righteousness? |
Speedy healing |
If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine
Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will
vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine. If the
Scientist has enough Christly affection to win his own pardon, and such
commendation as the Magdalen gained from Jesus, then he is Christian enough to
practise scientifically and deal with his patients compassionately; and the
result will correspond with the spiritual intent. |
Truth desecrated |
If hypocrisy, stolidity, inhumanity, or vice finds its
way into the chambers of disease through the would-be healer, it would, if it
were possible, convert into a den of thieves the temple of the Holy Ghost, the
patient's spiritual power to resuscitate himself. The unchristian practitioner
is not giving to mind or body the joy and strength of Truth. The poor suffering
heart needs its rightful nutriment, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and
a priceless sense of the dear Father's loving-kindness. |
Moral evils to be cast out
|
In order to cure his patient, the metaphysician must
first cast moral evils out of himself and thus attain the spiritual freedom
which will enable him to cast physical evils out of his patient; but heal he
cannot, while his own spiritual barrenness debars him from giving drink to the
thirsty and hinders him from reaching his patient's thought, yea, while mental
penury chills his faith and understanding. |
The true physician |
The physician who lacks sympathy for his fellow being
is deficient in human affection, and we have the apostolic warrant for asking:
"He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he
hath not seen?" Not having this spiritual affection, the physician lacks faith
in the divine Mind and has not that recognition of infinite Love which alone
confers the healing power. Such so-called Scientists will strain out gnats,
while they swallow the camels of bigoted pedantry. |
Source of calmness |
The physician must also watch, lest he be overwhelmed
by a sense of the odiousness of sin and by the unveiling of sin in his own
thoughts. The sick are terrified by their sick beliefs, and sinners should be
affrighted by their sinful beliefs; but the Christian Scientist will be calm in
the presence of both sin and disease, knowing, as he does, that Life is God and
God is All. |
Genuine healing |
If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we
must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted. If we would heal by the Spirit,
we must not hide the talent of spiritual healing under the napkin of its form,
nor bury the morale of Christian Science in the grave-clothes of its
letter. The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful
patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of
gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments,
which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with
divine Love. |
Gratitude and humility
|
This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not
"for the loaves and fishes," nor, like the Pharisee, with the arrogance of rank
and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout
consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude,
with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.
|
The salt of the earth
|
A Christian Scientist occupies the place at this
period of which Jesus spoke to his disciples, when he said: "Ye are the salt of
the earth." "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill
cannot be hid." Let us watch, work, and pray that this salt lose not its
saltness, and that this light be not hid, but radiate and glow into noontide
glory. The infinite Truth of the Christ-cure has come to this age through a
"still, small voice," through silent utterances and divine anointing which
quicken and increase the beneficial effects of Christianity. I long to see the
consummation of my hope, namely, the student's higher attainments in this line
of light. |
Real and counterfeit |
Because Truth is infinite, error should be known as
nothing. Because Truth is omnipotent in goodness, error, Truth's opposite, has
no might. Evil is but the counterpoise of nothingness. The greatest wrong is
but a supposititious opposite of the highest right. The confidence inspired by
Science lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal. Error is a
coward before Truth. Divine Science insists that time will prove all this. Both
truth and error have come nearer than ever before to the apprehension of
mortals, and truth will become still clearer as error is self-destroyed.
|
Results of faith in Truth
|
Against the fatal beliefs that error is as real as
Truth, that evil is equal in power to good if not superior, and that discord is
as normal as harmony, even the hope of freedom from the bondage of sickness and
sin has little inspiration to nerve endeavor. When we come to have more faith
in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in
matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then
no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying
error. |
Life independent of matter
|
That Life is not contingent on bodily conditions is
proved, when we learn that life and man survive this body. Neither evil,
disease, nor death can be spiritual, and the material belief in them disappears
in the ratio of one's spiritual growth. Because matter has no consciousness or
Ego, it cannot act; its conditions are illusions, and these false conditions
are the source of all seeming sickness. Admit the existence of matter, and you
admit that mortality (and therefore disease) has a foundation in fact. Deny the
existence of matter, and you can destroy the belief in material conditions.
When fear disappears, the foundation of disease is gone. Once let the mental
physician believe in the reality of matter, and he is liable to admit also the
reality of all discordant conditions, and this hinders his destroying them.
Thus he is unfitted for the successful treatment of disease. |
Man's entity |
In proportion as matter loses to human sense all
entity as man, in that proportion does man become its master. He enters into a
diviner sense of the facts, and comprehends the theology of Jesus as
demonstrated in healing the sick, raising the dead, and walking over the wave.
All these deeds manifested Jesus' control over the belief that matter is
substance, that it can be the arbiter of life or the constructor of any form of
existence. |
The Christ treatment
|
We never read that Luke or Paul made a reality of
disease in order to discover some means of healing it. Jesus never asked if
disease were acute or chronic, and he never recommended attention to laws of
health, never give drugs, never prayed to know if God were willing that a man
should live. He understood man, whose life is God, to be immortal, and knew
that man has not two lives, one to be destroyed and the other to be made
indestructible. |
Matter not medicine |
The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the
preventive and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science, as
would be readily seen, if psychology, or the Science of Spirit, God, was
understood. Unscientific methods are finding their dead level. Limited to
matter by their own law, what have they of the advantages of Mind and
immortality? |
No healing in sin |
No man is physically healed in wilful error or by it,
any more than he is morally saved in or by sin. It is error even to murmur or
to be angry over sin. To be every whit whole, man must be better spiritually as
well as physically. To be immortal, we must forsake the mortal sense of things,
turn from the lie of false belief to Truth, and gather the facts of being from
the divine Mind. The body improves under the same regimen which spiritualizes
the thought; and if health is not made manifest under this regimen, this proves
that fear is governing the body. This is the law of cause and effect, or like
producing like. |
Like curing like |
Homoeopathy furnishes the evidence to the senses, that
symptoms, which might be produced by a certain drug, are removed by using the
same drug which might cause the symptoms. This confirms my theory that faith in
the drug is the sole factor in the cure. The effect, which mortal mind produces
through one belief, it removes through an opposite belief, but it uses the same
medicine in both cases. The moral and spiritual facts of health, whispered into
thought, produce very direct and marked effects on the body. A physical
diagnosis of disease since mortal mind must be the cause of disease tends to
induce disease. |
Transient potency of drugs
|
According to both medical testimony and individual
experience, a drug may eventually lose its supposed power and do no more for
the patient. Hygienic treatment also loses its efficacy. Quackery likewise
fails at length to inspire the credulity of the sick, and then they cease to
improve. These lessons are useful. They should naturally and genuinely change
our basis from sensation to Christian Science, from error to Truth, from matter
to Spirit. |
Diagnosis of matter |
Physicians examine the pulse, tongue, lungs, to
discover the condition of matter, when in fact all is Mind. The body is the
substratum of mortal mind, and this so-called mind must finally yield to the
mandate of immortal Mind. |
Ghost-stories inducing fear
|
Disquisitions on disease have a mental effect similar
to that produced on children by telling ghost-stories in the dark. By those
uninstructed in Christian Science, nothing is really understood of material
existence. Mortals are believed to be here without their consent and to be
removed as involuntarily, not knowing why nor when. As frightened children look
everywhere for the imaginary ghost, so sick humanity sees danger in every
direction, and looks for relief in all ways except the right one. Darkness
induces fear. The adult, in bondage to his beliefs, no more comprehends his
real being than does the child; and the adult must be taken out of his
darkness, before he can get rid of the illusive sufferings which throng the
gloaming. The way in divine Science is the only way out of this condition.
|
Mind imparts purity, health, and
beauty |
I would not transform the infant at once into a man,
nor would I keep the suckling a lifelong babe. No impossible thing do I ask
when urging the claims of Christian Science; but because this teaching is in
advance of the age, we should not deny our need of its spiritual unfoldment.
Mankind will improve through Science and Christianity. The necessity for
uplifting the race is father to the fact that Mind can do it; for Mind can
impart purity instead of impurity, strength instead of weakness, and health
instead of disease. Truth is an alterative in the entire system, and can make
it "every whit whole." |
Brain not intelligent
|
Remember, brain is not mind. Matter cannot be sick,
and Mind is immortal. The mortal body is only an erroneous mortal belief of
mind in matter. What you call matter was originally error in solution,
elementary mortal mind, likened by Milton to "chaos and old night." One theory
about this mortal mind is, that its sensations can reproduce man, can form
blood, flesh, and bones. The Science of being, in which all is divine Mind, or
God and His idea, would be clearer in this age, but for the belief that matter
is the medium of man, or that man can enter his own embodied thought, bind
himself with his own beliefs, and then call his bonds material and name them
divine law. |
Veritable success |
When man demonstrates Christian Science absolutely, he
will be perfect. He can neither sin, suffer, be subject to matter, nor disobey
the law of God. Therefore he will be as the angels in heaven. Christian Science
and Christianity are one. How, then, in Christianity any more than in Christian
Science, can we believe in the reality and power of both Truth and error,
Spirit and matter, and hope to succeed with contraries? Matter is not
self-sustaining. Its false supports fail one after another. Matter succeeds for
a period only by falsely parading in the vestments of law. |
Recognition of benefits
|
"Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also
deny before my Father which is in heaven." In Christian Science, a denial of
Truth is fatal, while a just acknowledgment of Truth and of what it has done
for us is an effectual help. If pride, superstition, or any error prevents the
honest recognition of benefits received, this will be a hindrance to the
recovery of the sick and the success of the student. |
Disease far more docile than
iniquity |
If we are Christians on all moral questions, but are
in darkness as to the physical exemption which Christianity includes, then we
must have more faith in God on this subject and be more alive to His promises.
It is easier to cure the most malignant disease than it is to cure sin. The
author has raised up the dying, partly because they were willing to be
restored, while she has struggled long, and perhaps in vain, to lift a student
out of a chronic sin. Under all modes of pathological treatment, the sick
recover more rapidly from disease than does the sinner from his sin. Healing is
easier than teaching, if the teaching is faithfully done. |
Love frees from fear
|
The fear of disease and the love of sin are the
sources of man's enslavement. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom," but the Scriptures also declare, through the exalted thought of John,
that "perfect Love casteth out fear." The fear occasioned by ignorance can be
cured; but to remove the effects of fear produced by sin, you must rise above
both fear and sin. Disease is expressed not so much by the lips as in the
functions of the body. Establish the scientific sense of health, and you
relieve the oppressed organ. The inflammation, decomposition, or deposit will
abate, and the disabled organ will resume its healthy functions. |
Mind circulates blood
|
When the blood rushes madly through the veins or
languidly creeps along its frozen channels, we call these conditions disease.
This is a misconception. Mortal mind is producing the propulsion or the
languor, and we prove this to be so when by mental means the circulation is
changed, and returns to that standard which mortal mind has decided upon as
essential for health. Anodynes, counter-irritants, and depletion never reduce
inflammation scientifically, but the truth of being, whispered into the ear of
mortal mind, will bring relief. |
Mind can destroy all ills
|
Hatred and its effects on the body are removed by
Love. Because mortal mind seems to be conscious, the sick say: "How can my mind
cause a disease I never thought of and knew nothing about, until it appeared on
my body?" The author has answered this question in her explanation of disease
as originating in human belief before it is consciously apparent on the body,
which is in fact the objective state of mortal mind, though it is called
matter. This mortal blindness and its sharp consequences show our need of
divine meta-physics. Through immortal Mind, or Truth, we can destroy all ills
which proceed from mortal mind.
Ignorance of the cause or approach of disease is no
argument against the mental origin of disease. You confess to ignorance of the
future and incapacity to preserve your own existence, and this belief helps
rather than hinders disease. Such a state of mind induces sickness. It is like
walking in darkness on the edge of a precipice. You cannot forget the belief of
danger, and your steps are less firm because of your fear, and ignorance of
mental cause and effect. |
Temperature is mental
|
Heat and cold are products of mortal mind. The body,
when bereft of mortal mind, at first cools, and afterwards it is resolved into
its primitive mortal elements. Nothing that lives ever dies, and 30 vice
versa. Mortal mind produces animal heat, and then expels it through the
abandonment of a belief, or increases it to the point of self-destruction.
Hence it is mortal mind, not matter, which says, "I die." Heat would pass from
the body as painlessly as gas dissipates into the air when it evaporates but
for the belief that inflammation and pain must accompany the separation of heat
from the body. |
Science versus hypnotism
|
Chills and heat are often the form in which fever
manifests itself. Change the mental state, and the chills and fever disappear.
