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NOTE. The learner will derive more benefit from
studying this science with its author, than is possible to gain from teachers
in other departments of education. The metaphysical requires the elucidations
of spiritual sense, and personal sense cannot apprehend the explanations of
soul; hence a mere classical education leaves Spirit much out of the question,
and educates man only from the personal standpoint of matter.
Observation and experience teach us, those
scorning to swerve from a direct line of duty, or vainly to stoop to personal
aggrandizement at the sacrifice of conscience, and make popularity paramount to
Truth, are traduced by many whom that line of duty touches. In warfare with
error, you attack with intent to kill, and the wounded or cornered beast bites
you if he can; the sin you assail turns on you and succeeds in getting the
world to condemn you, that it may justify itself. It being found necessary to
uncover sin to destroy it, you must tell a sinner what his sins are before you
can do him good, and if he hates you for it, it is because he is unwilling to
reform. Those we attempt to raise give us their whole weight to lift, and when
we let go to have them take hold, sometimes fall back on us. Teach-
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ing the bigoted, reforming the licentious, or
exposing the hypocrite, who shall escape without censure? We commenced our
labors in the simple faith that all whom we healed would acknowledge it, and
those we taught would live up to our teachings if from no higher motive than to
promote their success in healing; but this has not always been the case.
Although it is plain the foundations of the science of being are Truth and
spirituality, and the seed that brings forth much fruit, must fall into the
"good and honest heart," yet all who know this are not willing to yield to it.
Truth stirs man to a better, or, temporarily, to a worse condition that
afterwards leaves him better; it affects error the same as it does sickness,
causing it to intermit before it yields and is destroyed.
The humanitarian is above the arrows in the
quiver of ignorance, envy, or malice; they fly beneath his feet, until spent of
their fury, they fall to the ground. Such as are identified with a cause, until
that cause is understood, are not understood; in its birth they have travail
and sorrow; in its infancy, toil and sacrifice; but clasp their nursling more
tenderly when menaced, knowing when he is a man he will speak for himself and
mother.
Nothing but a lack of spiritual discernment, or
dishonesty, could prompt one who in the least comprehends this science, to call
it mesmerism, or to practice mesmerism and call it science. When those bidden
of old to the feast of Truth came not, our Master accepted such as did come. In
like manner, to-day "the servant must be as his Lord," exercising no choice of
his own, but laboring for posterity, bearing all blame and scorn,
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and counting his victory in the far-off years.
Healing in science has its reward even here, but the task of teaching the
science of being is quite another thing. Pains of personal sense often make the
sick willing to part with its errors, but those in health and at ease in their
possessions are reluctant to change masters, hence the more thankless and
toilsome task of teaching, compared with healing. We instruct students to
recommend their patients to avoid, as much as possible, contact with minds
filled with opposite physics, hygiene, etc., while under treatment of
metaphysics, for it retards their recovery; but they forget the same right
belongs to a teacher, and the same necessity exists for students to avoid
contact with certain minds that hinder their advancement. Institutions have
their by-laws to restrain the evil passions of those under their care, but we
have had no such necessary protection in teaching.
Not to admit God the Principle of the science of
Life, is to be ignorant of this science; and to say God is its Principle, and
the discoverer, teacher, and demonstrator of the science is not taught of God,
is contradictory.
Students may dwarf, or destroy for the present,
their position in scientific healing through error, with falsehood, dishonesty,
or sensuality; in which case their demonstration advances no higher, and their
practice, if they have one, become mesmerism and no longer science. Such
students can never reinstate themselves aright except through repentance,
reformation and restitution. We should welcome back the penitent and support
the weak, but to him that covereth his sins and rejoices in his iniquity let
the reward of his hands be
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given; an accumulated debt more to be feared
than his creditor's account. The wickedest or the best man is not understood by
the age in which he lives; both are beyond its appreciation. The wickedest man
commits his sins knowingly and in secret, having not grown sufficiently to be
punished by Wisdom, he hides his evil in the manner we shall name; and the best
man is hidden from the present age in the Wisdom of future ages. When
separating tares from the wheat the mills of God grind slowly, and if the tares
that Wisdom casts away, predominate we see little results, but if there be much
wheat, stores are garnered because of the grinding.
"Whomsoever He loveth, him he also
chasteneth."
There is but one possible way of doing wrong
with a mental method of healing, and this is mesmerism, whereby the minds of
the sick may be controlled with error instead of Truth. Whoever has witnessed
the effects of mesmerism, has seen it make a joint stiff or a limb lame,
proving beyond a doubt it can affect the body injuriously. Whispering into the
minds of the sick falsehoods, will do their bodies harm if Truth poured into
their minds does the body good. We have witnessed the proof of both these
statements. For years we had tested the benefits of Truth on the body, and knew
no opposite chance for doing evil through a mental method of healing until we
saw it traduced by an erring student and made the medium of error. Introducing
falsehoods into the minds of the patients prevented their recovery, and the
sins of the doctor was visited on the patients, many of whom died because of
this; cases that the Truth of being would have healed, his own error rendered
hopeless. Witness-
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ing these terrible results was our occasion for
learning their cause, or discovering this mal-practice, and our students are
well aware we have no difficulty in tracing the mental cause of disease. But
before we discovered this mal-practice and its motives, the evil bad reached so
far, and held such sway over the patient's minds, when we informed one she was
not recovering and had better return home, she answered with indignation, "My
doctor says I am recovering," but died before she reached her earthly home.
Wholly unconscious of his secret method of turning the minds of those he
manipulated, against his benefactor, or of its effects on their bodies, the
patients asked us if the doctor had lost his power, not understanding it was
his loss of Truth, and the hidden evil of his course that injured the patients.
A student of science cannot practice mesmerism honestly, therefore
successfully, as a Newton, who knows no higher method of healing. But the
mal-practice we allude to was more terrible than simply a change to mesmerism;
it chose darkness rather than light because its deeds were evil. Such a
practitioner putting aside our moral precepts retains that portion only of our
teachings which relates to the patient's belief of disease and the method of
destroying this belief by the doctor's opposite, verbal, and mental argument.
This is the very least of the science of being, and yet the only part the
mal-practitioner can avail himself of to heal the sick. The patients have no
recognition of how much error he may also mingle with this argument of Truth
that will affect their minds and bodies together, and to bad results as well as
good. If the sick recover from the effects of the doctor's mental
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argument opposed to theirs, it proves, on the
ground of science, he has changed their belief with regard to their disease, or
the body would not have responded thus; and now comes his opportunity to do
evil; for, if be can change their belief relative to sickness, he can also
change it with regard to an individual, or upon any subject. But, remember, it
is only the manipulator and mal-practitioner that can do this, and not those
who heal with the Truth of Science. First, because the latter do not manipulate
the head; and secondly, because their source of healing is science and Truth,
and if they should attempt to control the mind with error, they would not
affect the sick, while the mal-practitioner's principal power is to do evil,
and a crumb of science is all he has wherewith to heal; and his want of better
success is the result of his wickedness.
We have actually stood in awe at the absolute
might of Truth, when witnessing the effect a little has on the sick, and sadly
remembered how much could be done by the truly wise, "who put oil in their
lamps" and have not the power to abuse the science of being. Since witnessing
the evil one student did in the name of science, we have utterly objected to
students rubbing the head. The mal-practitioner's sin standeth "in holy
places." It is a crime against the highest tribunal of Soul, commending wrong
and condemning right, it tramples on every law of justice and Truth.
In defence of mesmerism is urged, that Dr.
Quimby manipulated the sick. He never studied this science, but reached his own
high standpoint and grew to it through his own, and not another's progress. He
was a good man, a law to himself; when we knew him he
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was growing out of mesmerism; contrasted
with a student that falls into it by forsaking the good rules of science for a
mal-practice that has the power and opportunity to do evil. Dr. Quimby had
passed away years before ever there was a student of this science, and never,
to our knowledge, informed any one of his method of healing.
The only practitioners of this metaphysical
science to-day, have been our students; but through wrong doing some have
dimmed their pure sense of Truth, while others stand firm in "the hope set
before them."
We should condemn a physician for adulterating
his medicine and then claiming it was genuine. The medicine in scientific
healing is mind; and shall dishonesty, revenge, falsehood, or impurity, be the
stronger ingredient or quality of his mind, and the practitioner say he heals
with Truth, and the science of Life ? Worse than poisonous drugs is the mental
evil imparted through inoculation of mind. Such a practitioner is the most
effectual circulator of error on earth. Even though he may change a belief of
sickness to a belief of health, he has not the power to destroy error with
Truth.
There are but two methods of healing, one is
matter, the other, mind. The scientist heals with Truth; therefore rubbing the
head, or manipulating the body is no assistance to impart Truth to heal the
sick. To do evil in science is not more possible than in prayer to God. We will
consider, briefly, some points of the mal-practice alluded to.
First, as a weapon of revenge. The modus
operandi of the mal-practice is as follows: The doctor rubs the
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heads of his patients, communing with them
mentally as he does this, but instead of speaking to them only Truth, and that
which promotes harmony, he takes this opportunity to introduce into their minds
side-issues, such as suit his sinister purpose, imparting his own likes and
dislikes to the patients, either from vengeance or ambition. It the doctor
helps the patients through head-rubbing, it is through their belief he does it,
and mind is controlled either with Truth or error. And a bad effect can as
certainly follow this practice as a good one, but the patients are wholly
unconscious of this, or how it is produced. If be has imparted error he
certainly will deny it, but if he had not done this we should never have
learned what this mal-practice was. Through an erroneous influence on their
minds the patients are made, in a day, worse physically, while to him whom they
owe this state, even the author of it, all unconsciously they turn to be
healed. We have learned this mal-practice is impossible in science, and is
mesmerism demoralized. Had it been possible for us to control mind through this
subtle, criminal agency, we could not have been tempted to do it, even in
self-defence; the temptation, even, could not reach us, and we resorted to our
pen to expose this evil that reached, for the first time, our apprehension.
Some newspaper articles falsifying the science,
calling it mesmerism, etc., but especially intended, as the writer informed us,
to injure its author, precipitated our examination of mesmerism in
contradistinction to our metaphysical science of healing based on the science
of Life. Filled with revenge and evil passions, the mal-practitioner can only
depend on manipulation, and rubs
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the heads of patients years together, fairly
incorporating their minds through this process, which claims less respect the
more we understand it, and learn its cause. Through the control this gives the
practitioner over patients, he readily reaches the mind of the community to
injure another or promote himself, but none can track his foul course; the evil
is felt but not understood. It can demoralize a community, and the
mal-practitioner be undiscovered in his work and claim fidelity in mental
healing -- a sacred and solemn trust. Controlled by his will, patients haste to
do his bidding, and become involuntary agents of his schemes, while honestly
attesting their faith in him and his moral character. Talking one way and
acting another, he occupies a position the very opposite of Truth. This is no
idle picture of pen or imagination, but a faint portraiture of facts discovered
through the victims of this mal-practice; facts that we submit to others for
proof. Try it, whoever will, manipulate the head of an individual until you
have established a mesmeric connection between you both; then direct her
action, or influence her to some conclusion, arguing the case mentally, as you
would audibly, and mark the result. You will find, the more honest and
confiding the individual, the more she is governed by the mind of the operator.