The old-school physician proves this when his patient says, " I am better," but
the patient believes that matter, not mind, has helped him. The Christian
Scientist demonstrates that divine Mind heals, while the hypnotist dispossesses
the patient of his individuality in order to control him. No person is
benefited by yielding his mentality to any mental despotism or malpractice. All
unscientific mental practice is erroneous and powerless, and should be
understood and so rendered fruitless. The genuine Christian Scientist is adding
to his patient's mental and moral power, and is increasing his patient's
spirituality while restoring him physically through divine Love. |
Cure for palsy |
Palsy is a belief that matter governs mortals, and can
paralyze the body, making certain portions of it motionless. Destroy the
belief, show mortal mind that muscles have no power to be lost, for Mind is
supreme, and you cure the palsy. |
Latent fear diagnosed
|
Consumptive patients always show great hopefulness and
courage, even when they are supposed to be in hopeless danger. This state of
mind seems anomalous except to the expert in Christian Science. This mental
state is not understood, simply because it is a stage of fear so excessive that
it amounts to fortitude. The belief in consumption presents to mortal thought a
hopeless state, an image more terrifying than that of most other diseases. The
patient turns involuntarily from the contemplation of it, but though
unacknowledged, the latent fear and the despair of recovery remain in thought.
|
Insidious concepts |
Just so is it with the greatest sin. It is the most
subtle, and does its work almost self-deceived. The diseases deemed dangerous
sometimes come from the most hidden, undefined, and insidious beliefs. The
pallid invalid, whom you declare to be wasting away with consumption of the
blood, should be told that blood never gave life and can never take it away,
that Life is Spirit, and that there is more life and immortality in one good
motive and act, than in all the blood which ever flowed through mortal veins
and simulated a corporeal sense of life. |
Remedy for fever |
If the body is material, it cannot, for that very
reason, suffer with a fever. Because the so-called material body is a mental
concept and governed by mortal mind, it manifests only what that so-called mind
expresses. Therefore the efficient remedy is to destroy the patient's false
belief by both silently and audibly arguing the true facts in regard to
harmonious being, representing man as healthy instead of diseased, and showing
that it is impossible for matter to suffer, to feel pain or heat, to be thirsty
or sick. Destroy fear, and you end fever. Some people, mistaught as to
Mindscience, inquire when it will be safe to check a fever. Know that in
Science you cannot check a fever after admitting that it must have its course.
To fear and admit the power of disease, is to paralyze mental and scientific
demonstration. If your patient believes in taking cold, mentally convince him
that matter cannot take cold, and that thought governs this liability. If grief
causes suffering, convince the sufferer that affliction is often the source of
joy, and that he should rejoice always in ever-present Love. |
Climate harmless |
Invalids flee to tropical climates in order to save
their lives, but they come back no better than when they went away. Then is the
time to cure them through Christian Science, and prove that they can be healthy
in all climates, when their fear of climate is exterminated. |
Mind governs body |
Through different states of mind, the body becomes
suddenly weak or abnormally strong, showing mortal mind to be the producer of
strength or weakness. A sudden joy or grief has caused what is termed
instantaneous death. Because a belief originates unseen, the mental state
should be continually watched that it may not produce blindly its bad effects.
The author never knew a patient who did not recover when the belief of the
disease had gone. Remove the leading error or governing fear of this lower
so-called mind, and you remove the cause of all disease as well as the morbid
or excited action of any organ. You also remove in this way what are termed
organic diseases as readily as functional difficulties.
The cause of all so-called disease is mental, a
mortal fear, a mistaken belief or conviction of the necessity and power of
ill-health; also a fear that Mind is helpless to defend the life of man and
incompetent to control it. Without this ignorant human belief, any circumstance
is of itself powerless to produce suffering. It is latent belief in disease, as
well as the fear of disease, which associates sickness with certain
circumstances and causes the two to appear conjoined, even as poetry and music
are reproduced in union by human memory. Disease has no intelligence.
Unwittingly you sentence yourself to suffer. The understanding of this will
enable you to commute this self-sentence, and meet every circumstance with
truth. Disease is less than mind, and Mind can control it. |
Latent power |
Without the so-called human mind, there can be no
inflammatory nor torpid action of the system. Remove the error, and you destroy
its effects. By looking a tiger fearlessly in the eye, Sir Charles Napier sent
it cowering back into the jungle. An animal may infuriate another by looking it
in the eye, and both will fight for nothing. A man's gaze, fastened fearlessly
on a ferocious beast, often causes the beast to retreat in terror. This latter
occurrence represents the power of Truth over error, the might of intelligence
exercised over mortal beliefs to destroy them; whereas hypnotism and hygienic
drilling and drugging, adopted to cure matter, is represented by two material
erroneous bases. |
Disease powerless |
Disease is not an intelligence to dispute the empire
of Mind or to dethrone Mind and take the government into its own hands.
Sickness is not a God-given, nor a self-constituted material power, which copes
astutely with Mind and finally conquers it. God never endowed matter with power
to disable Life or to chill harmony with a long and cold night of discord. Such
a power, without the divine permission, is inconceivable; and if such a power
could be divinely directed, it would manifest less wisdom than we usually find
displayed in human governments. |
Jurisdiction of Mind |
If disease can attack and control the body without the
consent of mortals, sin can do the same, for both are errors, announced as
partners in the beginning. The Christian Scientist finds only effects, where
the ordinary physician looks for causes. The real jurisdiction of the world is
in Mind, controlling every effect and recognizing all causation as vested in
divine Mind. |
Power of imagination |
A felon, on whom certain English students
experimented, fancied himself bleeding to death, and died because of that
belief, when only a stream of warm water was trickling over his arm. Had he
known his sense of bleeding was an illusion, he would have risen above the
false belief. Let the despairing invalid, inspecting the hue of her blood on a
cambric hand-kerchief, think of the experiment of those Oxford boys, who caused
the death of a man, when not a drop of his blood was shed. Then let her learn
the opposite statement of life as taught in Christian Science, and she will
understand that she is not dying on account of the state of her blood, but is
suffering from her belief that blood is destroying her life. The so-called
vital current does not affect the invalid's health, but her belief produces the
very results she dreads. |
Fevers the effect of fear
|
Fevers are errors of various types. The quickened
pulse, coated tongue, febrile heat, dry skin, pain in the head and limbs, are
pictures drawn on the body by a mortal mind. The images, held in this disturbed
mind, frighten conscious thought. Unless the fever-picture, drawn by millions
of mortals and imaged on the body through the belief that mind is in matter and
discord is as real as harmony, is destroyed through Science, it may rest at
length on some receptive thought, and become a fever case, which ends in a
belief called death, which belief must be finally conquered by eternal Life.
Truth is always the victor. Sickness and sin fall by their own weight. Truth is
the rock of ages, the headstone of the corner, "but on whomsoever it shall
fall, it will grind him to powder." |
Misdirected contention
|
Contending for the evidence or indulging the demands
of sin, disease, or death, we virtually contend against the control of Mind
over body, and deny the power of Mind to heal. This false method is as though
the defendant should argue for the plaintiff in favor of a decision which the
defendant knows will be turned against himself. |
Benefits of metaphysics
|
The physical effects of fear illustrate its illusion.
Gazing at a chained lion, crouched for a spring, should not terrify a man. The
body is affected only with the belief of disease produced by a so-called mind
ignorant of the truth which chains disease. Nothing but the power of Truth can
prevent the fear of error, and prove man's dominion over error. |
A higher discovery |
Many years ago the author made a spiritual discovery,
the scientific evidence of which has accumulated to prove that the divine Mind
produces in man health, harmony, and immortality. Gradually this evidence will
gather momentum and clearness, until it reaches its culmination of scientific
statement and proof. Nothing is more disheartening than to believe that there
is a power opposite to God, or good, and that God endows this opposing power
with strength to be used against Himself, against Life, health, harmony.
|
Ignorance of our rights
|
Every law of matter or the body, supposed to govern
man, is rendered null and void by the law of Life, God. Ignorant of our
God-given rights, we submit to unjust decrees, and the bias of education
enforces this slavery. Be no more willing to suffer the illusion that you are
sick or that some disease is developing in the system, than you are to yield to
a sinful temptation on the ground that sin has its necessities. |
No laws of matter |
When infringing some supposed law, you say that there
is danger. This fear is the danger and induces the physical effects. We cannot
in reality suffer from breaking anything except a moral or spiritual law. The
so-called laws of mortal belief are destroyed by the understanding that Soul is
immortal, and that mortal mind cannot legislate the times, periods, and types
of disease, with which mortals die. God is the lawmaker, but He is not the
author of barbarous codes. In infinite Life and Love there is no sickness, sin,
nor death, and the Scriptures declare that we live, move, and have our being in
the infinite God. |
God-given dominion |
Think less of the enactments of mortal mind, and you
will sooner grasp man's God-given dominion. You must understand your way out of
human theories relating to health, or you will never believe that you are quite
free from some ailment. The harmony and immortality of man will never be
reached without the understanding that Mind is not in matter. Let us banish
sickness as an outlaw, and abide by the rule of perpetual harmony, God's law.
It is man's moral right to annul an unjust sentence, a sentence never inflicted
by divine authority. |
Begin rightly |
Christ Jesus overruled the error which would impose
penalties for transgressions of the physical laws of health; he annulled
supposed laws of matter, opposed to the harmonies of Spirit, lacking divine
authority and having only human approval for their sanction. |
Hygiene excessive |
If half the attention given to hygiene were given to
the study of Christian Science and to the spiritualization of thought, this
alone would usher in the millennium. Constant bathing and rubbing to alter the
secretions or to remove unhealthy exhalations from the cuticle receive a useful
rebuke from Jesus' precept, "Take no thought . . . for the body." We must
beware of making clean merely the outside of the platter. |
Blissful ignorance |
He, who is ignorant of what is termed hygienic law, is
more receptive of spiritual power and of faith in one God, than is the devotee
of supposed hygienic law, who comes to teach the so-called ignorant one. Must
we not then consider the so-called law of matter a canon "more honored in the
breach than the observance"? A patient thoroughly booked in medical theories is
more difficult to heal through Mind than one who is not. This verifies the
saying of our Master: "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a
little child, shall in no wise enter therein."
One whom I rescued from seeming spiritual oblivion, in
which the senses had engulfed him, wrote to me: "I should have died, but for
the glorious Principle you teach, supporting the power of Mind over the body
and showing me the nothingness of the so-called pleasures and pains of sense.
The treatises I had read and the medicines I had taken only abandoned me to
more hopeless suffering and despair. Adherence to hygiene was useless. Mortal
mind needed to be set right. The ailment was not bodily, but mental, and I was
cured when I learned my way in Christian Science." |
A clean mind and body
|
We need a clean body and a clean mind, a body rendered
pure by Mind as well as washed by water. One says: "I take good care of my
body." To do this, the pure and exalting influence of the divine Mind on the
body is requisite, and the Christian Scientist takes the best care of his body
when he leaves it most out of his thought, and, like the Apostle Paul, is
"willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."
A hint may be taken from the emigrant, whose filth
does not affect his happiness, because mind and body rest on the same basis. To
the mind equally gross, dirt gives no uneasiness. It is the native element of
such a mind, which is symbolized, and not chafed, by its surroundings; but
impurity and uncleanliness, which do not trouble the gross, could not be borne
by the refined. This shows that the mind must be clean to keep the body in
proper condition. |
Beliefs illusive |
The tobacco-user, eating or smoking poison for half a
century, sometimes tells you that the weed preserves his health, but does this
make it so? Does his assertion prove the use of tobacco to be a salubrious
habit, and man to be the better for it? Such instances only prove the illusive
physical effect of a false belief, confirming the Scriptural conclusion
concerning a man, "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he." The movement-cure
pinching and pounding the poor body, to make it sensibly well when it ought to
be insensibly so is another medical mistake, resulting from the common notion
that health depends on inert matter instead of on Mind. Can matter, or what is
termed matter, either feel or act without mind? |
Corporeal penalties |
We should relieve our minds from the depressing
thought that we have transgressed a material law and must of necessity pay the
penalty. Let us reassure ourselves with the law of Love. God never punishes man
for doing right, for honest labor, or for deeds of kindness, though they expose
him to fatigue, cold, heat, contagion. If man seems to incur the penalty
through matter, this is but a belief of mortal mind, not an enactment of
wisdom, and man has only to enter his protest against this belief in order to
annul it. Through this action of thought and its results upon the body, the
student will prove to himself, by small beginnings, the grand verities of
Christian Science. |
Not matter, but Mind
|
If exposure to a draught of air while in a state of
perspiration is followed by chills, dry cough, influenza, congestive symptoms
in the lungs, or hints of inflammatory rheumatism, your Mind-remedy is safe and
sure. If you are a Christian Scientist, such symptoms are not apt to follow
exposure; but if you believe in laws of matter and their fatal effects when
transgressed, you are not fit to conduct your own case or to destroy the bad
effects of your belief. When the fear subsides and the conviction abides that
you have broken no law, neither rheumatism, consumption, nor any other disease
will ever result from exposure to the weather. In Science this is an
established fact which all the evidence before the senses can never overrule.
|
Benefit of philanthropy
|
Sickness, sin, and death must at length quail before
the divine rights of intelligence, and then the power of Mind over the entire
functions and organs of the human system will be acknowledged. It is proverbial
that Florence Nightingale and other philanthropists engaged in humane labors
have been able to undergo without sinking fatigues and exposures which ordinary
people could not endure. The explanation lies in the support which they derived
from the divine law, rising above the human. The spiritual demand, quelling the
material, supplies energy and endurance surpassing all other aids, and
forestalls the penalty which our beliefs would attach to our best deeds. Let us
remember that the eternal law of right, though it can never annul the law which
makes sin its own executioner, exempts man from all penalties but those due for
wrong-doing. |
Honest toil has no penalty
|
Constant toil, deprivations, exposures, and all
untoward conditions, if without sin, can be experienced without
suffering. Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself.