But learn the lessons of the science of Life, and through these go up higher,
to the discovery of this great Truth, and do this if you can; it would be as
impossible as for light to be darkness.
If you had the power that mesmerism gives to
influence minds wrong as well as right, the science herein explained would take
it away. To control minds with
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sinister motives, or in any but a right
direction, would destroy your position in science. Influence the minds of
others from motives of selfishness, revenge, impurity, or any bad motive, and
you would lose your ability to heal in science, and never regain your position
until you had suffered sufficiently from this error, to forever destroy it, and
not venture again on ground so dangerous. A mal-practitioner can never reach
the standard of scientific healing. It would be as impossible as for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle.
To prevent the evil of this criminal outlawry
growing without let or hindrance, the community should understand it; this
error can lift its giant proportions above common modes of doing evil, and hold
more arbitrary sway over minds than any other past or present power of sin. The
science of healing is incapable of evil, but this opposite practice is as
clearly proved capable of great mischief, and even crime; able, while it lays
high claims to right, secretly to work out a hidden wrong against humanity,
justice and Truth. Malice will sometimes show itself and defeat its own
purpose; falsehood, uttered aloud, is met with rebutting testimony; but this
method of injuring others by a silent, and subtle impregnation of falsehoods
and prejudices in the minds of individuals, to be spoken by them to others, is
"Satan let loose," the sin that "standeth in holy places." Law cannot restrain,
or punish it as it deserves, and community will be slow to acknowledge the
heinous crime, until they learn its power to work iniquity, and note its
workings; "more subtle than all other beasts of the field," it coils itself
about the sleeper, fastens its fang in innocence, and kills in the
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dark. We thank Wisdom, that revealed this great
error to us before these pages went to press, that the years we have labored to
bless our fellow-beings be not wholly lost through this trespass upon the
blessing of mental healing.
We knew of no harm that could result from
rubbing the head, until we learned it of this mal-practice, and never since
have permitted a student, with our consent, to manipulate. We gained the little
we understand of the Truth of being through our own experiences and proofs, and
learned this opposite error standing face to face with it, through another's
mal-practice; shall we deny the ability of the mathematician to say wherein the
mistake lies of examples wrought incorrectly, or say to the musician who gives
the true tone, you are not able to say what is the discord?
Because we never manipulate the sick, the
opportunity to learn any evil possible to head-rubbing was not afforded us
until years after our first investigations of science. The doctor that depends
on manipulation (and he cannot employ it honestly without such dependence),
works from a matter basis, whence come all the evil deeds and inventions of
Satan. A cure wrought in science is the spiritual predominating over the
material; Truth mastering error; the very opposite of mesmerism and the
mal-practice aforesaid. In science mind must rise above matter to admit the
fuller effluence of Spirit, God, that heals the sick and casts out error, but
manipulation prevents this result. The multitudinous minds a physician has
access to, enables him, through this medium to do much good, or much evil,
throughout the community. This should be
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regarded when employing a manipulator of the
head, that moulds mind and controls it, though less publicly and suddenly, not
less surely than the mesmerist who comes more honestly before the foot-lights
with his performance. Through his mesmeric control over minds, the
mal-practitioner can hold his patients and practice, whether he heals the sick
or not, and he moulds some of them into a belief they are healed, but others he
must keep moulding, that is, continue to treat, or they will relapse. There are
certain self-evident facts; this is one of them. A student of science,
understanding its high requirements, cannot be unfamiliar with the fact that
the teacher must have reached it worthily who has grown to its discovery, for
this cannot be without pursuing faithfully the straight and narrow path that
leads to Truth. Therefore, to know this and acknowledge it, is honesty and
understanding on the part of a student, and not to know it, or acknowledge it,
ignorance or dishonesty, and every true student will bear testimony to this
statement. Paul said, "Live peaceably with all men inasmuch as in you lies."
This is wholesome counsel, and a most desirable thing; but could he Eve
peaceably with all men, when " that which is perfect " had come to his
understanding, and that which is imperfect was to be done away? Not the
learning of a Roman student spared him when he girded on the armor of Truth and
rushed to battle with the age. When be "fought the good fight" and kept the
faith, he passed from the forum into toil and dishonor, and from a dungeon to a
scaffold and a crown.
If virtue forgives vice, it cannot love it; if
charity
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overlooks a multitude of sins, it hath no
fellowship with sin; and if honesty endures patiently and long the abuses of
dishonesty, it hath the prudence at length to get out of its hands. These are
separate qualities of character, that circumstance or duty compelling to meet
for a time, must part company through a law of being, and often with a
tremendous explosion.
The exhibitor of mesmerism startles you with his
power, but you are satisfied to conclude it is ridiculous, and you are not its
subject; his experiments, however, are honorable, being open, and illustrative
of the influence he has through it over the thoughts and actions of others. But
the dishonest mesmerist of which we speak, is the mal-practitioner, who claims
to take a place in science, but sinks to a secret assassin in society. So
important are the rules of mental scientific healing, that even repeated they
do good, but we gather not grapes of thorns, the tone of the individual's mind
inculcating them, overshadows them, and if his mind be not in accordance with
them, it imparts its own hue to the patient; then who shall say which effect is
strongest, the good he says, or the evil behind it that he imparts. If the
mal-practitioner says mentally to the patient, as he rubs his head, "be
healed!" and she recovers, or is improved morally, influenced in that
direction, you say this is a moral and physical gain, and behold the proof that
he practices very wisely. But suppose he says to her mentally, as he rubs her
head, something wrong to do, or believe, and designates this wrong, directing
her thought and action in that channel, and she unconsciously obeys him,
feeling this hidden spring to action as readily as the other. What, then, are
your
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conclusions of this practice? that you should be
subject to evil because you are sometimes subject to good? Never trust human
nature in the dark, if this nature is so dark it covers its footprints.
Manipulating the head, we discovered,
establishes between patient and practitioner a mental communication not in the
least understood by the patients or the people. Through this medium the doctor
holds more direct influence over their minds than the united power of education
and public sentiment. Mesmeric power is stronger for evil, than good, in
contradistinction to the enlargement of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual
being that science imparts to individuals, elevating the capacity to do good,
above others.
In proportion to the mal-practitioner's power to
govern the minds of his patients from selfish motives, is his ability in
science diminished. Whoso doeth evil that good might come, incurs the sentence,
"his damnation is just."
Witnessing this abuse of metaphysics, a friend
anxiously said to us, "You discovered metaphysical healing, and have also
discovered this abuse of it, and the evil done through mesmerism; now why do
you not forestall this wrong by controlling the minds of individuals or the
community to disbelieve its falsehoods?" To this we replied, "We have neither
divine authority, nor the power to control minds for any other than their own
benefit, and we are giving the results of our moral, spiritual, and
metaphysical researches to the world as fast as possible, but the footsteps of
falsehood and error are swift, those of honesty and Truth slow, and strong. The
community must understand the sci-
382
ence of being to appreciate it, and they must
detect the wicked mal-practice to appreciate that; therefore the true verdict
is not yet given, and Truth can wait, for it is used to waiting. Will should be
impotent except in --good will to man,-- and this involves open action and
upright conduct; science is not a blind Samson, shorn of his strength."
The silent argument used in his own behalf, as
be manipulates the head, the mal-practitioner would blush to make audibly.
Suppose he has a juror for a patient, and establishes the mesmeric connection
between them, he can influence more than law or evidence, the verdict of that
honest juror. If a bargain is to ratify, or a purpose to accomplish for
himself, or his reputation at stake, be looks out for an opportunity to
manipulate the bead of some party concerned, and controls their actions or
conclusions to suit the occasion and meet his desires. Friendship is not too
sacred for his depredations; the friends of many years he separates, covering
all recognition of his villainy and raising himself in the esteem of those very
individuals to whom he has done irreparable injury.
Our rebuke to a false student elicited his
revenge, and through this we discovered the mal-practice we expose. We have
seen manipulating the head form a habit more pernicious than opium-eating, in
which the treatment must be continued, or the patient go back to a worse
condition than the first.
It is more difficult to heal the sick, subject
to this mal-practice, than under treatment of drugs; and yet the patients are
strangely attached to their doctor. We have started patients at once out of
disease on the
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road to recovery, on whom this mal-practitioner
has produced a relapse.
Scientific treatment fills the mind with Truth
that heals the sick, but the mal-practitioner impregnates it with error that
produces new disease; rubbing the head, he keeps his cases constantly on hand,
because of the struggle between the little Truth he brings to bear on the case,
and the error he introduces. To have barely sufficient :right to make the wrong
plausible, is more fatal to science than the unmasked error. No enthusiasm or
praise is as zealous or fullsome as this mal-practitioner can elicit, while
nothing is more relentless and unyielding than the prejudice he can arouse; but
mesmerism governs them both, and enables the doctor to gain his point in sin,
but not in science. Surely "the fool hath said in his heart, no God."
Manipulating the head, even to a thinness that would reveal the brains, can
never heal the sick in science. This mental mal-practice is a shameless waste
of time and opportunity, an abuse of ignorance or good nature inconsistent with
science, the economy of Soul and the harmony of man. This secret trespasser on
human rights manipulates the bead to carry out, on a small scale, a sort of
popery that takes away voluntary action instead of encouraging the science of
self-control, and sets himself up for a doctor who is a base quack. Far
intermeddling with what should be the independent functions of society, the
mal-practitioner gets his fee, but the involuntary agents of his schemes get
bad pay for their services.
Conservatism or dishonesty, either in the
statement or demonstration of science, is clearly impossible; where Principle
is concerned there is no secret; explanation
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and proof are required, and no concessions made
to persons or opinions. The relation of Truth to man, improving him physically
and morally, we have stated as we discovered it, and submit our statement to
proof. Having first convinced ourself through demonstration of the Principle of
our discovery and its ability to heal the sick and bring out the harmony of
being, we deem it worthy the name of science. Healing disease on this
basis, we learned beyond a doubt, that mind governs the body and is more potent
than matter to heal the sick.
To admit personal sense a source of pleasure is
to deny it is a source of pain also, and vice versa, for "the
same fountain sendeth not forth sweet and bitter waters."
Personal sense embracing both sin and happiness,
sickness and health, Life and death, according to the teachings of Jesus,
contradicts itself, and therefore destroys its own existence. Jesus cast out
error and healed the sick through his God-being, well-knowing that harmony
cannot produce discord: hence he denied personal sense, and admitted but one
Intelligence, and this, not the author of evil. To suppose evil and good,
discord and harmony proceed from the same fountain, is contrary to revelation.
The common acceptation of Truth is that whatever produces sin, is error. Then
wherefore admit that materia medica, physiology, anatomy, etc., are science
when they take the opposite ground that insists on personal sense governing
man, whence cometh all discord.
God is not the author of sin; Soul is not the
source of sickness, sin and death; rather does it destroy these to make man
immortal. The body defined as personal
385
sense, is mortal; and that which is mortal is
error. That sin proceeds from personal sense, we know, and this proves the
fountain evil, and the streams evil also, therefore Wisdom never produced
either; hence, God is not the author of personal sense. We say food sustains
the Life of man; and again, that a heavy meal kills him. Here the old theory
that opposed Christ, Truth, is reproduced in affirming the same fountain
sendeth forth sweet and bitter waters. If the All-wise hath a law demanding
food to preserve the Life of man, He hath no law by which food can destroy him.
We must take the opposite ground of personal sense in regard to sin, Sickness
and death, to fully destroy them; a physical demand is not to be admitted, but
destroyed, only the demands of Soul are to be heard; the body cannot speak for
itself, being unintelligent.
Is it mind or body that declares undigested food
irritates the nervous tissues producing a terrible sense of pain, faintness,
oppression, etc., and that your remedy is to expel the food, or digest it? This
is mental testimony, and there is none other, 'tis a law of belief, mis-named a
law of matter; the body cannot define cause and effect.
A case of extreme suffering from food, came
under our observation. The lady had said, but a few moments before we came to
her assistance, "I shall die unless the food is expelled," and in ten minutes
thereafter was rid of her sufferings, and when questioned in regard to her
feelings, replied, "I have no pain now, and would like to eat again." By
contending mentally against a physical position you can change it and destroy
it through mind, even as you have produced it thus. The
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sick argue for their own suffering, by admitting
its reality; they are ignorant of this fact, however, or that their mental
position is what produces the physical, and their friends often strengthen this
error and quarrel with you for trying to help them out of it.
Mind, and not matter, embraces 0 suffering; we
prove this when removing the suffering on this basis, or through mind. Our
Principle heals. the sick, therefore it produces a better physical effect than
the opposite views that make sickness; then why not adopt it, or judge of it by
our Master's rule, the "fruits." If you understood the science of being, your
body would be harmonious and immortal. The balance adjusted by science falls on
the side of happiness and Life.
Delirium tremens embraces error of two sorts;
the plea of personal sense for strong drink, and the belief that it diseases
the brain. Both these mental positions are mastered with metaphysical science;
first, because there is no pleasure in intoxication, or produced by matter, and
secondly, that matter, or the brain, is not inflamed. The belief of pain is
more easily eradicated than an appetite, or belief of pleasure, owing to the
strong desire the patient has to be rid of one, and his reluctance to
pad with the other; both of which we the self-inflicted positions of mind, and
not matter. Disputing the grounds of personal sense, that alcoholic drinks
intoxicate the brain, giving pleasure or pain to matter, and rising above this
error, Soul, versus sense, gets the case and relieves the patient. But the
severer task is to destroy the belief of the inebriate with regard to the
so-called pleasure of sense in drunkenness, while this is all that will reform
him. Destroy the belief that
387
pleasure is derived from intoxicating drink, and
the habit yields at once, but until this is done, it intermits and lingers,
proving intoxication a mental, and not a physical error. Here are two points we
desire you to note; first, the moral advantage this healing has over other
methods, and the falsity of the arguments of personal sense, assuming
drunkenness enjoyment. This admission, however, is not more false than to
conclude a liquid distilled from matter is capable of destroying body and
brain.
The belief that pain and pleasure, good and
evil, God and devil, fraternize, is a hoary mistake meeting us at every point.
Pleasure or pain in matter is a self-evident falsehood. Lifting yourself,
somewhat, to the understanding of the Life that is Wisdom, Love, and Truth, you
will break the spell of personal sense. The Truth of being, coming to their
consciousness, opens the prison doom to the sick and affects the body as
nothing else can. One mind, partly rid of the errors of personal sense, touches
another with the science of being that reproduces harmony, causing what we term
a chemical change in the body that goes on to form a new basis of being; even
as when an acid and alkali meet that form a neutral salt. But remember, the
opposites that destroy each other are without spiritual affinity. To admit the
positions of personal sense, would never destroy them. To reform the drunkard,
or heal the sick, or turn the sinner from his way, we must argue against their
positions; nothing else destroys them.
That mind controls matter, is the fundamental
strength of morality, for it gives man control over sin, sickness, and death,
whereas the old systems take it
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away. To understand that brains never killed a
mart would prevent his ever having disease of the brain; but this result is not
gained, simply repeating this fact to the sick, or to one's self; it must be a
mental conviction reached through science and admitted only because it is
understood. If a doubt exists in regard to a patient's recovery, there should
be none about the method of promoting it; no fears entertained that
Intelligence is not sufficient to govern the body and make it harmonious. The
fact seems to us self-evident, that the body cannot destroy the body, or
consign it to dust, and so put out the image of Soul. Besides, there is no
justice in law that punishes a man for doing good, for honest labor, or deeds
of kindness. Through the eternal law of right, we are exempt from all sentences
not passed on sin.
When the sick are made to realize the lie of
personal sense the body is healed. Faith generally lies in the direction of
material means; therefore the suffering or sick are apt to overlook the fact,
that science heals them, and impute their recovery to some extraneous
circumstance. The action of mind on the body is not more perceptible to
personal sense than the origin of the wind, or the chambers of the hail. Turn
to the eighth chapter of John, and you find the following reply to the
testimony of personal sense. "Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts
of your father ye will do; he was a murderer from the beginning" (referring to
Cain, the first offspring of Adam, error), "and abode not in the Truth; when he
speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of
it."
If there be any mystery in healing the sick on
this
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platform laid down by Jesus, it is the mystery
of Godliness, ambiguous only to the sinner, or to personal sense. Time alone is
required to bring out the practical proof of our statements; and because they
are riot understood to-day, it is no sign the time for their appearing has not
arrived. Truth comes when it is needed, and not because of a personal
demand.
Anew birth is the work of ages instead of a
moment, Until the belief of Life, Intelligence, and substance in matter is
destroyed, man has not "passed from death unto Life." A change of being's basis
from sense to Soul requires time and understanding; it is nothing short of
man's perfection, and what Jesus said was requisite to see the kingdom of
heaven. The reign of harmony that science will establish, will explain the
great difference between the moral effects of the present mode of healing and
that of science, and the different receptions they have met from the world of
sense and sin.
First comes the apprehension in science, of Life
that is Son), wholly independent of the body or sense. Next, its demonstration
is commenced in living more of God, and having sounder bodies and purer minds,
until we go up through higher understanding even as Elijah, to the Life that is
God and knows no death. But we are little in danger of such goodness and its
demonstration in this century. Loosing worldly approval indicates not only true
Christianity, but? the approach of this scientific stage of being; therefore we
should welcome it as our dearest hope and highest aim. The only link to Life is
through science; Life is never gained through death. The chemical changes that
Truth introduces into the body through mind, is what destroys
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error and brings to light immortality. The works
of our Master convinced Nicodemus their origin was God, the Principle of
harmonious man. So when he inquired of him how he healed, this was the reply,
"Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven;"
except he understands Life outside of personal sense he will never gain the
harmony of being. But this was not the Pharisee's Christianity, nor the Rabbi's
choice; to them sense was more desirable than Soul; matter had more claims than
Spirit, and man, than God. Said the Master, "Because I tell you the Truth, ye
believe me not, but he that is of God heareth God's words," i. e., the truly
spiritual will understand the things that belong to Spirit, but the more
material find this very difficult.
When Jesus introduced Christianity that cut off
right hands land plucked out right eyes, demanding the control of our bodies
and a nobler existence, they said, "He is a Samaritan and hath a devil," i. e.,
we know his origin, and for him to claim, "I and the Father are one,"
indicating he is God, is imposition. Pride said, then as now, Truth must come
from the rulers, be clad in soft raiment, and nothing else should be found
Truth. But Wisdom foreseeing this error, said, "Out of the mouth of babes hast
thou perfected praise," and except you become as a little child, you cannot
enter into harmony; i. e., unless we yield our educated opinions and beliefs,
and reject the positions of personal sense, we shall neither discern our true
being, nor understand the omnipotence of Spirit.
Standing at the bed of death, we need these
words and their meaning to re-assure us and raise up the dying.
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"He that believeth in me shall never see death."
The little trust we have in Spirit, and the strong faith we hold in matter,
will meet us at this point with the inquiry. "Adam, where art thou," cherishing
the belief of Life in matter, or holding firmly on to Life that is Spirit ? and
the answer we honestly give will show us where we stand. The last enemy to be
overcome is death; therefore much is to be understood before we gain this great
point in science. Laying aside the beliefs that so easily beset us, we should
not regard a condition of matter able to destroy man, mind or body, for both
are immortal. A wasted form lies before you; the doctor calls his disease
consumption, but the scientist finding no identity in discord, regards the
disease a belief, and cures it thus; for understanding in part the Life that is
Soul, he will destroy this belief of sense with the science of being. Never
consent to the death of man, but rise to the supremacy of Spirit over matter,
and denying the claims of personal sense, prove what it is to be a Christian
whose Life is "hid with Christ in God;" therefore wholly spiritual. What if the
lungs are ulcerated or decayed, mind has done this; action is produced by mind
and not matter; Change, therefore, your belief in the case, combat the error
and belief of Life in matter, with the Truth that Life is Soul and not sense,
and you will form the lungs anew, and they will resume their healthy functions.
We know this to he true, and state it because we have proved it. Disease is a
belief, its origin mental instead of physical, and it matters not what the body
indicates, in reality all is mind, there is no matter, and mortal things are
beliefs, and not the science of man in which he is immortal.
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That pain or pleasure, Life or death, belongs to
the body, is but a belief. Immortal Soul is the producer of all things, and
never made out of itself, mortality, or a suffering body. Speak to disease as
one having authority over it, having Soul, and not sense, on your side, and you
will master this belief; and immortality, which is the Truth of man, will
assert its claims over mortality, and the sick recover. God, Spirit, is your
stronghold in this extremity, and you feel how vain a thing is death pitted
against the immortality of Soul and body. Life is the law of Soul; and personal
sense, or matter, has no law. Holding on to the Truth of being is your only
hope whereby to destroy its error. The science of being raises the dead; fear
ye not, therefore, death; you may raise up the dying if minds around you are
not strongly opposing this Truth, so little understood to-day; and sometime
over this wave of the troubled sea, your God-being, that destroys all error,
sin and death, will walk fearlessly; showing how real is Life, and how unreal,
death. But there were some people so bigoted or material they even hindered the
Master doing many mighty works because of their unbelief.
When healing the sick make your mental plea, or
better, take your spiritual position that heals, silently at first, until you
begin to win the case, and Truth is getting the better of error, then your
patient is fit to listen, and you can say to him, "Thou art whole," without his
scorn. Explain to him, audibly, sometimes, the power mind has over the body,
and give him a foundation in the understanding to lean upon, that he may brace
himself against old opinions. The battle lies
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wholly between minds, and not bodies, to break
down the beliefs of personal sense or pain in matter, and stop its supposed
utterances, so that the voice of Soul, the immortality of man, is heard. The
belief of Life and sensation in matter is the source of all suffering and sin.