If you sprain the muscles or wound the flesh, your remedy is at hand. Mind
decides whether or not the flesh shall be discolored, painful, swollen, and
inflamed. |
Our sleep and food |
You say that you have not slept well or have
overeaten. You are a law unto yourself. Saying this and believing it, you will
suffer in proportion to your belief and fear. Your sufferings are not the
penalty for having broken a law of matter, for it is a law of mortal mind which
you have disobeyed. You say or think, because you have partaken of salt fish,
that you must be thirsty, and you are thirsty accordingly, while the opposite
belief would produce the opposite result. |
Doubtful evidence |
Any supposed information, coming from the body or from
inert matter as if either were intelligent, is an illusion of mortal mind, one
of its dreams. Realize that the evidence of the senses is not to be accepted in
the case of sickness, any more than it is in the case of sin. |
Climate and belief |
Expose the body to certain temperatures, and belief
says that you may catch cold and have catarrh; but no such result occurs
without mind to demand it and produce it. So long as mortals declare that
certain states of the atmosphere produce catarrh, fever, rheumatism, or
consumption, those effects will follow, not because of the climate, but on
account of the belief. The author has in too many instances healed disease
through the action of Truth on the minds of mortals, and the corresponding
effects of Truth on the body, not to know that this is so. |
Erroneous despatch |
A blundering despatch, mistakenly announcing the death
of a friend, occasions the same grief that the friend's real death would bring.
You think that your anguish is occasioned by your loss. Another despatch,
correcting the mistake, heals your grief, and you learn that your suffering was
merely the result of your belief. Thus it is with all sorrow, sickness, and
death. You will learn at length that there is no cause for grief, and divine
wisdom will then be understood. Error, not Truth, produces all the suffering on
earth. |
Mourning causeless |
If a Christian Scientist had said, while you were
laboring under the influence of the belief of grief, "Your sorrow is without
cause," you would not have understood him, although the correctness of the
assertion might afterwards be proved to you. So, when our friends pass from our
sight and we lament, that lamentation is needless and causeless. We shall
perceive this to be true when we grow into the understanding of Life, and know
that there is no death. |
Mind heals brain-disease
|
Because mortal mind is kept active, must it pay the
penalty in a softened brain? Who dares to say that actual Mind can be
overworked? When we reach our limits of mental endurance, we conclude that
intellectual labor has been carried sufficiently far; but when we realize that
immortal Mind is ever active, and that spiritual energies can neither wear out
nor can so-called material law trespass upon God-given powers and resources, we
are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by the assurances of immortality, opposed
to mortality. |
Right never punishable
|
Our thinkers do not die early because they faithfully
perform the natural functions of being. If printers and authors have the
shortest span of earthly existence, it is not because they occupy the most
important posts and perform the most vital functions in society. That man does
not pay the severest penalty who does the most good. By adhering to the
realities of eternal existence, instead of reading disquisitions on the
inconsistent supposition that death comes in obedience to the law of life, and
that God punishes man for doing good, one cannot suffer as the result of any
labor of love, but grows stronger because of it. It is a law of so-called
mortal mind, misnamed matter, which causes all things discordant. |
Christian history |
The history of Christianity furnishes sublime proofs
of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed on man by his
heavenly Father, omnipotent Mind, who gives man faith and understanding whereby
to defend himself, not only from temptation, but from bodily suffering. The
Christian martyrs were prophets of Christian Science. Through the uplifting and
consecrating power of divine Truth, they obtained a victory over the corporeal
senses, a victory which Science alone can explain. Stolidity, which is a
resisting state of mortal mind, suffers less, only because it knows less of
material law.
The Apostle John testified to the divine basis of
Christian Science, when dire inflictions failed to destroy his body. Idolaters,
believing in more than one mind, had "gods many," and thought that they could
kill the body with matter, independently of mind. |
Sustenance spiritual |
Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nutriment
of life, and the follows the necessity for another admission in the opposite
direction, that food has power to destroy Life, God, through a deficiency or an
excess, a quality or a quantity. This is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of
all material health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-destructive,
constituting a "kingdom divided against itself," which is "brought to
desolation." If food was prepared by Jesus for his disciples, it cannot destroy
life. |
God sustains man |
The fact is, food does not affect the absolute Life of
man, and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that God is our Life. Because
sin and sickness are not qualities of Soul, or Life, we have hope in
immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond our present
understanding, foolish to stop eating until we gain perfection and a clear
comprehension of the living Spirit. In that perfect day of understanding, we
shall neither eat to live nor live to eat. |
Diet and digestion |
If mortals think that food disturbs the harmonious
functions of mind and body, either the food or this thought must be dispensed
with, for the penalty is coupled with the belief. Which shall it be? If this
decision be left to Christian Science, it will be given in behalf of the
control of Mind over this belief and every erroneous belief, or material
condition. The less we know or think about hygiene, the less we are predisposed
to sickness. Recollect that it is not the nerves, not matter, but mortal mind,
which reports food as undigested. Matter does not inform you of bodily
derangements; it is supposed to do so. This pseudo-mental testimony can be
destroyed only by the better results of Mind's opposite evidence. |
Scripture rebukes |
Our dietetic theories first admit that food sustains
the life of man, and then discuss the certainty that food can kill man. This
false reasoning is rebuked in Scripture by the metaphors about the fount and
stream, the tree and its fruit, and the kingdom divided against itself. If God
has, as prevalent theories maintain, instituted laws that food shall support
human life, He cannot annul these regulations by an opposite law that food
shall be inimical to existence. |
Ancient confusion |
Materialists contradict their own statements. Their
belief in material laws and in penalties for their infraction is the ancient
error that there is fraternity between pain and pleasure, good and evil, God
and Satan. This belief totters to its falling before the 27 battle-axe of
Science. A case of convulsions, produced by indigestion, came under my
observation. In her belief the woman had chronic liver-complaint, and was then
suffering from a complication of symptoms connected with this belief. I cured
her in a few minutes. One instant she spoke despairingly of herself. The next
minute she said, "My food is all digested, and I should like something more to
eat." |
Ultimate harmony |
We cannot deny that Life is self-sustained, and we
should never deny the everlasting harmony of Soul, simply because, to the
mortal senses, there is seeming discord. It is our ignorance of God, the divine
Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him
restores harmony. Truth will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures
and pains of sense for the joys of Soul. |
Unnecessary prostration
|
When the first symptoms of disease appear, dispute the
testimony of the material senses with divine Science. Let your higher sense of
justice destroy the false process of mortal opinions which you name law, and
then you will not be confined to a sick-room nor laid upon a bed of suffering
in payment of the last far thing, the last penalty demanded by error. "Agree
with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him." Suffer no
claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon the thought. Dismiss it with an
abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no
more the author of sickness than He is of sin. You have no law of His to
support the necessity either of sin or sickness, but you have divine authority
for denying that necessity and healing the sick. |
Treatment of disease |
"Agree to disagree" with approaching symptoms of
chronic or acute disease, whether it is cancer, consumption, or smallpox. Meet
the incipient stages of disease with as powerful mental opposition as a
legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman law. Rise in the
conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind,
alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit. Blot out the
images of mortal thought and its beliefs in sickness and sin. Then, when thou
art delivered to the judgment of Truth, Christ, the judge will say, "Thou art
whole!" |
Righteous rebellion |
Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient
or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against them. Banish the
belief that you can possibly entertain a single intruding pain which cannot be
ruled out by the might of Mind, and in this way you can prevent the development
of pain in the body. No law of God hinders this result. It is error to suffer
for aught but your own sins. Christ, or Truth, will destroy all other supposed
suffering, and real suffering for your own sins will cease in proportion as the
sin ceases. |
Contradict error |
Justice is the moral signification of law. Injustice
declares the absence of law. When the body is supposed to say, "I am sick,"
never plead guilty. Since matter cannot talk, it must be mortal mind which
speaks; therefore meet the intimation with a protest. If you say, "I am sick,"
you plead guilty. Then your adversary will deliver you to the judge (mortal
mind), and the judge will sentence you. Disease has no intelligence to declare
itself something and announce its name. Mortal mind alone sentences itself.
Therefore make your own terms with sickness, and be just to yourself and to
others. |
Sin to be overcome |
Mentally contradict every complaint from the body, and
rise to the true consciousness of Life as Love, as all that is pure, and
bearing the fruits of Spirit. Fear is the fountain of sickness, and you master
fear and sin through divine Mind; hence it is through divine Mind that you
overcome disease. Only while fear or sin remains can it bring forth death. To
cure a bodily ailment, every broken moral law should be taken into account and
the error be rebuked. Fear, which is an element of all disease, must be cast
out to readjust the balance for God. Casting out evil and fear enables truth to
outweigh error. The only course is to take antagonistic grounds against all
that is opposed to the health, holiness, and harmony of man, God's image.
|
Illusions about nerves
|
The physical affirmation of disease should always be
met with the mental negation. Whatever benefit is produced on the body, must be
expressed mentally, and thought should be held fast to this ideal. If you
believe in inflamed and weak nerves, you are liable to an attack from that
source. You will call it neuralgia, but we call it a belief. If you think that
consumption is hereditary in your family, you are liable to the development of
that thought in the form of what is termed pulmonary disease, unless Science
shows you otherwise. If you decide that climate or atmosphere is unhealthy, it
will be so to you. Your decisions will master you, whichever direction they
take. |
Guarding the door |
Reverse the case. Stand porter at the door of thought.
Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you
will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say
induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident,
then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and
fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot
suffer from them. The issues of pain or pleasure must come through mind, and
like a watchman forsaking his post, we admit the intruding belief, forgetting
that through divine help we can forbid this entrance. |
The strength of Spirit
|
The body seems to be self-acting, only because mortal
mind is ignorant of itself, of its own actions, and of their results, ignorant
that the predisposing, remote, and exciting cause of all bad effects is a law
of so-called mortal mind, not of matter. Mind is the master of the corporeal
senses, and can conquer sickness, sin, and death. Exercise this God-given
authority. Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action.
Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made
man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely
bestowed on man. |
No pain in matter |
Be firm in your understanding that the divine Mind
governs, and that in Science man reflects God's government. Have no fear that
matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind,
when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation. Your
body would suffer no more from tension or wounds than the trunk of a tree which
you gash or the electric wire which you stretch, were it not for mortal mind.
When Jesus declares that "the light of the body is the eye," he certainly means
that light depends upon Mind, not upon the complex humors, lenses, muscles, the
iris and pupil, constituting the visual organism. |
No real disease |
Man is never sick, for Mind is not sick and matter
cannot be. A false belief is both the tempter and the tempted, the sin and the
sinner, the disease and its cause. It is well to be calm in sickness; to be
hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real and that
Truth can destroy its seeming reality, is best of all, for this understanding
is the universal and perfect remedy. |
Recuperation mental |
By conceding power to discord, a large majority of
doctors depress mental energy, which is the only real recuperative power.
Knowledge that we can accomplish the good we hope for, stimulates the system to
act in the direction which Mind points out. The admission that any bodily
condition is beyond the control of Mind disarms man, prevents him from helping
himself, and enthrones matter through error. To those struggling with sickness,
such admissions are discouraging, as much so as would be the advice to a man
who is down in the world, that he should not try to rise above his
difficulties.
Experience has proved to the author the fallacy of
material systems in general, that their theories are sometimes pernicious, and
that their denials are better than their affirmations. Will you bid a man let
evils overcome him, assuring him that all misfortunes are from God, against
whom mortals should not contend? Will you tell the sick that their condition is
hopeless, unless it can be aided by a drug or climate? Are material means the
only refuge from fatal chances? Is there no divine permission to conquer
discord of every kind with harmony, with Truth and Love? |
Arguing wrongly |
We should remember that Life is God, and that God is
omnipotent. Not understanding Christian Science, the sick usually have little
faith in it till they feel its beneficent influence. This shows that faith is
not the healer in such cases. The sick unconsciously argue for suffering,
instead of against it. They admit its reality, whereas they should deny it.