The science of being reveals Life, conscious Soul and not sense, Spirit and not
matter, and this leaves man safe in Soul, where there is no recognition of
sickness, sin, or death. To raise the dead, restore the sick, or reform the
sinner, we should understand science in its first statement, namely, that
nothing is real but God, and His idea; aught beside is illusion, error and
belief, that disappear. Recognizing the nothingness of sickness, sin, and
death, is all that will ever bring out the harmony of man, or enable him to
conquer them. With this scientific starting-point we shall master disease and
temptation, or blush to be conquered by what is unreal. Understanding discord
unreal, and harmony the only reality, emboldens us to fight the good fight.
Never admit error real as Truth, for if you do
you will have more difficulty to get right than you need have. To turn a sinner
from his error or belief, is more difficult than to turn the sick from theirs;
for the latter, weary of suffering from it, yearn to relinquish it, and when
the sinner reaches this point he is reformed. If science destroys not sickness,
sin, and death, they are immortal. The only remedy for sin, sickness, or death,
is obedience to the law of Life, and if Christ, Truth, be insufficient to cure
sickness and destroy death, man is mortal. If we learn in part, even, the
science of Life, it begins at once to destroy mental and physical discord.
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The demonstrations and explanations of Jesus
embraced all the theology or materia medica necessary to heal the sick or make
Christians, and because he never recommended materia medica, hygiene,
physiology, etc., we infer these methods are anti-Christian. If, as the
Scripture saith, and science confirms, Jesus did the will of God, we are not
doing his will who follow not his example, but resort to methods all our
own.
"Herbs for the healing of the nations" typified
the "balm in Gilead" and a physician there, even Soul the healer, and science
the balm, which was Spirit triumphing over matter. Truth neither destroys
Truth, nor creates error to be destroyed. Life never destroys Life, nor creates
death to destroy it. Truth, or Life, is not the author of sin or death, and
there is neither power nor Intelligence in matter. Sickness and death are the
opposites of harmony and Life, and no law can support what Christ, Truth,
destroys. The only law in existence, or that we should acknowledge, is God, the
Principle of man, controlling man and matter. Spirit is not personality, nor
persons that have passed away; and nature is God, hence it is Spirit and not
matter. Intelligence governs man and the universe, but never instituted
material law to govern them, and Spirit never produced matter. The Bible
contains all our recipes for healing, and this is one of them:
"Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou
art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the
judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison;
verily I say unto you, thou shalt not come out thence till thou hast paid the
uttermost farthing."
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This was one of our Master's rules for casting
out error and healing the sick. It referred, however, not to legal proceedings,
or processes material, but to a mental tribunal and judgment. The adversary was
not man, but error; and the directions, how to proceed with sin or sickness
that would impose through belief a penalty for transgressing law that is not
law, insomuch as justice is the moral signification of law, and injustice
implies its absence. Shall a teacher pay the penalty of sickness for performing
well and faithfully her tasks? or a great mind, because of the good it has
done, fall soonest a prey to disease? must man suffer at the hands of God, for
steadfastly doing right? Shall the mother droop, or suffer, because of
maternity, if such is the design of her being? Because of fatigue, exposure to
cold, or some supposed infringement of the so-called laws of health, we
ignorantly admit there is danger of being sick, and this mental position
decides the physical one; therefore, "agree with thine adversary quickly;" say
to this belief, " Get behind me, satan, for thou savorest not the things that
are of God, but those that are of man;" it is not a broken moral law to which
your penalty is attached, but a condition of matter, a demand from something
wholly unintelligent and incapable of justice. God has no law of injustice,
wrong proceeds from belief, and not Truth.
To conclude quickly on the treatment of error,
was the rule our Master left for casting it out. He never recommended laws of
health to our knowledge. On a law that is not God's, we have a moral right to
pass judgment, and to commute its sentence; every instance of matter, or the
body, governing man, is justly
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condemned, and morally impossible insomuch as it
manifests a want of Wisdom that renders it null and void. The only hope in
sickness or sin, is to agree quickly with thine adversary; that is, if tempted,
or if disease appears, to banish the temptation, or the disease, at once from
the mind, and suffer it not to plead in its own behalf lest you fall a prey to
your belief in the case. On this mental basis, when the first symptoms of
disease appear, knowing they gain their ground in mind before they can in body,
"agree quickly with thine adversary," i. e., dismiss the 6rst mental admission
that you are sick; dispute sense with science, and, if you can annul the false
process of law, alias your belief in the case, you will not be cast into prison
or confinement. The sick must never plead guilty; in other words, admit they
are sick, for then are they subject to sentence and imprisonment, according to
the law of belief. Take the ground of science in the first instance, never
admit sensation in matter, or that the body can be pained, or has any claims of
its own, or power to make man suffer; adhere to this scientific position and
battle the old belief with it until you destroy it, and you will get well.
To agree quickly with thine adversary in the
first instance of sickness, is to take antagonistic grounds to it, and prove
your superiority over it. Not to admit disease, is to conquer it ; and if you
understood the science of being, you would admit no reality to aught but God
and his idea. When you say, "I am sick," you plead guilty, that is, you admit
matter has sensation and will be delivered to the judge, in other words, into
the hands of this belief that will deliver
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thee to the officer (disease), the ruler of
mortal man that casts him into prison and fetters his entire being. But disease
has no Intelligence of its own, or law, whereby to do this. You sentence
yourself unwittingly, therefore, "agree with thine adversary quickly;" meet
every circumstance as its master, and watch your belief, instead of your body;
think less of laws material, that you may appreciate better the spiritual law
of being, yea, the dominion of man over matter. Meet every adverse circumstance
with science, instead of the beliefs of sense, and you will master it.
Error is a coward before Truth, and death is but
another phase of the dream of Life in matter, wherein we meet at every point
the consciousness of continued existence, with the same beliefs to conquer, and
the same errors of sense to master through science. We must understand our way
out of difficulties, or we never in reality are out, and the harmony and
immortality of man are never understood until every error of sense is
destroyed. To apprehend the economy and capacity of man's being, metaphysics
must take the place of physics, and mind, instead of matter, be consulted in
sickness. Fear, and its effects on the body are involuntary. Fear of disease
and love of sin are the foundations of man's enslavement; but for these he
could triumph over his body. Mind acts on the subject before disease becomes
apparent on the body; but the individual has no recognition of his belief
producing disease until it is developed physically. We look to personal sense
for the evidence of disease, but there is no personal sense, unless matter is
intelligent and holds the issues of Life. Because mind acts unconsciously
to
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sense, the sick say how can mind have caused
disease, "I never thought of the disease until it appeared on my body." But
mind is first, and causation; nothing commences in matter; the plant springs
from the eternal Intelligence --before we call it matter; but our mortal
blindness and its sharp consequences, prove our need to understand the action
of mind and its effects; we should study mind more and matter less, if we would
avail ourselves of Soul in its control over sense. We can destroy sickness, the
same as sin, by learning its origin and nature in mind, instead of body, and
finding the belief that occasions it.
You can prevent or cure scrofula, hereditary
disease, etc., in just the ratio you expel from mind a belief in the
transmission of disease, and destroy its mental images; this will forestall the
disease before it takes tangible shape in mind, that forms its corresponding
image on the body. The science of being destroys the errors of sense with the
Truth of man, and this is " casting out devils and healing the sick."
Unconscious matter cannot dictate terms to conscious mind, causing either pain
or pleasure; and matter is unconscious. The belief that our body forms
conditions of its own, independent of mind, is the error of mortal man that
makes him mortal.
You say the body feels, but the fact that pain
is not felt without mind, and can be removed through it, proves mind the origin
and cause of suffering. All the diseases on earth, (and there are none in
heaven), never interfered for a moment with man's Life and its harmonious
phenomena. Man is the same after, as before a bone is broken, or a head chopped
off. Casualties
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has no reality to Soul; it exists only as
belief, and is apparent only to personal sense. Accidents are unknown to God.
It the science of Soul was reached, immortality would be gained, and there
would be no chance for suffering. Soul and body are inseparable and eternal; if
one is indestructible, so is the other. Understanding this, exempts man from
disease and death, that anatomy and physiology regard positive claims on Life.
Denying the Truth of being, measurably prevents its benefits on the body, by
hindering its action in mind. It is not faith, but understanding, we need in
science, and, "whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before
the Father." This beautiful text refers not to a person, but the Principle of
man that embraces the Truth of being, that casts out error and heals the sick.
Reason discounts on revelation when it denies God the things that are His, and
contradicts the omnipotence of Soul over sense; but whose reasons aright on
this point, and hesitates not to declare his- views, i. e., ,to confess me
before men," becomes harmonious. When reason accords with the declaration of
Scripture that man has dominion over earth, we shall recognize this, and turn
in triumph from the seemingly impossible, to "all things are possible," and
demonstrate this.
"He that denieth me before men," refers to a
denial, or an open acknowledgment of our honest convictions that effectually
hinders or aids man's progress. Because the science of being is not yet
understood, and the age is not yet awake to this subject, if we but half desire
to understand it, and conceal this desire, we shall be unable to demonstrate
it. A hypocrite or liar
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has no part in the science of Life; whosoever
overlooks moral honesty for worldly policy, has not gained an insight into
science sufficient to heal through it. If be has learned its rules, he has not
understood them, and must have gained them of one whose experiences have gone
up higher.
For a broken bone, or dislocated joint, 'tis
better to call a surgeon, until mankind are farther advanced in the treatment
of mental science. To attend to the mechanical part, a surgeon is needed
to-day, but let the scientist see that inflammation, or long confinement, do
not ensue. The time cometh when science will be our only surgeon, but,
"suffering these things to be so now," let a bone be set, after the manner of
men, then let science facilitate the knitting process, and re-construct the
body without pain or inflammation as much as possible in these days of
ignorance.
The time approaches when mind alone will adjust
joints, and broken bones, (if such things were possible then), but in the
present infancy of this Truth so new to the world, let us act consistent with
its small foothold on the mind. We greatly mistake the nature of being to
conclude that which is real, is inharmonious or mortal. Sickness is not real,
from the very fact it is discord and mortality, and these, errors and beliefs,
things of sense that constitute the dream of Life in matter, but have no
reality to God, the Soul of man. Meet discord and death with the opposite Truth
of being, and it wakens, in part, from the dream of Life, to the realization of
Life whereby we learn all discord is illusion. We say sickness is something to
be feared; but this belief regarding it is what does the harm. Disease
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must be admitted in mind before it appears as
matter; for body manifests only what mind embraces, whether it be fever,
consumption, or theft. The doctor tells his patients their symptoms are
feverish, and they vibrate between this opinion and its belief, until the
physician says the fever is established; then the sick are confirmed, and go
into confinement and serve out this mental sentence executing the body, more
surely than the sentences of our courts.
Because science contradicts personal sense and
sickness, you have no more moral right to dispute the proof that science is
right, than of a rule of mathematics; and yet you will, for such is the case
with all new discoveries. Cures wrought in science, are naturally misconstrued
by sense, imputed to something besides the Principle producing them; hence,
they must be understood to be appreciated. We may understand, perfectly well,
how we heal the Pick, but because others do not, hey may interpret our cure on
some other basis; and this not only works against the recovery of the sick,
because it is antagonistic to Truth, but prevents their perception of it.
Jesus, wiser than his persecutors, said, "If I
by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom did your fathers cast them out?" knowing
they acknowledged the prophets, but not the carpenter; this question was
difficult to answer because the prophets healed as he did, and he introduced
the comparison on account of this. Those calling the demonstration of the
science of being demoniac over eighteen centuries ago, might to-day tone down
the judgment to imposition. Jesus, reasoning clearly on this subject, although
misapprehended by
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the materialistic age, introduced the following
comparison to explain his healing. "How can one enter into a strong man's house
and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man, and then he will
spoil his goods." In other words, how can I cast out devils without bearding
error, attacking the beliefs that produce all this discord through ignorance of
Soul and body, and then are you sometimes "offended because of me."
Jesus employed neither technicalities, the logic
of the schools, nor formulas of medicine to heal; be knew, if others did not,
Soul's superiority over matter, to heal the body, and that harmony is reached,
only as we understand its real basis, Spirit, and not matter, Soul, not sense;
and acknowledge the supremacy of Intelligence. Personal sense is the strong man
that the Truth of being binds, before destroying error. It being impossible to
heal on the Principle of science, and admit the grounds taken by personal
sense; therefore, bind this strong man bold sense in subjection to Soul, and
pain, as much under control of mind as a temptation to sin; then can you
despoil his goods, i. e., prevent sin and suffering.
When the mental control we hold over our bodies
for good or evil, touching sickness, sin, and death, has been preached
one-hundredth part as long as man's salvation through faith, we shall have men
and women approaching to the image and likeness of God. Until personal sense is
doubted, it will never be controlled. The ages may go on, admitting personal
sense and its control over man, and fighting it with drugs, laws of health,
etc., when, instead of pleasure, it utters itself
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in pain, but this will only sustain disease in
mind, and then it will show itself in matter. Man will not be found harmonious
until the belief of personal sense yields to the science of Soul.
Deplorable cases of passion mastering man,
should arouse one to the responsibility of governing his body. A person whom we
snatched from this oblivion of Soul, said to us, "I should have died, but for
the Principle you teach showing me the nothingness and falsity of sense;
medicine, and treatises on my case, only abandoned me to more hopeless
sufferings, and slavery; adherence to hygiene was of no avail, and I was cured
only when I learned my way in science."
At present we must accept the statements of
science relative to personal sense, on the inductive method, admitting the
whole, because a part, involving the entire Principle is proved. Pains of the
body, or matter, are unreal, but not more so than its pleasures; both cheat man
into a belief of their reality, but only as the mountain mirage that seemeth
what it is not, or the terrible incubus from which he finds it difficult to
awake. Admitting the entire grounds of the science of being, it quickly follows
our poor demonstration looks us in the face; but to this we reply, enough has
been understood and proved, to reveal it science, and to prove, measurably, the
blessing it brings. When speaking of this subject to others, instead of
admitting the proofs we have already given of its Truth, we are often met with
demands for more proof; therefore, we recommend you to read carefully what we
have written, understand for yourselves, and establish your own evidence
through demonstration; at the same time the
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necessity, exists for a teacher of this science,
the same as for music or mathematics, that must be explained to be understood,
and understood to be demonstrated.
Pioneering what is new, or of great value to the
world, is like a traveller on the desert of Arabia in company with one who
becoming alarmed, his beat and sufferings increase and his courage fails; but
the explorer, despite the hardships, and convinced he will come out right,
accepts the situation more calmly, and encourages his friend, assuring him the
only danger is his fear, then points anew the path; at length they reach an
oasis, where, resting and slaking their thirst, they are ready with new vigor
to push on. But here the more helpless traveller turns to his guide, saying,
are you not sometimes alarmed on this desert route? "Yes," is the ready
response; but, replied the other, you told me my danger consisted in my fear,
therefore you have no more practical Wisdom than myself; forgetting his guide
carried the baggage, met the intricacies of the way, and was attacked by
brigands, plundered, and hindered in his course, his fellow-traveller following
not, until the danger was over. Bearing others' burdens, if you undertake more
than you can well carry, and are tried or over-wrought, they name it a hopeless
task, and desert you; few arms are extended to your support, until you can help
yourself and others, and have no need of aid.
We learn in science, food neither helps nor
harms man; admitting its power in one direction, we must in another. But here
it were unwise to disparage the Principle, or proof of this statement, because
you continue to eat, not having mastered the belief that Life
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depends on eating. This were like denying the
Principle of harmony, because man is not yet harmonious, or saying Soul is not
immortal, because Personal sense takes no cognizance of this fact. Man's Life
is Soul, that eats not to live, and immortal man is the idea of Soul instead of
sense. We have no evidence of food sustaining Life, except false evidence, even
the belief of Life in matter, and this belief an error. A telegram announcing
incorrectly the death of a friend, produces the same sorrow the reality would
give; but you say your anguish is occasioned by your loss, until another
message arrives, informing you it is a mistake, and your friend lives. Now did
you not experience the same sufferings the reality would have brought, and did
you not say it was the death of your friend that caused these sufferings; but
afterwards learn your mistake, realizing you suffered from a belief, and not a
reality. Thus it is with all sufferings; belief and not Truth occasions them.
Had a scientist attempted to calm the grief of your supposed bereavement before
the second news arrived, whereby you learned the sufferings were produced, by
error and not Truth, would you have thanked your comforter, though she gave you
relief, until this fact was made plain to your understanding. The body or
matter never yet informed man of disease; a belief carries the telegram to the
body, and the body manifests only the sufferings of mind. Never a formation of
Truth was diseased, or needed to be destroyed; error is all that suffers, sins
or dies. The body manifests only what mind embraces. The mortal body is mortal
error, even a belief of Life in matter; Truth holds man immortal, and no
portion of him lost;
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Science and Scripture declare this, " He that
believeth in me shall never see death "; we are exempt from error or belief,
and immortal only as we understand God. Giving heed to inharmony is personal
sense that in its ignorance of God silences the voice of Soul; in other words
is "total depravity." Soul and personal sense are antagonists, one disputes
every position of the other -- which evidence do you accept? Reason instructs
us immortality is the friend of man. Hear the opposite testimonies of personal
sense and Soul.
Sense; I am intelligent matter, a body of
sickness, sin and death that constitutes a mortal intelligence. The lungs, with
alarming resonance, repeat this warning; the fevered throbbing of arteries
tells how fast the sands of life are running; the failing pulse, that the
places once knowing man shall know him no more forever; the inevitable law of
Life is death; that aught is beyond this who knoweth. The evidence changes --
mortal man is in health, at ease in his possessions, and sense says, eat,
drink, and be merry; what a happy life is this. I am unjust, and no person
knoweth it, take vengeance on ray fellow beings, chest, lie, and propagate this
species; am brutish, but this is obedience to the nature God hath given me.
What a nice thing is sin, what a joy, sense; my kingdom is of this world, and I
am at peace. But a touch, an accident, one wheel in the mechanism stopped, all
is lost, for I am mortal!
Soul; I am the Spirit of man that giveth
understanding, beauty and Omnipotence, full of unutterable perfections, height
upon height of holiness, the wonder of being, imperishable glory, for I am God,
grasping, and gathering in all bliss, for I am Love, giving immortality
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to man, for I am Truth, without beginning and
without end, for I am Life, supreme over all, for I am Intelligence, and the
Substance of all, because I Am.
Does an M. D. examine the body, feel the pulse,
and look at the tongue, to ascertain the condition of Soul, the Life of man, or
the condition of his body, alias matter, and according to signs material give
his opinion of Life, God, and the prospect for his continuing? If man was
before God, and matter superior to mind, such methods were consistent, but not
otherwise. Mind, instead of body is the fount of all suffering; but we forget
this in sickness, when the mental condition is not regarded and wholly unknown
to patient or physician, while its physical effect alone is taken up. Opinions
and theories have so misguided judgment on these points, the Truth of being is
lost sight of, and illusion taken for fact. However much the schools insist
that discord rules harmony, and laws of matter govern the Life of man; science
reveals Life otherwise, and gives an opportunity for this proof. Laws of God
were never known to kill man, for this would destroy immortality. Man is the
image and likeness, therefore the reflex shadow of God, and if one is mortal,
why not the other? If man is lost his Principle is lost, and God is not left.
Doctors fasten disease on the body, mapping it out in mind; when the mental
picture is complete the patient will be sick. A belief of disease is liable to
be made manifest at any time on the body.
If disease is Intelligence that produces results
of itself, or the body can make its own conditions, despite the mental protest,
we will admit the superiority of disease over man, and its power to make him
sick, or
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kill him, but not otherwise. Mind produces all
effects on the body; personal sense has neither pleasure nor pain except to
belief, which is all there is to it. A mental image of disease, fully formed,
is already painted on the body, whereas another picture of mind we transfer to
canvas; 'tis the patient's fear that draws the picture, and the artist, mind,
executes it fully on the body, but the patient is ignorant of his fear, or what
mind's images are, until they are drawn on the body. If no mental image of
disease was formed, there could be no manifestation of disease. The belief that
disease is a power or Intelligence superior to man, is ever ready to reproduce
some image of disease before the mind, and this image causes the fear, and the
fear quickens or retards action, producing inflammation or whatever the nature
or type of disease that prevails in the general thought, and comes to you
entirely unbidden, and with no particular association to call it up. Again,
disease comes through association, even as thoughts appear. For instance, your
mental condition is a fixed belief, that, exposed to severe cold or dampness,
you take cold; hence, the circumstance being this, you suffer the effects of a
belief through association. If fevers are abroad, you say, I am liable to have
them; and this mental condition, through association, produces the result.
Disease comes after the manner that one thought
calls up another. If her child is exposed to conditions deemed dangerous, the
mother says, my child will be sick, and her belief reaches her offspring to
this very end; but she calls it the circumstances. You say, I have eaten too
much, and shall find it difficult to di-
409
gest such a quantity of food; or, I have
consumptive parents, hence am predisposed to this disease, and the result
follows, in natural sequence. The conditions of your belief are re-produced on
your body. The remote cause of all disease, is a belief in it, and a fear of
it; the present, or exciting one, the circumstance you say will produce it.
Exposed to contagion, having consumptive
parents, being over-wrought, mentally or physically, eating too much, fasting
too long, etc., you say, are dangerous to health, and you are a law to your
body in the case, for the body could not suffer from these without mind, and a
mind, that did not embrace these beliefs, would not suffer; the seeds of
disease, germinated by circumstances, are sown in mind, not matter. Even as
thoughts on other subjects are re-produced by association, so are diseases; and
your belief regarding disease, and net the circumstance, is what affects your
body.