They should plead in opposition to the testimony of the deceitful senses, and
maintain man's immortality and eternal likeness to God. |
Divine authority |
Like the great Exemplar, the healer should speak to
disease as one having authority over it, leaving Soul to master the false
evidences of the corporeal senses and to assert its claims over mortality and
disease. The same Principle cures both sin and sickness. When divine Science
overcomes faith in a carnal mind, and faith in God destroys all faith in sin
and in material methods of healing, then sin, disease, and death will
disappear. |
Aids in sickness |
Prayers, in which God is not asked to
heal but is besought to take the patient to Himself, do not benefit the sick.
An ill-tempered, complaining, or deceitful person should not be a nurse. The
nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, receptive
to Truth and Love. |
Mental quackery |
It is mental quackery to make disease a
reality to hold it as something seen and felt and then to attempt its cure
through Mind. It is no less erroneous to believe in the real existence of a
tumor, a cancer, or decayed lungs, while you argue against their reality, than
it is for your patient to feel these ills in physical belief. Mental practice,
which holds disease as a reality, fastens disease on the patient, and it may
appear in a more alarming form. |
Effacing images of disease
|
The knowledge that brain-lobes cannot kill a man nor
affect the functions of mind would prevent the brain from becoming diseased,
though a moral offence is indeed the worst of diseases. One should never hold
in mind the thought of disease, but should efface from thought all forms and
types of disease, both for one's own sake and for that of the patient.
|
Avoid talking disease
|
Avoid talking illness to the patient. Make no
unnecessary inquiries relative to feelings or disease. Never startle with a
discouraging remark about recovery, nor draw attention to certain symptoms as
unfavorable, avoid speaking aloud the name of the disease. Never say beforehand
how much you have to contend with in a case, nor encourage in the patient's
thought the expectation of growing worse before a crisis is passed. |
False testimony refuted
|
The refutation of the testimony of material sense is
not a difficult task in view of the conceded falsity of this testimony. The
refutation becomes arduous, not because the testimony of sin or disease is
true, but solely on account of the tenacity of belief in its truth, due to the
force of education and the overwhelming weight of opinions on the wrong side,
all teaching that the body suffers, as if matter could have sensation.
|
Healthful explanation
|
At the right time explain to the sick the power which
their beliefs exercise over their bodies. Give them divine and wholesome
understanding, with which to combat their erroneous sense, and so efface the
images of sickness from mortal mind. Keep distinctly in thought that man is the
offspring of God, not of man; that man is spiritual, not material; that Soul is
Spirit, outside of matter, never in it, never giving the body life and
sensation. It breaks the dream of disease to understand that sickness is formed
by the human mind, not by matter nor by the divine Mind. |
Misleading methods |
By not perceiving vital metaphysical points, not
seeing how mortal mind affects the body, acting beneficially or injuriously on
the health, as well as on the morals and the happiness of mortals, we are
misled in our conclusions and methods. We throw the mental influence on the
wrong side, thereby actually injuring those whom we mean to bless. |
Remedy for accidents
|
Suffering is no less a mental condition than is
enjoyment. You cause bodily sufferings and increase them by admitting their
reality and continuance, as directly as you enhance your joys by believing them
to be real and continuous. When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, "I
am hurt!" Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the
accident itself, to make the injury real.
Now reverse the process. Declare that you are not
hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects
to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to
divine meta-physics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him
to be. |
Independent mentality
|
To heal the sick, one must be familiar with the great
verities of being. Mortals are no more material in their waking hours than when
they act, walk, see, hear, enjoy, or suffer in dreams. We can never treat
mortal mind and matter separately, because they combine as one. Give up the
belief that mind is, even temporarily, compressed within the skull, and you
will quickly become more manly or womanly. You will understand yourself and
your Maker better than before. |
Naming maladies |
Sometimes Jesus called a disease by name, as when he
said to the epileptic boy, "Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out
of him, and enter no more into him." It is added that "the spirit [error]
cried, and rent him sore and came out of him, and he was as one dead," clear
evidence that the malady was not material. These instances show the concessions
which Jesus was willing to make to the popular ignorance of spiritual
Life-laws. Often he gave no name to the distemper he cured. To the synagogue
ruler's daughter, whom they called dead but of whom he said, "she is not dead,
but sleepeth," he simply said, "Damsel, I say unto thee, arise!" To the
sufferer with the withered hand he said, "Stretch forth thine hand," and it
"was restored whole, like as the other." |
The action of faith |
Homoeopathic remedies, sometimes not containing a
particle of medicine, are known to relieve the symptoms of disease. What
produces the change? It is the faith of the doctor and the patient, which
reduces self-inflicted sufferings and produces a new effect upon the body. In
like manner destroy the illusion of pleasure in intoxication, and the desire
for strong drink is gone. Appetite and disease reside in mortal mind, not in
matter.
So also faith, cooperating with a belief in the
healing effects of time and medication, will soothe fear and change the belief
of disease to a belief of health. Even a blind faith removes bodily ailments
for a season, but hypnotism changes such ills into new and more difficult forms
of disease. The Science of Mind must come to the rescue, to work a radical
cure. Then we understand the process. The great fact remains that evil is not
mind. Evil has no power, no intelligence, for God is good, and therefore good
is infinite, is All. |
Corporeal combinations
|
You say that certain material combinations produce
disease; but if the material body causes disease, can matter cure what matter
has caused? Mortal mind prescribes the drug, and administers it. Mortal mind
plans the exercise, and puts the body through certain motions. No gastric gas
accumulates, not a secretion nor combination can operate, apart from the action
of mortal thought, alias mortal mind. |
Automatic mechanism |
So-called mortal mind sends its despatches over its
body, but this so-called mind is both the service and message of this
telegraphy. Nerves are unable to talk, and matter can return no answer to
immortal Mind. If Mind is the only actor, how can mechanism be automatic?
Mortal mind perpetuates its own thought. It constructs a machine, manages it,
and then calls it material. A mill at work or the action of a water-wheel is
but a derivative from, and continuation of, the primitive mortal mind. Without
this force the body is devoid of action, and this deadness shows that so-called
mortal life is mortal mind, not matter. |
Mental strength |
Scientifically speaking, there is no mortal mind out
of which to make material beliefs, springing from illusion. This misnamed mind
is not an entity. It is only a false sense of matter, since matter is not
sensible. The one Mind, God, contains no mortal opinions. All that is real is
included in this immortal Mind. |
Confirmation in a parable
|
Our Master asked: "How can one enter into a strong
man's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man?" In other
words: How can I heal the body, without beginning with so-called mortal mind,
which directly controls the body? When disease is once destroyed in this
so-called mind, the fear of disease is gone, and therefore the disease is
thoroughly cured. Mortal mind is "the strong man," which must be held in
subjection before its influence upon health and morals can be removed. This
error conquered, we can despoil "the strong man" of his goods, namely, of sin
and disease. |
Eradicate error from thought
|
Mortals obtain the harmony of health, only as they
forsake discord, acknowledge the supremacy of divine Mind, and abandon their
material beliefs. Eradicate the image of disease from the perturbed thought
before it has taken tangible shape in conscious thought, alias the body,
and you prevent the development of disease. This task becomes easy, if you
understand that every disease is an error, and has no character nor type,
except what mortal mind assigns to it. By lifting thought above error, or
disease, and contending persistently for truth, you destroy error. |
Mortal mind controlled
|
When we remove disease by addressing the disturbed
mind, giving no heed to the body, we prove that thought alone creates the
suffering. Mortal mind rules all that is mortal. We see in the body the images
of this mind, even as in optics we see painted on the retina the image which
becomes visible to the senses. The action of so-called mortal mind must be
destroyed by the divine Mind to bring out the harmony of being. Without divine
control there is discord, manifest as sin, sickness, and death. |
Mortal mind not a healer
|
The Scriptures plainly declare the baneful influence
of sinful thought on the body. Even our Master felt this. It is recorded that
in certain localities he did not many mighty works "because of their unbelief"
in Truth. Any human error is its own enemy, and works against itself; it does
nothing in the right direction and much in the wrong. If so-called mind is
cherishing evil passions and malicious purposes, it is not a healer, but it
engenders disease and death. |
Effect of opposites |
If faith in the truth of being, which you impart
mentally while destroying error, causes chemicalization (as when an alkali is
destroying an acid), it is because the truth of being must transform the error
to the end of producing a higher manifestation. This fermentation should not
aggravate the disease, but should be as painless to man as to a fluid, since
matter has no sensation and mortal mind only feels and sees materially. What I
term chemicalization is the upheaval produced when immortal Truth is
destroying erroneous mortal belief. Mental chemicalization brings sin and
sickness to the surface, forcing impurities to pass away, as is the case with a
fermenting fluid. |
Medicine and brain |
The only effect produced by medicine is dependent upon
mental action. If the mind were parted from the body, could you produce any
effect upon the brain or body by applying the drug to either? Would the drug
remove paralysis, affect organization, or restore will and action to cerebrum
and cerebellum? |
Skilful surgery |
Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and
supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian Scientists to leave surgery and
the adjustment of broken bones and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon,
while the mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental reconstruction and
to the prevention of inflammation. Christian Science is always the most skilful
surgeon, but surgery is the branch of its healing which will be last
acknowledged. However, it is but just to say that the author has already in her
possession well-authenticated records of the cure, by herself and her students
through mental surgery alone, of broken bones, dislocated joints, and spinal
vertebrae. |
Indestructible life of man
|
The time approaches when mortal mind will forsake its
corporeal, structural, and material basis, when immortal Mind and its
formations will be apprehended in Science, and material beliefs will not
interfere with spiritual facts. Man is indestructible and eternal. Sometime it
will be learned that mortal mind constructs the mortal body with this mind's
own mortal materials. In Science, no breakage nor dislocation can really occur.
You say that accidents, injuries, and disease kill man, but this is not true.
The life of man is Mind. The material body manifests only what mortal mind
believes, whether it be a broken bone, disease, or sin. |
The evil of mesmerism
|
We say that one human mind can influence another and
in this way affect the body, but we rarely remember that we govern our own
bodies. The error, mesmerism or hypnotism, to use the recent term illustrates
the fact just stated. The operator would make his subjects believe that they
cannot act voluntarily and handle themselves as they should do. If they yield
to this influence, it is because their belief is not better instructed by
spiritual understanding. Hence the proof that hypnotism is not scientific;
Science cannot produce both disorder and order. The involuntary pleasure or
pain of the person under hypnotic control is proved to be a belief without a
real cause. |
Wrong-doer should suffer
|
So the sick through their beliefs have induced their
own diseased conditions. The great difference between voluntary and involuntary
mesmerism is that voluntary mesmerism is induced consciously and should and
does cause the perpetrator to suffer, while self-mesmerism is induced
unconsciously and by his mistake a man is often instructed. In the first
instance it is understood that the difficulty is a mental illusion, while in
the second it is believed that the misfortune is a material effect. The human
mind is employed to remove the illusion in one case, but matter is appealed to
in the other. In reality, both have their origin in the human mind, and can be
healed only by the divine Mind. |
Error's power imaginary
|
You command the situation if you understand that
mortal existence is a state of self-deception and not the truth of being.
Mortal mind is constantly producing on mortal body the results of false
opinions; and it will continue to do so, until mortal error is deprived of its
imaginary powers by Truth, which sweeps away the gossamer web of mortal
illusion. The most Christian state is one of rectitude and spiritual
understanding, and this is best adapted for healing the sick. Never conjure up
some new discovery from dark forebodings regarding disease and then acquaint
your patient with it. |
Disease-production |
The mortal so-called mind produces all that is unlike
the immortal Mind. The human mind determines the nature of a case, and the
practitioner improves or injures the case in proportion to the truth or error
which influences his conclusions. The mental conception and development of
disease are not understood by the patient, but the physician should be familiar
with mental action and its effect in order to judge the case according to
Christian Science. |
Appetites to be abandoned
|
If a man is an inebriate, a slave to tobacco, or the
special servant of any one of the myriad forms of sin, meet and destroy these
errors with the truth of being, by exhibiting to the wrong-doer the suffering
which his submission to such habits brings, and by convincing him that there is
no real pleasure in false appetites. A corrupt mind is manifested in a corrupt
body. Lust, malice, and all sorts of evil are diseased beliefs, and you can
destroy them only by destroying the wicked motives which produce them. If the
evil is over in the repentant mortal mind, while its effects still remain on
the individual, you can remove this disorder as God's law is fulfilled and
reformation cancels the crime. The healthy sinner is the hardened sinner.
|
Temperance reform |
The temperance reform, felt all over our land, results
from metaphysical healing, which cuts down every tree that brings not forth
good fruit. This conviction, that there is no real pleasure in sin, is one of
the most important points in the theology of Christian Science. Arouse the
sinner to this new and true view of sin, show him that sin confers no pleasure,
and this knowledge strengthens his moral courage and increases his ability to
master evil and to love good. |
Sin or fear the root of sickness
|
Healing the sick and reforming the sinner are one and
the same thing in Christian Science. Both cures require the same method and are
inseparable in Truth. Hatred, envy, dishonesty, fear, and so forth, make a man
sick, and neither material medicine nor Mind can help him permanently, even in
body, unless it makes him better mentally, and so delivers him from his
destroyers. The basic error is mortal mind. Hatred inflames the brutal
propensities. The indulgence of evil motives and aims makes any man, who is
above the lowest type of manhood, a hopeless sufferer. |
Mental conspirators |
Christian Science commands man to master the
propensities, to hold hatred in abeyance with kindness, to conquer lust with
chastity, revenge with charity, and to overcome deceit with honesty. Choke
these errors in their early stages, if you would not cherish an army of
conspirators against health, happiness, and success. They will deliver you to
the judge, the arbiter of truth against error. The judge will deliver you to
justice, and the sentence of the moral law will be executed upon mortal mind
and body. Both will be manacled until the last farthing is paid, until you have
balanced your account with God. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap." The good man finally can overcome his fear of sin. This is sin's
necessity, to destroy itself. Immortal man demonstrates the government of God,
good, in which is no power to sin. |
Cumulative repentence
|
It were better to be exposed to every plague on earth
than to endure the cumulative effects of a guilty conscience. The abiding
consciousness of wrong-doing tends to destroy the ability to do right. If sin
is not regretted and is not lessening, then it is hastening on to physical and
moral doom. You are conquered by the moral penalties you incur and the ills
they bring. The pains of sinful sense are less harmful than its pleasures.