Parents, nurses, and doctors, not perceiving
these vital points in science, throw their mental weight in the wrong scale,
and injure those they would bless. Pursuing an opposite course, and ruling out
all mental admissions of disease, they would save the sickness they now
occasion. We should recollect suffering is no less a mental condition, than
enjoying. When an accident happens, you think, or exclaim, "he is hurt;" but to
prevent the result you fear, you should oppose your own, and the frightened
one's admission he is harmed. Contending you are not hurt, your body obedient
to mental control, will yield to this fact.
When destroying scientifically the sufferings of
children, oftentimes the mother will revive in their mem-
410
ory what you are blotting out, and describe how
badly her child was hurt; or how much disease she has, etc., little knowing the
effect of this is like fire to a burn. We should inquire only into our fears
and beliefs regarding sickness, and disregard all else.
Matter cannot give testimony, therefore we
should not believe personal sense; mind alone reports physical conditions and
produces them. The sick argue against themselves by saying, "I am sick"; the
physical affirmative should be met with a mental negative; all discord is
error, insomuch as harmony is the only Truth of being; we must take a mental
position, the very opposite of the physical one, to control the body to a
change of action. We inform the muscles how to move, and they act in obedience
to the mind, or there would be no action; so does the entire system. The sick
are frightened, whether they do, or do not understand this, and the body, like
a frightened man, runs too fast or too slow, partially palsied, or inflamed
with fear, the action is naturally increased or diminished.
To advance in the understanding of Truth, we
must live up to our present perceptions of it; and improving the present, we
need take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow will take thought for us,
and afford more light as we advance toward the light. When you know already,
dishonesty is error, discipline yourself to meet consequences rather than do
wrong or hide a wrong. Truth is nearly worthless to him who seldom uses it.
When physical action is inflammatory, mind is
the cause; some fear has taken possession of you, although this fear is not
recognized by the sick, yet the physical
411
effects show us it exists, and the results are
the same as if it existed consciously. Disease, originating in mind before it
can be manifested on the body, is arrested, or ruled out of the latter, by
destroying the belief that occasioned it. Fear causes the face to grow suddenly
red, or pallid, proving the circulation of the blood is controlled by this
mental condition; the body becomes weak, or suddenly strong, through fear,
showing that weakness or strength is the result of mind, instead of matter. A
mother, informed of the imprisonment of her son, instantly falls dead; here
organic action has stopped from no other than a mental cause, and yet we are so
buried in the rubbish of supposed Life in matter, we cannot, or do not, let
this falling apple point to the Principle it reveals. Fear changes the entire
secretions of the system; not only controls the functions of the brain, but the
internal vicera, and the entire mechanism of the obedient body. Remove the fear
of disease, and disease will disappear; for the body is restored through a
change of mind; fear exists when the mind is wholly unconscious of it, and
produces disease involuntarily. We never knew the patient that (lid not recover
when the fear of his disease was utterly destroyed. The stronger never yields
to the weaker, except through fear, or voluntary choice ; and mind is mightier
than matter, and controls the body, whether we do, or do not, admit this.
The ills we fear are the only ones that conquer
us. The body becomes inharmonious through mind alone; no law, outside of mind,
governs the body. The law of God is the only absolute or inevitable, and this
law never produces sickness, sin, or death, as its conse-
412
quences. There is no pain without mind; matter
cannot suffer or produce suffering. Disease is a fear expressed physically, not
by the lips, but the functions of the body. Mitigate the fear, and you relieve
the affected organ; destroy it, and the body regains its healthy functions.
However impossible this may appear to our educated views on this subject, it
is, nevertheless, a fact in science that we have tested sufficiently to declare
it, as unhesitatingly as any other demonstrable Truth. That man is unconscious
of his fear, neither changes its effects on the body nor the mental fact;
ignorance of the cause, or approach of disease, not in the least militates
against its mental origin. More or less fear accompanies all ignorance; who
that understands the power of mind over body, its impelling force, and how
controlled, and this very ignorance, like walking in darkness on the edge of P.
precipice, is an ever-present involuntary fear.
We say, my body suffers, and mind has nothing to
do with it; this is simply impossible. The martyr, burning at the stake,
conquers his body with mind, and silences personal sense with Soul. So the
opposite extreme of stolidity meets his punishment with less torture than a
mind touched to finer issues. Death has occurred from imaginary phlebotomy;
individuals have died of contagions, hydrophobia, etc., believing they had been
exposed to them, when such was not the ewe. Many instances of the mind's
control over body, producing death, prove this control absolute, instead of
partial. Physicians are ready to admit mind affects the body somewhat; but this
is but a small part of the fact; science reveals all action produced and
controlled by
413
mind, and a single instance of this proved, as
when people die from mental causes, justifies this statement.
If mind is the only actor, bow do we explain
mechanism, apparently acting of itself, or through what we term matter power.
Simply that mind has constructed this mechanism and carries it on. A mill at
work, or the action of water on a wheel, is secondary, and not the primary
cause; mind caused the mill and constructed the machinery. The eternal mind
first "divided the waters," and controlled the wave. Mind is the primitive, and
the derivative would not continue without mind to put it in operation;
perpetual motion in matter is a failure ; but perpetual motion of mind is
science. Intelligence is the motive power, or procurer of all action. Take away
mind and the body is without action; therefore it is but logical to conclude
mind produces its action; but when we go farther, and cure diseased action
through mind, that medicine could not remove, we gain this undeniable
evidence.
Mind, like a telegraph office, holds the message
conveyed to the body, and to prevent any bad results we must be careful the
telegram is from science instead of sense. Deprived of this despatch, the body
returns no answer of inflammation or disease, from the fact matter has no
Intelligence of its own. The body is not an independent sovereignty, or
reigning autocrat over man; any supposed government matter holds over
Intelligence, is wholly mythical. The belief our body is substance, is not more
true than that it is Life and Intelligence. What a material world we address;
but Truth must be spoken; if not at all times, at some time, and we seem
destined to take the enemy's first
414
fire, for speaking it this time. We have faith
this book will do its work, though not fully understood, in the nineteenth
century. The revelator read its history in the little book, "Sweet in the
mouth, and bitter in the belly." Though but a hint in time, it is a tale for
eternity. Materiality must and will go out, though it be slowly; the spiritual
era advances when physical effects will no longer be attributed to physical
causes, but discerned in their final spiritual cause.
When fear causes the blood to bound through
veins and arteries, or languidly to move the palsied mechanism, destroy the
fear, and the system regains its equilibrium; anodynes, counter-irritants, or
depletion can never reduce inflammation like the Truth of being. Faith, or
belief, is a poor equivalent for science; we must understand man
metaphysically, before we can control him aright, physically. Ignorance,
coupled with a smattering of metaphysical learning, is a shocking bore; the
Truth of being reduced to a petty cross-fire on every poor cripple and invalid,
sending into him the cold bullet, "nothing ails you," had better be unsaid
until it be understood. If a boil appears suddenly, that you say is painful,
does it ache? The boil does not ache, for matter has no sensation; it is mind
that feels, and that boil bespeaks your belief of heat, pain, swelling, and
inflammation, but you call it the boil. Heat is a product of fear; warmth is
the normal condition of Truth, cold or heat is not; body bereft of mind is cold
at first, and afterwards nothing. Fear produces the heat, and another phase of
belief tries to expel it through yet another form of belief, called a boil,
that now appears on the body, mind holding at
415
the same time the conclusion that boils are
painful, but prolong Life, alias Intelligence. An error of premises produces
error in conclusion, mental error occasions all the discords of body.
Heat would pass off as painless from the body as
gas expelled from boiling water, but for our opposite beliefs. Chills are the
effects of beat; ulcers, boils, etc., are heat coming to the surface; but mind,
and not matter, creates this beat and forms all the identity disease has. The
invalid may conclude a humor in the blood causes boils, and when this humor is
brought to the surface the system is relieved; but mind, and not matter, has
formed this conclusion and its results. You will have these forms of disease so
long as you regard them channels for disease, or inevitable results of matter,
Cherish any particular belief of disease and you are in danger of reproducing
it on the body. Reverse the case and destroy your belief in this modus operandi
of matter, and your fear of disease will not engender the beat to be thrown
off; and what you thought before was scrofula, bile, and physical causes, you
will learn was fear and mind acting on the body.
Disease, destroyed in its origin, viz., mind,
never reappears again, and is cured effectually; but matter can never destroy
it. A mental position taken doubtingly, is a very weak one; you must understand
these points in science, or you are never thoroughly persuaded in your own mind
of the power of belief and its sad effect on the body; neither can you discern
the Principle bringing out the capabilities and harmony of being, that enables
you to hold what you understand. In the positive belief and fear of disease
yourself, it
416
were vain to attempt, mentally, to remove
another's fear or disturbed condition; as soon attempt to destroy beat with
fire. To succeed in the science of Life, you must be found in it, having not on
a belief, but the garment of Truth, and this will give you self-possession, and
ability to bring out the full amount of the Life that is Christ healing the
sick. Eschewing the belief you are Intelligent matter, you gain the
capabilities of Spirit and the freedom of the sons of God.
Men of business have said this science was of
great advantage from a secular point of view. It not only enhanced their
physical and mental endurance, but control of man and perception of character.
They have told us they could meet better the exigencies of business, by meeting
mind on its own grounds, perceiving thoughts and their relation to men's acts.
The science of Life not only brings out latent possibilities and capacities,
but extends the atmosphere, or aroma of mind, giving man vent in broader and
higher being. An odor, confined by a stopper, is not so benevolent as when the
stopper is removed and it scents the room. Remove the belief of Intelligence
beneath a skull bone, of Soul in body, and matter the master of man, and there
quickly follows more of a man or woman, because they understand themselves and
others better. Getting outside the evidence of personal sense to judge of men
and things, is a vast gain to manhood and Godhood. We are suffocated by beliefs
and 'isms, whereas a living Soul is liberty and Life; understanding can grasp
even the infinite idea. We are conscious of intelligent Spirit; then away with
the dream of intelligent matter, or that Intelligence dwells in
non-intelligence.
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Soul and body are different, but
concordant, and one cannot be lost and the other left. To apprehend
completeness and perfection, we must reach them, and bring out our model thus.
Thinking of sin, sickness and death is not the method to conquer them, and form
your model of Life; destroy them in mind and they are gone forever; get rid of
the fear of sickness, or the love of sin, and you are rid of these errors in
physical manifestation. Action should proceed from Principle, not idea, from
Soul, and not personal sense, and mind instead of matter; when this is so, we
shall govern our bodies and bring out harmony. Principle controls its idea
harmoniously, governed alone as it is by the supreme Intelligence, but for
this, 'ology or 'ism would make a sick globe. The belief that Spirit dwells in
matter, and that matter has Intelligence, causes all discord; man is not sick;
for mind is not sick, and matter cannot be; a belief is the tempter and tried,
the sin and sinner, disease and its cause, death and the dying. Shock this
belief by some expression, or impression, of Truth, start it from its fixed
centre, and it will relieve the body at once. A tooth ceases to pain you before
the forceps, a greater fear having silenced, for a moment, the lesser, showing
the effects of mind on the body, and that "our greater evils medicine the
less."