Belief in material suffering causes mortals to retreat from their error, to
flee from body to Spirit, and to appeal to divine sources outside of
themselves. |
The leaves of healing
|
The Bible contains the recipe for all healing. "The
leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Sin and sickness are
both healed by the same Principle. The tree is typical of man's divine
Principle, which is equal to every emergency, offering full salvation from sin,
sickness, and death. Sin will submit to Christian Science when, in place of
modes and forms, the power of God is understood and demonstrated in the healing
of mortals, both mind and body. "Perfect Love casteth out fear." |
Sickness will abate |
The Science of being unveils the errors of sense, and
spiritual perception, aided by Science, reaches Truth. Then error disappears.
Sin and sickness will abate and seem less real as we approach the scientific
period, in which mortal sense is subdued and all that is unlike the true
likeness disappears. The moral man has no fear that he will commit a murder,
and he should be as fearless on the question of disease. |
Resist to the end |
Resist evil error of every sort and it will flee from
you. Error is opposed to Life. We can, and ultimately shall, so rise as to
avail ourselves in every direction of the supremacy of Truth over error, Life
over death, and good over evil, and this growth will go on until we arrive at
the fullness of God's idea, and no more fear that we shall be sick and die. In
harmony of any kind involves weakness and suffering, a loss of control over the
body. |
Morbid cravings |
The depraved appetite for alcoholic drinks, tobacco,
tea, coffee, opium, is destroyed only by Mind's mastery of the body. This
normal control is gained through divine strength and understanding. There is no
enjoyment in getting drunk, in becoming a fool or an object of loathing; but
there is a very sharp remembrance of it, a suffering inconceivably terrible to
man's self-respect. Puffing the obnoxious fumes of tobacco, or chewing a leaf
naturally attractive to no creature except a loathsome worm, is at least
disgusting. |
Universal panacea |
Man's enslavement to the most relentless masters
passion, selfishness, envy, hatred, and revenge is conquered only by a mighty
struggle. Every hour of delay makes the struggle more severe. If man is not
victorious over the passions, they crush out happiness, health, and manhood.
Here Christian Science is the sovereign panacea, giving strength to the
weakness of mortal mind, strength from the immortal and omnipotent Mind, and
lifting humanity above itself into purer desires, even into spiritual power and
good-will to man. Let the slave of wrong desire learn the lessons of Christian
Science, and he will get the better of that desire and ascend a degree in the
scale of health, happiness, and existence. |
Immortal memory |
If delusion says, "I have lost my memory," contradict
it. No faculty of Mind is lost. In Science, all being is eternal, spiritual,
perfect, harmonious in every action. Let the perfect model be present in your
thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite. This spiritualization of thought
lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your
consciousness. |
Sin a form of insanity
|
There are many species of insanity. All sin is
insanity in different degrees. Sin is spared from this classification, only
because its method of madness is in consonance with common mortal belief. Every
sort of sickness is error, that is, sickness is loss of harmony. This view is
not altered by the fact that sin is worse than sickness, and sickness is not
acknowledged nor discovered to be error by many who are sick. There is a
universal insanity of so-called health, which mistakes fable for fact
throughout the entire round of the material senses, but this general craze
cannot, in a scientific diagnosis, shield the individual case from the special
name of insanity. Those unfortunate people who are committed to insane asylums
are only so many distinctly defined instances of the baneful effects of
illusion on mortal minds and bodies. |
Drugs and brain-lobes
|
The supposition that we can correct insanity by the
use of purgatives and narcotics is in itself a mild species of insanity. Can
drugs go of their own accord to the brain and destroy the so-called
inflammation of disordered functions, thus reaching mortal mind through matter?
Drugs do not affect a corpse, and Truth does not distribute drugs through the
blood, and from them derive a supposed effect on intelligence and sentiment. A
dislocation of the tarsal joint would produce insanity as perceptibly as would
congestion of the brain, were it not that mortal mind thinks that the tarsal
joint is less intimately connected with the mind than is the brain. Reverse the
belief, and the results would be perceptibly different. |
Matter and animate error
|
The unconscious thought in the corporeal substratum of
brain produces no effect, and that condition of the body which we call
sensation in matter is unreal. Mortal mind is ignorant of itself, ignorant of
the errors it includes and of their effects. Intelligent matter is an
impossibility. You may say: "But if disease obtains in matter, why do you
insist that disease is formed by mortal mind and not by matter?" Mortal mind
and body combine as one, and the nearer matter approaches its final
statement, animate error called nerves, brain, mind, the more prolific it is
likely to become in sin and disease-beliefs. |
Dictation of error |
Unconscious mortal mind alias matter, brain
cannot dictate terms to consciousness nor say, "I am sick." The belief, that
the unconscious substratum of mortal mind, termed the body, suffers and reports
disease independently of this so-called conscious mind, is the error which
prevents mortals from knowing how to govern their bodies. |
So-called superiority
|
The so-called conscious mortal mind is believed to be
superior to its unconscious substratum, matter, and the stronger never yields
to the weaker, except through fear or choice. The animate should be governed by
God alone. The real man is spiritual and immortal, but the mortal and imperfect
so-called "children of men" are counterfeits from the beginning, to be laid
aside for the pure reality. This mortal is put off, and the new man or real man
is put on, in proportion as mortals realize the Science of man and seek the
true model. |
Death no benefactor |
We have no right to say that life depends on matter
now, but will not depend on it after death. We cannot spend our days here in
ignorance of the Science of Life, and expect to find beyond the grave a reward
for this ignorance. Death will not make us harmonious and immortal as a
recompense for ignorance. If here we give no heed to Christian Science, which
is spiritual and eternal, we shall not be ready for spiritual Life hereafter.
|
Life eternal and present
|
"This is life eternal," says Jesus, is, not
shall be; and then he defines everlasting life as a present knowledge of
his Father and of himself, the knowledge of Love, Truth, and Life. "This is
life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom Thou hast sent." The Scriptures say, "Man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,"
showing that Truth is the actual life of man; but mankind objects to making
this teaching practical. |
Love casteth out fear
|
Every trial of our faith in God makes us stronger. The
more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the
stronger should be our faith and the purer our love. The Apostle John says:
"There is no fear in Love, but perfect Love casteth out fear. . . . He that
feareth is not made perfect in Love." Here is a definite and inspired
proclamation 21 of Christian Science. MENTAL TREATMENT ILLUSTRATED |
Be not afraid |
The Science of mental practice is susceptible of no
misuse. Selfishness does not appear in the practice of Truth or Christian
Science. If mental practice is abused or is used in any way except to promote
right thinking and doing, the power to heal mentally will diminish, until the
practitioner's healing ability is wholly lost. Christian scientific practice
begins with Christ's keynote of harmony, "Be not afraid!" Said Job: "The thing
which I greatly feared is come upon me." |
Naming diseases |
My first discovery in the student's practice was this:
If the student silently called the disease by name, when he argued against it,
as a general rule the body would respond more quickly, just as a person replies
more readily when his name is spoken; but this was because the student was not
perfectly attuned to divine Science, and needed the arguments of truth for
reminders. If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness to the truth,
this is the ultimatum, the scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous.
|
Evils cast out |
It is recorded that once Jesus asked the name of a
disease, a disease which moderns would call dementia. The demon, or
evil, replied that his name was Legion. Thereupon Jesus cast out the evil, and
the insane man was changed and straightway became whole. The Scripture seems to
import that Jesus caused the evil to be self-seen and so destroyed. |
Fear as the foundation
|
The procuring cause and foundation of all sickness is
fear, ignorance, or sin. Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally
entertained, not destroyed. Disease is an image of thought externalized. The
mental state is called a material state. Whatever is cherished in mortal mind
as the physical condition is imaged forth on the body. |
Unspoken pleading |
Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of
patients. Silently reassure them as to their exemption from disease and danger.
Watch the result of this simple rule of Christian Science, and you will find
that it alleviates the symptoms of every disease. If you succeed in wholly
removing the fear, your patient is healed. The great fact that God lovingly
governs all, never punishing aught but sin, is your standpoint, from which to
advance and destroy the human fear of sickness. Mentally and silently plead the
case scientifically for Truth. You may vary the arguments to meet the peculiar
or general symptoms of the case you treat, but be thoroughly persuaded in your
own mind concerning the truth which you think or speak, and you will be the
victor. |
Eloquent silence |
You may call the disease by name when you mentally
deny it; but by naming it audibly, you are liable under some circumstances to
impress it upon the thought. The power of Christian Science and divine Love is
omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to unclasp the hold and to destroy disease,
sin, and death. |
Insistence requisite
|
To prevent disease or to cure it, the power of Truth,
of divine Spirit, must break the dream of the material senses. To heal by
argument, find the type of the ailment, get its name, and array your mental
plea against the physical. Argue at first mentally, not audibly, that the
patient has no disease, and conform the argument so as to destroy the evidence
of disease. Mentally insist that harmony is the fact, and that sickness is a
temporal dream. Realize the presence of health and the fact of harmonious
being, until the body corresponds with the normal conditions of health and
harmony. |
The cure of infants |
If the case is that of a young child or an infant, it
needs to be met mainly through the parent's thought, silently or audibly on the
aforesaid basis of Christian Science. The Scientist knows that there can be no
hereditary disease, since matter is not intelligent and cannot transmit good or
evil intelligence to man, and God, the only Mind, does not produce pain in
matter. The act of yielding one's thoughts to the undue contemplation of
physical wants or conditions induces those very conditions. A single
requirement, beyond what is necessary to meet the simplest needs of the babe is
harmful. Mind regulates the condition of the stomach, bowels, and food, the
temperature of children and of men, and matter does not. The wise or unwise
views of parents and other persons on these subjects produce good or bad
effects on the health of children. |
Ablutions for cleanliness
|
The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural
nor necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of water every day
and covering it with dirt in order to make it thrive more vigorously in its own
element. "Cleanliness is next to godliness," but washing should be only for the
purpose of keeping the body clean, and this can be effected without scrubbing
the whole surface daily. Water is not the natural habitat of humanity. I insist
on bodily cleanliness within and without. I am not patient with a speck of
dirt; but in caring for an infant one need not wash his little body all over
each day in order to keep it sweet as the new-blown flower. |
Juvenile ailments |
Giving drugs to infants, noticing every symptom of
flatulency, and constantly directing the mind to such signs, that mind being
laden with illusions about disease, health-laws, and death, these actions
convey mental images to children's budding thoughts, and often stamp them
there, making it probable at any time that such ills may be reproduced in the
very ailments feared. A child may have worms, if you say so, or any other
malady, timorously held in the beliefs concerning his body. Thus are laid the
foundations of the belief in disease and death, and thus are children educated
into discord. |
Cure of insanity |
The treatment of insanity is especially interesting.
However obstinate the case, it yields more readily than do most diseases to the
salutary action of truth, which counteracts error. The arguments to be used in
curing insanity are the same as in other diseases: namely, the impossibility
that matter, brain, can control or derange mind, can suffer or cause suffering;
also the fact that truth and love will establish a healthy state, guide and
govern mortal mind or the thought of the patient, and destroy all error,
whether it is called dementia, hatred, or any other discord. To fix truth
steadfastly in your patients' thoughts, explain Christian Science to them, but
not too soon, not until your patients are prepared for the explanation, lest
you array the sick against their own interests by troubling and perplexing
their thought.
The Christian Scientist's argument rests on the
Christianly scientific basis of being. The Scripture declares, "The Lord He is
God [good]; there is none else beside Him." Even so, harmony is universal, and
discord is unreal. Christian Science declares that Mind is substance, also that
matter neither feels, suffers, nor enjoys. Hold these points strongly in view.
Keep in mind the verity of being, that man is the image and likeness of God, in
whom all being is painless and permanent. Remember that man's perfection is
real and unimpeachable, whereas imperfection is blameworthy, unreal, and is not
brought about by divine Love. |
Matter is not inflamed
|
Matter cannot be inflamed. Inflammation is fear, an
excited state of mortals which is not normal. Immortal Mind is the only cause;
therefore disease is neither a cause nor an effect. Mind in every case is the
eternal God, good. Sin, disease, and death have no foundations in Truth.
Inflammation as a mortal belief quickens or impedes the action of the system,
because thought moves quickly or slowly, leaps or halts when it contemplates
unpleasant things, or when the individual looks upon some object which he
dreads. Inflammation never appears in a part which mortal thought does not
reach. That is why opiates relieve inflammation. They quiet the thought by
inducing stupefaction and by resorting to matter instead of to Mind. Opiates do
not remove the pain in any scientific sense. They only render mortal mind
temporarily less fearful, till it can master an erroneous belief. |
Truth calms the thought
|
Note how thought makes the face pallid. It either
retards the circulation or quickens it, causing a pale or flushed cheek. In the
same way thought increases or diminishes the secretions, the action of the
lungs, of the bowels, and of the heart. The muscles, moving quickly or slowly
and impelled or palsied by thought, represent the action of all the organs of
the human system, including brain and viscera. To remove the error producing
disorder, you must calm and instruct mortal mind with immortal Truth. |
Effects of etherization
|
Etherization will apparently cause the body to
disappear. Before the thoughts are fully at rest, the limbs will vanish from
consciousness. Indeed, the whole frame will sink from sight along with
surrounding objects, leaving the pain standing forth as distinctly as a
mountain-peak, as if it were a separate bodily member. At last the agony also
vanishes. This process shows the pain to be in the mind, for the inflammation
is not suppressed; and the belief of pain will presently return, unless the
mental image occasioning the pain be removed by recognizing the truth of being.
|
Sedatives valueless |
A hypodermic injection of morphine is administered to
a patient, and in twenty minutes the sufferer is quietly asleep. To him there
is no longer any pain. Yet any physician allopathic, homoeopathic, botanic,
eclectic will tell you that the troublesome material cause is unremoved, and
that when the soporific influence of the opium is exhausted, the patient will
find himself in the same pain, unless the belief which occasions the pain has
meanwhile been changed. Where is the pain while the patient sleeps? |
The so-called physical ego
|
The material body, which you call me, is mortal
mind, and this mind is material in sensation, even as the body, which has
originated from this material sense and been developed according to it, is
material. This materialism of parent and child is only in mortal mind, as the
dead body proves; for when the mortal has resigned his body to dust, the body
is no longer the parent, even in appearance. |
Evil thought depletes
|
The sick know nothing of the mental process by which
they are depleted, and next to nothing of the metaphysical method by which they
can be healed. If they ask about their disease, tell them only what is best for
them to know. Assure them that they think too much about their ailments, and
have already heard too much on that subject. Turn their thoughts away from
their bodies to higher objects. Teach them that their being is sustained by
Spirit, not by matter, and that they find health, peace, and harmony in God,
divine Love. |
Helpful encouragement
|
Give sick people credit for sometimes knowing more
than their doctors. Always support their trust in the power of Mind to sustain
the body. Never tell the sick that they have more courage than strength. Tell
them rather, that their strength is in proportion to their courage. If you make
the sick realize this great truism, there will be no reaction from
over-exertion or from excited conditions. Maintain the facts of Christian
Science, that Spirit is God, and therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed
matter cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting through spiritual
law. Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love,
and you will win. When you silence the witness against your plea, you destroy
the evidence, for the disease disappears. The evidence before the corporeal
senses is not the Science of immortal man. |
Disease to be made unreal
|
To the Christian Science healer, sickness is a dream
from which the patient needs to be awakened. Disease should not appear real to
the physician, since it is demonstrable that the way to cure the patient is to
make disease unreal to him. To do this, the physician must understand the
unreality of disease in Science. Explain audibly to your patients, as soon as
they can bear it, the complete control which Mind holds over the body. Show
them how mortal mind seems to induce disease by certain fears and false
conclusions, and how divine Mind can cure by opposite thoughts. Give your
patients an underlying understanding to support them and to shield them from
the baneful effects of their own conclusions. Show them that the conquest over
sickness, as well as over sin, depends on mentally destroying all belief in
material pleasure or pain. |
Christian pleading |
Stick to the truth of being in contradistinction to
the error that life, substance, or intelligence can be in matter. Plead with an
honest conviction of truth and a clear perception of the unchanging, unerring,
and certain effect of divine Science. Then, if your fidelity is half equal to
the truth of your plea, you will heal the sick. |
Truthful arguments |
It must be clear to you that sickness is no more the
reality of being than is sin. This mortal dream of sickness, sin, and death
should cease through Christian Science. Then one disease would be as readily
destroyed as another. Whatever the belief is, if arguments are used to destroy
it, the belief must be repudiated, and the negation must extend to the supposed
disease and to whatever decides its type and symptoms. Truth is affirmative,
and confers harmony. All metaphysical logic is inspired by this simple rule of
Truth, which governs all reality. By the truthful arguments you employ, and
especially by the spirit of Truth and Love which you entertain, you will heal
the sick. |
Morality required |
Include moral as well as physical belief in your
efforts to destroy error. Cast out all manner of evil. "Preach the gospel to
every creature." Speak the truth to every form of error. Tumors, ulcers,
tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are waking dream-shadows, dark
images of mortal thought, which flee before the light of Truth. A moral
question may hinder the recovery of the sick. Lurking error, lust, envy,
revenge, malice, or hate will perpetuate or even create the belief in disease.
Errors of all sorts tend in this direction. Your true course is to destroy the
foe, and leave the field to God, Life, Truth, and Love, remembering that God
and His ideas alone are real and harmonious. |
Relapse unnecessary |
If your patient from any cause suffers a relapse, meet
the cause mentally and courageously, knowing that there can be no reaction in
Truth. Neither disease itself, sin, nor fear has the power to cause disease or
a relapse. Disease has no intelligence with which to move itself about or to
change itself from one form to another. If disease moves, mind, not matter,
moves it; therefore be sure that you move it off. Meet every adverse
circumstance as its master. Observe mind instead of body, lest aught unfit for
development enter thought. Think less of material conditions and more of
spiritual. |
Conquer beliefs and fears
|
Mind produces all action. If the action proceeds from
Truth, from immortal Mind, there is harmony; but mortal mind is liable to any
phase of belief. A relapse cannot in reality occur in mortals or so-called
mortal minds, for there is but one Mind, one God. Never fear the mental
malpractitioner, the mental assassin, who, in attempting to rule mankind,
tramples upon the divine Principle of metaphysics, for God is the only power.
To succeed in healing, you must conquer your own fears as well as those of your
patients, and rise into higher and holier consciousness. |
True government of man
|
If it is found necessary to treat against relapse,
know that disease or its symptoms cannot change forms, nor go from one part to
another, for Truth destroys disease. There is no metastasis, no stoppage of
harmonious action, no paralysis. Truth not error, Love not hate, Spirit not
matter, governs man. If students do not readily heal themselves, they should
early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid them. If they are
unwilling to do this for themselves, they need only to know that error cannot
produce this unnatural reluctance. |
Positive reassurance
|
Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims,
for if they will only accept Truth, they can resist disease and ward it off, as
positively as they can the temptation to sin. This fact of Christian Science
should be explained to invalids when they are in a fit mood to receive it, when
they will not array themselves against it, but are ready to become receptive to
the new idea. The fact that Truth overcomes both disease and sin reassures
depressed hope. It imparts a healthy stimulus to the body, and regulates the
system. It increases or diminishes the action, as the case may require, better
than any drug, alterative, or tonic. |
Proper stimulus |
Mind is the natural stimulus of the body, but
erroneous belief, taken at its best, is not promotive of health or happiness.
Tell the sick that they can meet disease fearlessly, if they only realize that
divine Love gives them all power over every physical action and condition.
|
Awaken the patient |
If it becomes necessary to startle mortal mind to
break its dream of suffering, vehemently tell your patient that he must awake.
Turn his gaze from the false evidence of the senses to the harmonious facts of
Soul and immortal being. Tell him that he suffers only as the insane suffer,
from false beliefs. The only difference is, that insanity implies belief in a
diseased brain, while physical ailments (so-called) arise from the belief that
other portions of the body are deranged. Derangement, or disarrangement,
is a word which conveys the true definition of all human belief in ill-health,
or disturbed harmony. Should you thus startle mortal mind in order to remove
its beliefs, afterwards make known to the patient your motive for this shock,
showing him that it was to facilitate recovery. |
How to treat a crisis
|
If a crisis occurs in your treatment, you must treat
the patient less for the disease and more for the mental disturbance or
fermentation, and subdue the symptoms by removing the belief that this
chemicalization produces pain or disease. Insist vehemently on the great fact
which covers the whole ground, that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none
beside Him. There is no disease. When the supposed suffering is gone
from mortal mind, there can be no pain; and when the fear is destroyed, the
inflammation will subside. Calm the excitement sometimes induced by
chemicalization, which is the alterative effect produced by Truth upon error,
and sometimes explain the symptoms and their cause to the patient. |
No perversion of Mind-science
|
It is no more Christianly scientific to see disease
than it is to experience it. If you would destroy the sense of disease, you
should not build it up by wishing to see the forms it assumes or by employing a
single material application for its relief. The perversion of Mind-science is
like asserting that the products of eight multiplied by five, and of seven by
ten, are both forty, and that their combined sum is fifty, and then calling the
process mathematics. Wiser than his persecutors, Jesus said: "If I by Beelzebub
cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out?" |
Effect of this book |
If the reader of this book observes a great stir
throughout his whole system, and certain moral and physical symptoms seem
aggravated, these indications are favorable. Continue to read, and the book
will become the physician, allaying the tremor which Truth often brings to
error when destroying it. |
Disease neutralized |
Patients, unfamiliar with the cause of this commotion
and ignorant that it is a favorable omen, may be alarmed. If such be the case,
explain to them the law of this action. As when an acid and alkali meet and
bring out a third quality, so mental and moral chemistry changes the material
base of thought, giving more spirituality to consciousness and causing it to
depend less on material evidence. These changes which go on in mortal mind
serve to reconstruct the body. Thus Christian Science, by the alchemy of
Spirit, destroys sin and death. |
Bone-healing by surgery
|
Let us suppose two parallel cases of bone-disease,
both similarly produced and attended by the same symptoms. A surgeon is
employed in one case, and a Christian Scientist in the other. The surgeon,
holding that matter forms its own conditions and renders them fatal at certain
points, entertains fears and doubts as to the ultimate outcome of the injury.