A bigots circumference of mind is very small;
personality and matter he believes in, but talk to him beyond these, of
Principle and idea, and you get no response. Ignorance is the greatest foe to
metaphysical science.
Never converse on sickness, watch its symptoms,
recommend matter remedies, or seek to learn its cause
418
in matter; and you will find it easier for mind
to destroy, and to enjoy health yourself, and help others to do go. The basis
of all disease, is error or belief ; destroy the belief and the sick will
recover. To be cheerful in sickness is well, to be hopeful is better, but to
understand the nothingness of disease destroys it utterly. An invalid is a
deplorable instance of mesmerism, with which one belief controls another, and
error re-produces error. We admit one mind can control another mind, and
thereby control the body, but never calculate we do this daily with our own
body. The mesmerizer causes his subject pain without any physical cause,
proving he produces this sensation through the subject's belief, and not that
it existed in the body; then, to the belief of pain were he to add a belief of
disease in any part, and keep up this state of mind sufficiently long, the
disease would certainly appear there. The mesmerizer makes a limb rigid by
making his subject believe he cannot move it. Thus it is with the sick; they
mesmerize their bodies unconsciously, through their beliefs, to conditions of
stiffened joints, disease, and death, and the only difference is, the cause in
one instance, is understood to be mind, or belief, producing the results, and
in the other case, believed to be matter; hence mind is employed to remove one,
and matter the other condition, whereas both have their origin in mind, and are
removed through mind. The lame man mesmerizes his body through the belief an
accident or disease caused him lameness, and so long as this belief lasts, his
lameness continues.
Sometimes faith in medicine, or the lapse of
time wears away fear to such an extent the belief changes
419
with regard to the disease, sufficiently to
remove the bodily ailment. Remove the belief that holds the limb rigid and it
is restored. But, says one, no man can mesmerize me. This may be true, and
because you mesmerize your body so positively, others are negative to you; but
such an individual would be difficult to cure with other's mesmerism, or
materia medica, unless he bad more faith in them than himself. Science would
heal him more readily through the understanding, for such minds are generally
self-reliant and assured, holding strong, if preoccupied grounds. There is no
law of matter that governs Intelligence; mind alone is supreme law. What we
term laws of nature, governing man, are nothing more or less than man's belief,
producing the results of mind on his body and not matter. Life is not evolved,
but evolves phenomena. Life is eternal, giving forth its representation as the
sun emits its rays. That Life is supported by food, drink, air, etc., that it
is organic, or in the least dependent on matter, or sustained by it, is a
myth.
Soul has a body when all matter is destroyed;
the mortal body is a thing of belief called man, an error from its origin to
its end; the Truth of being is immortal Soul and body. Expose the body mortal
to certain temperatures, and belief says it has colds and catarrhs; to severe
labor, and fatigue follows ; to prick a vein lets out Life, and this man is at
the mercy of a bodkin! putting aside mind, no such results follow to man. So
long as the belief remains that dampness or cold produces catarrhs, fevers,
rheumatism, or consumption, these effects will follow, and the air of tropical
climes will afford exemption from them; but change the belief
420
with regard to this, and the effects will
change, and you will find the body manifests only what mind says, on these, and
all other points. Matter is governed by mind.
Man, pursuing zealously the conditions of his
belief, (and this is all there is to mesmerism), if told how mind affects the
body, and, to illustrate, you quote the evidence of this in mesmerism, replies,
"no man can mesmerize me." And yet he calls his body this me, and that body is
just what his parents first, and secondly himself, has made it; and these
parents were not matter, but mind, as the body proves, that is no longer thy
parent, if mind has departed.
When we reach the science of Life, we shall
learn Truth casts out devils and heals the sick, also, that Jesus gave disease
and devil one signification. Those fear not they shall murder, whose
perceptions reach the average of goodness, and if our spiritual perceptions
were up to the standard of Christians, we should no more fear sickness, sin, or
death. It is not less wise to fear sickness than to fear we shall steal ; both
are admissions of moral weakness, and a loss of control over the body that we
should not permit. Let the slave to a wrong desire learn the science of Life,
and he never more will cherish this desire, but rise higher in the scale of
being. Allowing Soul to govern sense, is science, wherein we are a law of
Wisdom to our body, of Life and not death.
Let mankind study this science with half the
avidity they peruse volumes on disease, and try the different drugs and drills
for health, and they will advance not from one disease to another, nor to
decrepitude and death, but beyond sickness into harmony and Life.
421
When "in him we live, move, and have being," is
it impossible to conclude God is equal to camphor or a sweat? Life is proved
Spirit, and not matter; and the only possible objection to our eagerly
accepting this munificence of being is, that it requires a better demonstration
of Life. The centuries are slowly, but surely, tumbling down the old corner
stones, and building on better foundations. Not far distant, the hour looks
down on us when sickness, sin, and death will be admitted error, and the Truth
that destroys them sought instead of drugs.
Mind is the only alterative of the body; every
secretion and function of the human system depend on mind and are controlled by
it. The pallid invalid supposed to be dying from a bad state of blood, is
restored to strength and health by changing her belief on this subject; it
matters not whether she knows or does not know the working of mind and its bad
effect on her body, she will recover when mind is set right on the physical
question, and the blood will circulate naturally and healthily. The Oxford
students furnished this precedent, who caused a felon to die of the belief he
was bled to death; when not a drop of blood had flowed. This single case proved
the superiority of belief over matter and blood, to kill a man. The belief that
Life is contingent on matter, or that certain conditions of the blood and
organic structure are fatal to man, must be met and mastered, before Life is
understood, or found immortal. Mind causes all conditions of the body, and you
can change them effectually and permanently only through this medium. To heal
the sick with science, has this advantage over physiolo-
422
gy, drugs, mesmerism, etc.; it is the Truth of
being opposed to its error, by which man goes up higher in the scale of being;
other methods are error opposing error, that have a temporary advantage only.
Belief is on their side to be sure, for error coincides with error, strengthens
it and weighs against the science of Life; but this has no advantage in the
scale of Truth. The perception of man's possibilities enlarges his being,
giving higher aims and broader scope to manhood. If there were no other and
higher motives for acquainting ourself with God, the Principle of man, than to
be rid of sickness, this would seem sufficient.
A student once said, "this science has made me
all I am," and that was saying more, perhaps, than he was aware. There is
infinite room in the science of man, for here the limits of personality confine
not Intelligence.
Disease is one of the beliefs of personal sense
that Truth finally destroys. No scientific work can treat of disease as an
identity, or power. Any allusion to disease, or confession that you are sick,
should be avoided, as you would shun telling ghost stories to children in the
dark. Shut out from the light, a child suffers from thoughts of danger, and so
does the adult who comprehends not his own being; the child must be taken out
of darkness to get rid of his fear, and the suffering it occasions, and so must
the man. The universal belief that suffering is physical, and not a creation of
mind, produces suffering, owing to our ignorance of its origin. That Life is
not dependent on matter we prove when Life goes on and matter is destroyed.
Spiritually, I cannot perceive sickness, sin or death; and recognize these only
as beliefs of matter.
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Sickness is error, its remedy Truth; and the
science of being reveals that our body is sensationless, and that Spirit sees,
hears, feels, acts, and enjoys, but cannot suffer; and this makes Soul and body
harmonious and immortal. To conclude our body is Life, Substance, or
Intelligence, and this body matter, that sees, hears, feels, sets, enjoys and
suffers, makes sickness, sin and death autocrats over Soul, and man a slave to
personal sense. To Soul there is neither matter, sickness, sin, or death; but
to personal sense these are realities, that even govern Spirit; what a mistake!
we know this is error, and error a belief, destitute of understanding; and
change the belief, the error changes, destroy it, and the error is gone. You
see through solid walls, hear without sound, Walk over water, and have your
body with yon in clairvoyance; but in the opposite belief of sense, your body
remains in statu quo, and your mind goes without a body. Let the mesmerizer
experience what we term the fears of personal sense, its pains or its
pleasures, and his subject has those same sensations, which proves they are
produced by mind and not matter, and are beliefs instead of the reality of
things. Sickness is not imagination ; it is more than this, it is a belief, a
conviction of mind instead of a fancy. One animal looking another in the eye
may cause a quarrel; but notice the superiority of Soul over sense, when the
eye of man fastened fearlessly on the beast, starts him away with terror. This
illustrates the effect of Spirit looking disease steadfastly in the face to
destroy it, compared with our physiological drills, drugs, and mesmerism, which
is the quarrel between beasts. When we submit to personal sense that we admit
is the author of sickness, sin
424
and death, we do not govern our bodies; we must
turn to spiritual sense for happiness and immortality. Thinking less of what we
term substance-matter, and more of substance in Spirit, we become a law to our
bodies of Life, and not death, of harmony instead of discord, and of Truth
instead of error.
I pity him more who is sick than him who is a
sinner, for we rely on God to help man in the latter, but not the former case.
If sense masters man in sickness, it may in sin, and Soul is out of office.
Because personal sense reports you poor, it may tempt you to steal; or exposed
to fatigue, or cold, say you must be sick; but should you believe it in one
case more than in the other? in both cases it misguides and deludes. The belief
that sickness is a necessity, or the master of man, disappears in science where
our normal control over the body reappears. Bathing, friction, dietetics, air,
exercise, electricity, etc., never yet made man harmonious; drugging or
pounding the poor body to make it sensibly feel well, that ought to be
insensibly well, is a sorry equivalent for the control of Spirit over matter.
Has brains, blood, heart, lungs, stomach, bones, nerves, drugs, whiskey or sin,
reduced thee to the slave of matter; remember these are not as strong as thou,
and rise to thy God-given dominion; man is not the tool of personal sense, the
Truth of being declares this. Sickness, as well as sin, is error, and can
matter err? Sickness is a jar, an abnormal action, inharmonious, and what is
the corrective of this ? matter cannot resuscitate, without mind, it cannot act
of itself. We say it can; that certain combinations, gasses, secretions, acute
or morbid conditions of matter produce inharmony, and bodily
425
sufferings also; but this is not so, if the body
causes pain it can also cure it, but matter neither caused nor cured disease;
not a gas accumulates, or a secretion takes place, or a combination occurs
without mind. We admit the voluntary action of mind controls muscles, bones and
nerves, but conclude, when these please to rebel against mind, as in case of
lameness or contraction, they will not obey, however much we desire it, and
mind has no more control over them; but this makes muscles and bones superior
to man in one instance, and in another his servant, which is unnatural and not
equal to the economy of human governments. If muscles are capable of action
without the mind, we might say they are capable of inaction also, on this same
premises, but not otherwise; and if they are able to inact of themselves at any
time, they are at all times, and man has no control over them, and one state is
as much their normal condition as the other; hence a stiffened joint or
paralyzed limb is as natural as its opposite. But if mind controls muscles in
one case, it does in all cases, When Shakespeare said, "Throw physic to the
dogs," I have some faith he added to the cast-aways, the belief of intelligent
matter. Sometimes in fevers, consumptions, etc., the patient seems full of
courage, and we say, "bow calm he is; how can he be suffering from fear; his
body is the victim of disease, but the mind is unmoved." Mind that in sickness
we deem tranquil, is frightened with its own images; fear heats the insensible
body and dashes the blood in mad currents; but Christ, Truth, stills this
tempest, with its "Peace be still." If disease can attack and control the body
without man's consent, so can sin; both are error
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to be destroyed; dare you admit Spirit cannot
govern the body when error of any nature takes it in hand? Destroy the belief
of fever and the fear it occasions, and blood will circulate again mildly, and
the body be at peace. Personal sense takes no cognizance of what is going on in
mind; it is blind to the cause of effects; to comprehend our explanation of man
you must perceive its Principle in science, that demands understanding and
demonstration; whereas personal sense requires belief only.