Not holding the reins of government in his own hands, he believes that
something stronger than Mind namely, matter governs the case. His treatment is
therefore tentative. This mental state invites defeat. The belief that he has
met his master in matter and may not be able to mend the bone, increases his
fear; yet this belief should not be communicated to the patient, either
verbally or otherwise, for this fear greatly diminishes the tendency towards a
favorable result. Remember that the unexpressed belief often times affects a
sensitive patient more strongly than the expressed thought. |
Scientific corrective
|
The Christian Scientist, understanding scientifically
that all is Mind, commences with mental causation, the truth of being, to
destroy the error. This corrective is an alterative, reaching to every part of
the human system. According to Scripture, it searches "the joints and marrow,"
and it restores the harmony of man. |
Coping with difficulties
|
The matter-physician deals with matter as both his foe
and his remedy. He regards the ailment as weakened or strengthened according to
the evidence which matter presents. The metaphysician, making Mind his basis of
operation irrespective of matter and regarding the truth and harmony of being
as superior to error and discord, has rendered himself strong, instead of weak,
to cope with the case; and he proportionately strengthens his patient with the
stimulus of courage and conscious power. Both Science and consciousness are now
at work in the economy of being according to the law of Mind, which ultimately
asserts its absolute supremacy. |
Formation from thought
|
Ossification or any abnormal condition or derangement
of the body is as directly the action of mortal mind as is dementia or
insanity. Bones have only the substance of thought which forms them. They are
only phenomena of the mind of mortals. The so-called substance of bone is
formed first by the parent's mind, through self-division. Soon the child
becomes a separate, individualized mortal mind, which takes possession of
itself and its own thoughts of bones. |
Accidents unknown to God
|
Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we
must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to
change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and
thus bring out harmony. |
Opposing mentality |
Under divine Providence there can be no accidents,
since there is no room for imperfection in perfection. In medical practice
objections would be raised if one doctor should administer a drug to counteract
the working of a remedy prescribed by another doctor. It is equally important
in metaphysical practice that the minds which surround your patient
should not act against your influence by continually expressing such opinions
as may alarm or discourage, either by giving antagonistic advice or through
unspoken thoughts resting on your patient. While it is certain that the divine
Mind can remove any obstacle, still you need the ear of your auditor. It is not
more difficult to make yourself heard mentally while others are thinking about
your patients or conversing with them, if you understand Christian Science the
oneness and the allness of divine Love; but it is well to be alone with God and
the sick when treating disease. |
Mind removes scrofula
|
To prevent or to cure scrofula and other so-called
hereditary diseases, you must destroy the belief in these ills and the faith in
the possibility of their transmission. The patient may tell you that he has a
humor in the blood, a scrofulous diathesis. His parents or some of his
progenitors farther back have so believed. Mortal mind, not matter, induces
this conclusion and its results. You will have humors, just so long as you
believe them to be safety-valves or to be ineradicable. |
Nothing to consume |
If the case to be mentally treated is consumption,
take up the leading points included (according to belief) in this disease. Show
that it is not inherited; that inflammation, tubercles, hemorrhage, and
decomposition are beliefs, images of mortal thought superimposed upon the body;
that they are not the truth of man; that they should be treated as error and
put out of thought. Then these ills will disappear. |
The lungs re-formed |
If the body is diseased, this is but one of the
beliefs of mortal mind. Mortal man will be less mortal, when he learns that
matter never sustained existence and can never destroy God, who is man's Life.
When this is understood, mankind will be more spiritual and know that there is
nothing to consume, since Spirit, God, is All-in-all. What if the belief is
consumption? God is more to a man than his belief, and the less we acknowledge
matter or its laws, the more immortality we possess. Consciousness constructs a
better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by
spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew. You will never fear
again except to offend God, and you will never believe that heart or any
portion of the body can destroy you. |
Soundness maintained
|
If you have sound and capacious lungs and want them to
remain so, be always ready with the mental protest against the opposite belief
in heredity. Discard all notions about lungs, tubercles, inherited consumption,
or disease arising from any circumstance, and you will find that mortal mind,
when instructed by Truth, yields to divine power, which steers the body into
health. |
Our footsteps heavenward
|
The discoverer of Christian Science finds the path
less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than when
she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it. When the destination is
desirable, expectation speeds our progress. The struggle for Truth makes one
strong instead of weak, resting instead of wearying one. If the belief in death
were obliterated, and the understanding obtained that there is no death, this
would be a "tree of life," known by its fruits. Man should renew his energies
and endeavors, and see the folly of hypocrisy, while also learning the
necessity of working out his own salvation. When it is learned that disease
cannot destroy life, and that mortals are not saved from sin or sickness by
death, this understanding will quicken into newness of life. It will master
either a desire to die or a dread of the grave, and thus destroy the great fear
that besets mortal existence. |
Christian standard |
The relinquishment of all faith in death and also of
the fear of its sting would raise the standard of health and morals far beyond
its present elevation, and would enable us to hold the banner of Christianity
aloft with unflinching faith in God, in Life eternal. Sin brought death, and
death will disappear with the disappearance of sin. Man is immortal, and the
body cannot die, because matter has no life to surrender. The human concepts
named matter, death, disease, sickness, and sin are all that can be destroyed.
|
Life not contingent on matter
|
If it is true that man lives, this fact can never
change in Science to the opposite belief that man dies. Life is the law of
Soul, even the law of the spirit of Truth, and Soul is never without its
representative. Man's individual being can no more die nor disappear in
unconsciousness than can Soul, for both are immortal. If man believes in death
now, he must disbelieve in it when learning that there is no reality in death,
since the truth of being is deathless. The belief that existence is contingent
on matter must be met and mastered by Science, before Life can be understood
and harmony obtained. |
Mortality vanquished
|
Death is but another phase of the dream that existence
can be material. Nothing can interfere with the harmony of being nor end the
existence of man in Science. Man is the same after as before a bone is broken
or the body guillotined. If man is never to overcome death, why do the
Scriptures say, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death"? The tenor of
the Word shows that we shall obtain the victory over death in proportion as we
overcome sin. The great difficulty lies in ignorance of what God is. God, Life,
Truth, and Love make man undying. Immortal Mind, governing all, must be
acknowledged as supreme in the physical realm, so-called, as well as in the
spiritual. |
No death nor inaction
|
Called to the bed of death, what material remedy has
man when all such remedies have failed? Spirit is his last resort, but it
should have been his first and only resort. The dream of death must be mastered
by Mind here or hereafter. Thought will waken from its own material
declaration, "I am dead," to catch this trumpet-word of Truth, "There is no
death, no inaction, diseased action, over action, nor reaction." |
Vision opening |
Life is real, and death is the illusion. A
demonstration of the facts of Soul in Jesus' way resolves the dark visions of
material sense into harmony and immortality. Man's privilege at this supreme
moment is to prove the words of our Master: "If a man keep my saying, he shall
never see death." To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in
order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, this is the great
attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to
the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, "whose builder
and maker is God." |
Intelligent consecration
|
We should consecrate existence, not "to the unknown
God" whom we "ignorantly worship," but to the eternal builder, the everlasting
Father, to the Life which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal belief destroy.
We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and
to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material. |
The present immortality
|
The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man
is, not shall be, perfect and immortal. We must hold forever the
consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian
Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence of man's immortality will
become more apparent, as material beliefs are given up and the immortal facts
of being are admitted. |
Careful guidance |
The author has healed hopeless organic disease, and
raised the dying to life and health through the understanding of God as the
only Life. It is a sin to believe that aught can overpower omnipotent and
eternal Life, and this Life must be brought to light by the understanding that
there is no death, as well as by other graces of Spirit. We must begin,
however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the sooner we
begin the better. The final demonstration takes time for its accomplishment.
When walking, we are guided by the eye. We look before our feet, and if we are
wise, we look beyond a single step in the line of spiritual advancement.
|
Clay replying to the potter
|
The corpse, deserted by thought, is cold and decays,
but it never suffers. Science declares that man is subject to Mind. Mortal mind
affirms that mind is subordinate to the body, that the body is dying, that it
must be buried and decomposed into dust; but mortal mind's affirmation is not
true. Mortals waken from the dream of death with bodies unseen by those who
think that they bury the body. |
Continuity of existence
|
If man did not exist before the material organization
began, he could not exist after the body is disintegrated. If we live after
death and are immortal, we must have lived before birth, for if Life ever had
any beginning, it must also have an ending, even according to the calculations
of natural science. Do you believe this? No! Do you understand it? No! This is
why you doubt the statement and do not demonstrate the facts it involves. We
must have faith in all the sayings of our Master, though they are not included
in the teachings of the schools, and are not understood generally by our
ethical instructors. |
Life all-inclusive |
Jesus said (John viii. 51), "If a man keep my saying,
he shall never see death." That statement is not confined to spiritual life,
but includes all the phenomena of existence. Jesus demonstrated this, healing
the dying and raising the dead. Mortal mind must part with error, must put off
itself with its deeds, and immortal manhood, the Christ ideal, will appear.
Faith should enlarge its borders and strengthen its base by resting upon Spirit
instead of matter. When man gives up his belief in death, he will advance more
rapidly towards God, Life, and Love.
Belief in sickness and death, as certainly as belief
in sin, tends to shut out the true sense of Life and health. When will mankind
wake to this great fact in Science? I here present to my readers an allegory
illustrative of the law of divine Mind and of the supposed laws of matter and
hygiene, an allegory in which the plea of Christian Science heals the sick.
|
A mental court case |
Suppose a mental case to be on trial, as cases are
tried in court. A man is charged with having committed liver-complaint. The
patient feels ill, ruminates, and the trial commences. Personal Sense is the
plaintiff. Mortal Man is the defendant. False Belief is the attorney for
Personal Sense. Mortal Minds, Materia Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Hypnotism,
Envy, Greed and Ingratitude, constitute the jury. The courtroom is filled with
interested spectators, and Judge Medicine is on the bench.
The evidence for the prosecution being called for, a
witness testifies thus: I represent Health-laws. I was present on certain
nights when the prisoner, or patient, watched with a sick friend. Although I
have the superintendence of human affairs, I was personally abused on those
occasions. I was told that I must remain silent until called for at this trial,
when I would be allowed to testify in the case. Notwithstanding my rules to the
contrary, the prisoner watched with the sick every night in the week. When the
sick mortal was thirsty, the prisoner gave him drink. During all this time the
prisoner attended to his daily labors, partaking of food at irregular
intervals, sometimes going to sleep immediately after a heavy meal.
At last he committed liver-complaint, which I
considered criminal, inasmuch as this offence is deemed punishable with death.
Therefore I arrested Mortal Man in behalf of the state (namely, the body) and
cast him into prison. At the time of the arrest the prisoner summoned
Physiology, Materia Medica, and Hypnotism to prevent his punishment. The
struggle on their part was long. Materia Medica held out the longest, but at
length all these assistants resigned to me, Health-laws, and I succeeded in
getting Mortal Man into close confinement until I should release him.
The next witness is called: I am Coated Tongue. I am
covered with a foul fur, placed on me the night of the liver-attack. Morbid
Secretion hypnotized the prisoner and took control of his mind, making him
despondent. Another witness takes the stand and testifies: I am Sallow Skin. I
have been dry, hot, and chilled by turns since the night of the liver-attack. I
have lost my healthy hue and become unsightly, although nothing on my part has
occasioned this change. I practise daily ablutions and perform my functions as
usual, but I am robbed of my good looks. The next witness testifies: I am
Nerve, the State Commissioner for Mortal Man. I am intimately acquainted with
the plaintiff, Personal Sense, and know him to be truthful and upright, whereas
Mortal Man, the prisoner at the bar, is capable of falsehood. I was witness to
the crime of liver-complaint. I knew the prisoner would commit it, for I convey
messages from my residence in matter, alias brain, to body.
Another witness is called for by the Court of Error
and says: I am Mortality, Governor of the Province of Body, in which Mortal Man
resides. In this province there is a statute regarding disease, namely, that he
upon whose person disease is found shall be treated as a criminal and punished
with death. The Judge asks if by doing good to his neighbor, it is possible for
man to become diseased, transgress the laws, and merit punishment, and Governor
Mortality replies in the affirmative.
Another witness takes the stand and testifies: I am
Death. I was called for, shortly after the report of the crime, by the officer
of the Board of Health, who protested that the prisoner had abused him, and
that my presence was required to confirm his testimony. One of the prisoner's
friends, Materia Medica, was present when I arrived, endeavoring to assist the
prisoner to escape from the hands of justice, alias nature's so-called
law; but my appearance with a message from the Board of Health changed the
purpose of Materia Medica, and he decided at once that the prisoner should die.
|
Judge Medicine charges the jury
|
The testimony for the plaintiff, Personal Sense, being
closed, Judge Medicine arises, and with great solemnity addresses the jury of
Mortal Minds. He analyzes the offence, reviews the testimony, and explains the
law relating to liver-complaint. His conclusion is, that laws of nature render
disease homicidal. In compliance with a stern duty, his Honor, Judge Medicine,
urges the jury not to allow their judgment to be warped by the irrational,
unchristian suggestions of Christian Science. The jury must regard in such
cases only the evidence of Personal Sense against Mortal Man. As the Judge
proceeds, the prisoner grows restless. His sallow face blanches with fear, and
a look of despair and death settles upon it. The case is given to the jury. A
brief consultation ensues, and the jury returns a verdict of "Guilty of
liver-complaint in the first degree." |
Mortal Man sentenced |
Judge Medicine then proceeds to pronounce the solemn
sentence of death upon the prisoner. Because he has loved his neighbor as
himself, Mortal Man has been guilty of benevolence in the first degree, and
this has led him into the commission of the second crime, liver-complaint,
which material laws condemn as homicide. For this crime Mortal Man is sentenced
to be tortured until he is dead. "May God have mercy on your soul," is the
Judge's solemn peroration. The prisoner is then remanded to his cell
(sick-bed), and Scholastic Theology is sent for to prepare the frightened sense
of Life, God, which sense must be immortal, for death. |
Appeal to a higher tribunal
|
Ah! but Christ, Truth, the spirit of Life and the
friend of Mortal Man, can open wide those prison doors and set the captive
free. Swift on the wings of divine Love, there comes a despatch: "Delay the
execution; the prisoner is not guilty." Consternation fills the prison-yard.
Some exclaim, "It is contrary to law and justice." Others say, "The law of
Christ supersedes our laws; let us follow Christ." |
Counsel for defence |
After much debate and opposition, permission is
obtained for a trial in the Court of Spirit, where Christian Science is allowed
to appear as counsel for the unfortunate prisoner. Witnesses, judges and
jurors, who were at the previous Court of Error, are now summoned to appear
before the bar of Justice and eternal Truth. When the case for Mortal Man
versus Personal Sense is opened, Mortal Man's counsel regards the
prisoner with the utmost tenderness. The counsel's earnest, solemn eyes,
kindling with hope and triumph, look upward. Then Christian Science turns
suddenly to the supreme tribunal, and opens the argument for the defence: The
prisoner at the bar has been unjustly sentenced. His trial was a tragedy, and
is morally illegal. Mortal Man has had no proper counsel in the case.
All the testimony has been on the side of Personal
Sense, and we shall unearth this foul conspiracy against the liberty and life
of Man. The only valid testimony in the case shows the alleged crime never to
have been committed. The prisoner is not proved "worthy of death, or of bonds."
Your Honor, the lower court has sentenced Mortal Man to die, but God made Man
immortal and amenable to Spirit only. Denying justice to the body, that court
commended man's immortal Spirit to heavenly mercy, Spirit which is God Himself
and Man's only lawgiver! Who or what has sinned? Has the body or has Mortal
Mind committed a criminal deed? Counsellor False Belief has argued that the
body should die, while Reverend Theology would console conscious Mortal Mind,
which alone is capable of sin and suffering. The body committed no offence.
Mortal Man, in obedience to higher law, helped his fellow-man, an act which
should result in good to himself as well as to others.
The law of our Supreme Court decrees that whosoever
sinneth shall die; but good deeds are immortal, bringing joy instead of
grief, pleasure instead of pain, and life instead of death. If liver-complaint
was committed by trampling on Laws of Health, this was a good deed, for the
agent of those laws is an outlaw, a destroyer of Mortal Man's liberty and
rights. Laws of Health should be sentenced to die. Watching beside the couch of
pain in the exercise of a love that "is the fulfilling of the law," doing "unto
others as ye would that they should do unto you," this is no infringement of
law, for no demand, human or divine, renders it just to punish a man for acting
justly. If mortals sin, our Supreme Judge in equity decides what penalty is due
for the sin, and Mortal Man can suffer only for his sin. For naught else can he
be punished, according to the law of Spirit, God. Then what jurisdiction had
his Honor, Judge Medicine, in this case? To him I might say, in Bible language,
"Sittest thou to judge . . . after the law, and commandest . . . to be smitten
contrary to the law?" The only jurisdiction to which the prisoner can submit is
that of Truth, Life, and Love. If they condemn him not, neither shall Judge
Medicine condemn him; and I ask that the prisoner be restored to the liberty of
which he has been unjustly deprived.
The principal witness (the officer of the Health-laws)
deposed that he was an eye-witness to the good deeds for which Mortal Man is
under sentence of death. After betraying him into the hands of your law, the
Health-agent disappeared, to reappear however at the trial as a witness against
Mortal Man and in the interest of Personal Sense, a murderer. Your Supreme
Court must find the prisoner on the night of the alleged offence to have been
acting within the limits of the divine law, and in obedience thereto. Upon this
statute hangs all the law and testimony. Giving a cup of cold water in Christ's
name, is a Christian service. Laying down his life for a good deed, Mortal Man
should find it again. Such acts bear their own justification, and are under the
protection of the Most High.
Prior to the night of his arrest, the prisoner
summoned two professed friends, Materia Medica and Physiology, to prevent his
committing liver-complaint, and thus save him from arrest. But they brought
with them Fear, the sheriff, to precipitate the result which they were called
to prevent. It was Fear who handcuffed Mortal Man and would now punish him. You
have left Mortal Man no alternative. He must obey your law, fear its
consequences, and be punished for his fear. His friends struggled hard to
rescue the prisoner from the penalty they considered justly due, but they were
compelled to let him be taken into custody, tried, and condemned. Thereupon
Judge Medicine sat in judgment on the case, and substantially charged the jury,
twelve Mortal Minds, to find the prisoner guilty. His Honor sentenced Mortal
Man to die for the very deeds which the divine law compels man to commit. Thus
the Court of Error construed obedience to the law of divine Love as
disobedience to the law of Life. Claiming to protect Mortal Man in right-doing,
that court pronounced a sentence of death for doing right.
One of the principal witnesses, Nerve, testified that
he was a ruler of Body, in which province Mortal Man resides. He also testified
that he was on intimate terms with the plaintiff, and knew Personal Sense to be
truthful; that he knew Man, and that Man was made in the image of God, but was
a criminal. This is a foul aspersion on man's Maker. It blots the fair
escutcheon of omnipotence. It indicates malice aforethought, a determination to
condemn Man in the interest of Personal Sense. At the bar of Truth, in the
presence of divine Justice, before the Judge of our higher tribunal, the
Supreme Court of Spirit, and before its jurors, the Spiritual Senses, I
proclaim this witness, Nerve, to be destitute of intelligence and truth and to
be a false witness. Man self-destroyed; the testimony of matter respected;
Spirit not allowed a hearing; Soul a criminal though recommended to mercy; the
helpless innocent body tortured, these are the terrible records of your Court
of Error, and I ask that the Supreme Court of Spirit reverse this decision.
Here the opposing counsel, False Belief, called
Christian Science to order for contempt of court. Various notables Materia
Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Scholastic Theology, and Jurisprudence rose to the
question of expelling Christian Science from the bar, for such high-handed
illegality. They declared that Christian Science was overthrowing the judicial
proceedings of a regularly constituted court. But Judge Justice of the Supreme
Court of Spirit over-ruled their motions on the ground that unjust usages were
not allowed at the bar of Truth, which ranks above the lower Court of Error.
The attorney, Christian Science, then read from the
supreme statute-book, the Bible, certain extracts on the Rights of Man,
remarking, that the Bible was better authority than Blackstone: Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion. Behold, I give
unto you power . . . over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any
means hurt you. If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then
Christian Science proved the witness, Nerve, to be a perjurer. Instead of being
a ruler in the Province of Body, in which Mortal Man was reported to reside,
Nerve was an insubordinate citizen, putting in false claims to office and
bearing false witness against Man. Turning suddenly to Personal Sense, by this
time silent, Christian Science continued: I ask your arrest in the name of
Almighty God on three distinct charges of crime, to wit: perjury, treason, and
conspiracy against the rights and life of man.
Then Christian Science continued: Another witness,
equally inadequate, said that on the night of the crime a garment of foul fur
was spread over him by Morbid Secretion, while the facts in the case show that
this fur is a foreign substance, imported by False Belief, the attorney for
Personal Sense, who is in partnership with Error and smuggles Error's goods
into market without the inspection of Soul's government officers. When the
Court of Truth summoned Furred Tongue for examination, he disappeared and was
never heard of more. Morbid Secretion is not an importer or dealer in fur, but
we have heard Materia Medica explain how this fur is manufactured, and we know
Morbid Secretion to be on friendly terms with the firm of Personal Sense,
Error, & Co., receiving pay from them and introducing their goods into the
market. Also, be it known that False Belief, the counsel for the plaintiff,
Personal Sense, is a buyer for this firm. He manufactures for it, keeps a
furnishing store, and advertises largely for his employers.
Death testified that he was absent from the Province
of Body, when a message came from False Belief, commanding him to take part in
the homicide. At this request Death repaired to the spot where the
liver-complaint was in process, frightening away Materia Medica, who was then
manacling the prisoner in the attempt to save him. True, Materia Medica was a
misguided participant in the misdeed for which the Health-officer had Mortal
Man in custody, though Mortal Man was innocent.
Christian Science turned from the abashed witnesses,
his words flashing as lightning in the perturbed faces of these worthies,
Scholastic Theology, Materia Medica, Physiology, the blind Hypnotism, and the
masked Personal Sense, and said: God will smite you, O whited walls, for
injuring in your ignorance the unfortunate Mortal Man who sought your aid in
his struggles against liver-complaint and Death. You came to his rescue, only
to fasten upon him an offence of which he was innocent. You aided and abetted
Fear and Health-laws. You betrayed Mortal Man, meanwhile declaring Disease to
be God's servant and the righteous executor of His laws. Our higher statutes
declare you all, witnesses, jurors, and judges, to be offenders, awaiting the
sentence which General Progress and Divine Love will pronounce. We send our
best detectives to whatever locality is reported to be haunted by Disease, but
on visiting the spot, they learn that Disease was never there, for he could not
possibly elude their search. Your Material Court of Errors, when it condemned
Mortal Man on the ground of hygienic disobedience, was manipulated by the
oleaginous machinations of the counsel, False Belief, whom Truth arraigns
before the supreme bar of Spirit to answer for his crime. Morbid Secretion is
taught how to make sleep befool reason before sacrificing mortals to their
false gods.
Mortal Minds were deceived by your attorney, False
Belief, and were influenced to give a verdict delivering Mortal Man to Death.
Good deeds are transformed into crimes, to which you attach penalties; but no
warping of justice can render disobedience to the so-called laws of Matter
disobedience to God, or an act of homicide. Even penal law holds homicide,
under stress of circumstances, to be justifiable. Now what greater
justification can any deed have, than that it is for the good of one's
neighbor? Wherefore, then, in the name of outraged justice, do you sentence
Mortal Man for ministering to the wants of his fellow-man in obedience to
divine law? You cannot trample upon the decree of the Supreme Bench. Mortal Man
has his appeal to Spirit, God, who sentences only for sin.
The false and unjust beliefs of your human mental
legislators compel them to enact wicked laws of sickness and so forth, and then
render obedience to these laws punishable as crime. In the presence of the
Supreme Lawgiver, standing at the bar of Truth, and in accordance with the
divine statutes, I repudiate the false testimony of Personal. Sense. I ask that
he be forbidden to enter against Mortal Man any more suits to be tried at the
Court of Material Error. I appeal to the just and equitable decisions of divine
Spirit to restore to Mortal Man the rights of which he has been deprived.
|
Charge of the Chief Justice
|
Here the counsel for the defence closed, and the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, with benign and imposing presence,
comprehending and defining all law and evidence, explained from his
statute-book, the Bible, that any so-called law, which undertakes to punish
aught but sin, is null and void. He also decided that the plaintiff, Personal
Sense, be not permitted to enter any suits at the bar of Soul, but be enjoined
to keep perpetual silence, and in case of temptation, to give heavy bonds for
good behavior.
He concluded his charge thus: The plea of False Belief
we deem unworthy of a hearing. Let what False Belief utters, now and forever,
fall into oblivion, "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." According to our
statute, Material Law is a liar who cannot bear witness against Mortal Man,
neither can Fear arrest Mortal Man nor can Disease cast him into prison. Our
law refuses to recognize Man as sick or dying, but holds him to be forever in
the image and likeness of his Maker. Reversing the testimony of Personal Sense
and the decrees of the Court of Error in favor of Matter, Spirit decides in
favor of Man and against Matter. We further recommend that Materia Medica adopt
Christian Science and that Health-laws, Mesmerism, Hypnotism, Oriental
Witchcraft, and Esoteric Magic be publicly executed at the hands of our
sheriff, Progress.
The Supreme Bench decides in favor of intelligence,
that no law outside of divine Mind can punish or reward Mortal Man. Your
personal jurors in the Court of Error are myths. Your attorney, False Belief,
is an impostor, persuading Mortal Minds to return a verdict contrary to law and
gospel. The plaintiff, Personal Sense, is recorded in our Book of books as a
liar. Our great Teacher of mental jurisprudence speaks of him also as "a
murderer from the beginning." We have no trials for sickness before the
tribunal of divine Spirit. There, Man is adjudged innocent of transgressing
physical laws, because there are no such laws. Our statute is spiritual, our
Government is divine. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"
|
Divine verdict |
The Jury of Spiritual Senses agreed at once upon a
verdict, and there resounded throughout the vast audience-chamber of Spirit the
cry, Not guilty. Then the prisoner rose up regenerated, strong, free. We
noticed, as he shook hands with his counsel, Christian Science, that all
sallowness and debility had disappeared. His form was erect and commanding, his
countenance beaming with health and happiness. Divine Love had cast out fear.
Mortal Man, no longer sick and in prison, walked forth, his feet "beautiful
upon the mountains," as of one "that bringeth good tidings." |
Christ the great physician
|
Neither animal magnetism nor hypnotism enters into the
practice of Christian Science, in which truth cannot be reversed, but the
reverse of error is true. An improved belief cannot retrograde. When Christ
changes a belief of sin or of sickness into a better belief, then belief melts
into spiritual understanding, and sin, disease, and death disappear. Christ,
Truth, gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the material,
transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man is clothed and fed spiritually.
St. Paul says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling:" Jesus
said, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give
you the kingdom." This truth is Christian Science. Christian Scientists, be a
law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or
when awake. |
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