The metaphysical physician looks for effects
where the physical doctor thinks he finds causes. The former finds all
causation mind, the latter looks for cause only in matter; the former heals on
the scientific basis of being, whereby mind governs the body, the latter
through the belief that matter controls man. Metaphysical pathology rests on
psychology, or the science of Soul; but the signification of psychology is
perverted whenever construed mesmerism instead of science. The metaphysical
method of healing the sick labors under this disadvantage, that mortal belief
apprehends matter only, and not Spirit; and disparages the metaphysical, and
gives the physical precedence in all things, throwing all the weight of belief
in the scale of personal sense, and on the side of matter. Meeting the
affirmative to disease with a negative, neutralizes the positive belief and its
effects on the body, making discord become negative to harmony, and introducing
the science of being. A patient thoroughly booked in physiology, materia
medica, etc., is more difficult to heal with science, than one having never
bowed the knee so methodically to matter.
427
In case of insanity you argue, mentally and
verbally, against the belief that brains are diseased, the same as in other
cases of physical disorders, for all physical inharmonies proceed from mental
causes; insanity is but another form of mental error. We could afford to scorn
a bold denial of personal sense if proof was wanting; but when it is not, and
this reversed idea of man restores harmony to mind and body, as nothing else
can, we must admit it science. Did riot this Truth of being silence personal
sense and the so-called laws material, man were lost, and discord, sin and
death, immortal. Insanity is a very interesting case to treat metaphysically,
it being a clearer case, and affords better evidence of the effects of mind on
the body. The only good effect you can produce on body or brain is the result
of mind instead of matter, through the Truth of being that destroys error; but
you cannot introduce the science of being that restores health, through
manipulation; as soon teach man mathematics by rubbing his head. If the
physician is scientific he is morally and practically fit for healing, without
manipulation or medicine, and speaks as one having authority, possessing the
Truth that destroys error. Under some circumstances it is well to converse with
the patient audibly, explaining to him the science of his course; but under
others, it arrays him and his sect against you and thus retards his recovery.
Should a nurse or the friends of the sick think lightly of metaphysical
healing, or despair of the patient's recovery, you should inform them as much
as they cart comprehend, of its basis and results, requesting them, for the
sake of the sick, to leave the patient out of their thoughts as much as
pos-
428
sible, that the influence one mind holds over
another may be obviated. You have as much better opportunity to be heard
mentally, when speaking alone, as physically; we admit one cannot be heard when
others are speaking louder than himself, or talking on other subjects; and this
is why the physician needs to be alone with the patient, when mentally healing
him. A scientific practitioner never converses on other subjects when he is
treating the sick; yon cannot gain the spiritual sense of your patient if you
are addressing his personal senses, by manipulating him; besides you need to
learn your patient's mind, and to do this you must be silent and still;
manipulation, or conversation on other topics are injurious. The spirituality
that abstracts all attention from the body, never manipulates and is the only
positive position of scientific healing. The demonstrator of the science of
healing is to-day an Atlas with the world on his shoulders, and the only reason
he heals in one or a majority of cases is, not that law material or a single
opinion or prejudice is in his favor, but because it is the Truth of being
demonstrated by its fruits. Understanding the science of music, we have firm
reliance on our ability to practice it; so with the science of Life, the only
difference is, the latter demonstrates God controlling man, and the former, God
controlling music; but the latter meets with more opposition because it tends
to destroy all error, and is not understood at present.
The Scientist sees more clearly the cause of
disease in mind, than the anatomist can in body; the latter examines the body
to learn how matter is committing suicide, and the former reads mind to find
what beliefs
429
are destroying the body. The scientist is a law
to himself; he would not do wrong knowingly, and if he has not reached this
standpoint, he cannot give the more wonderful demonstrations of healing.
Whosoever justifies an evil-doer, and does not expose his iniquity, is a
partaker of his sin, and will have his reward. Whenever we have discovered a
dishonest student claiming to be scientific, we have first explained to him his
error, and next, rebuked him; and if neither explanation nor rebuke are heeded,
and he does not reform, he becomes our enemy. The greatest hindrance this
science can meet will arise from backsliding students, those claiming to
practice it who do not adhere to its moral obligations, who have not yet
realized until the fountain is purer, the stream will be turbid; mind must be
right or its action on others will be inharmonious.
A mental condition, or error of belief unknown
to both patient and physician, is not readily removed, and to gain a scientific
perception of it, or apprehend the mental condition of the sick, you must hold
the reins over your own body. Our Master knew the thoughts of others, solely
because of his goodness and spirituality; therefore, mind-reading, with him,
was very far from clairvoyance. To be able to discern the cause of sickness
after the scientific mode of our Master, depends on your spirituality,
obedience to your higher nature, after acquiring the rules of science that
guide you aright. If you are becoming spiritually minded, you will discern the
things that belong to Spirit; and in the ratio that you are not carnally
minded, and according as you surrender error, will your spiritual discernment
increase.
430
Mental healing may be done both right and wrong;
the wrong method is capable of evil, and is mesmerism, of which the lowest
natures are capable. The scientific method is without power to do evil; it is
Soul, not personal sense, or manipulation that destroys belief and fear and
heals the sick, in which mind-reading is not Only found important to your
success, but especially characterizing the demonstration. When once you
understand disease has no identity, you will perceive sickness is but a belief.
You should instruct the sick that Soul is Substance, and body its idea; that
disease is not in the idea of Soul or immortality, nor can it exist in shadow,
the body of Soul, therefore it has no existence.
The mental co-operation of the sick will promote
their recovery. To move mind from its central error, viz., that Intelligence
and Life are in the body, and matter is the master of man, is the great point
in metaphysical healing. Every invalid has an especial fear, in which some
disease and its approaching symptoms are more alarming than others; not because
the disease is more dangerous, but more feared; remove the fear, and the danger
is gone, for mind will master the disease. Physical phenomena epitomize the
mental, in which a fearful object troubles us until it is removed from our
observation. Disease is an image of mind, that must be removed from mental
sight, or the fear it occasions will increase, and this will increase the
inflammatory or morbid symptoms. A belief is the seed within itself that
propagates all physical, because all mental discord. We know this is difficult
to admit before it is understood, when the proof is ample; demonstration is
all
431
that convinces us of this fact, and until this
proof is made, you cannot be safe. Conversing on disease, reading, or thinking
about it, should be sedulously avoided. If doctors knew one half the harm clone
by medical books they would abandon works on disease, and never Speak again of
sickness to their patients. Thinking of disease and pointing out its character
makes it liable to appear on the body; such conversations or ruminations should
be repugnant as obscene thoughts or words.
Mind engenders all disease, in which case your
only hope lies in thinking and hearing less about it, or in understanding the
science that absolutely prevents it. When you employ a material remedy you must
have more faith in it than the disease, and believe you are getting cured with
more tenacity than you believe you are growing worse, that the balance of your
faith in recovery or the remedy, may restore you; this condition of mind,
neutralizing the effects of your fear, relieves the body. The whole is a mental
operation, and matter has nothing to do with it.
The mortal body is but a phenomenon of mortal
belief. Watch, then, mind more, and the body less. In case of sickness, or sin,
to destroy the one, or remedy the other, we should begin in mind instead of
matter; "pluck the beam out of our own eye, that we may see clearly to cast the
mote out of our brother's eye." Unless we are rid of blindness ourself, we are
the blind leading the blind, whereby both fall into the ditch.
The study of materia medica, physiology, etc.,
should give place to metaphysical research, whereby we gain an insight into the
power mind holds over matter.
432
Mental power, governed by science instead of
personal sense, by Truth instead of error, makes man eternal, and will destroy
sickness, sin and death; while the material methods for reaching the ultimate
harmony of man, have failed to accomplish this. The attention given medicine,
laws of health, and saving souls, bestowed upon the moral elevation of man, or
the metaphysical understanding of him, would usher in the millennium. Jesus
understood this, but the Rabbis did not; hence their scorn of the glorious
Nazarene and his demonstration above theirs. Soul takes care of the body in
science, where God is an ever-present help in times of trouble. Keeping the
body, or,, the outside of the platter, clean," is only done by keeping the mind
right. Bathing and brushing to remove exhalations from the cuticle, receive a
useful hint from Christianity, and another from the Irish emigrant, who is in
health, although in filth; showing that the physical must correspond with the
mental. When dirt gives no uneasiness, body and mind are equally gross, and the
result is not so chafing. Filthiness that harms not the filthy in mind, could
not be borne with impunity by the refined or pure; but what we need is the
clean body and clean mind, and the body rendered pure by mind and not matter,
for the latter can never do it permanently. One saith, "I take good care of my
body," and repeats his decalogue with all the zeal of a devotee; but the
scientist knows he has taken best care of his body who leaves it most out of
his thoughts; hence the demand, absent from the body and present with God.
John Quincy Adams, and hundreds of others were
instances of health and physiology; so the tobacconist
433
who has taken poison for half a century, assures
you it preserves his health; but does this assertion make it so, or establish
the fact that tobacco is a good thing, or prevent the conclusion he would have
been better without it ? Such instances only prove the power of belief over the
body, and fasten our conclusions in science, "as a man thinketh, so is he."
Mind decides the effect of drugs, regimen, physiology, etc., on the body; for
man is governed by mind instead of matter. The only condition of health and
happiness, is ignorance of the so-called laws of matter, and understanding God,
hence more confidence in Soul governing sense, and rising above selfishness, or
mere personal considerations, in which pleasure or pain of the body is taken so
largely into account, into the atmosphere of Spirit instead of matter.
A highly opinionated man, booked in the old
school systems, has little room for enlarged reasoning; metaphysical science
being intangible to touch or taste, he casts it overboard. His treasures laid
up in sects, pride, person, or popularity, are in earthen vessels, that yield
little space to God. The man of avoirdupois is shocked at our small estimate of
exquisite viands; the diminutive intellect, alarmed at our exclusive appeals to
mind, and the man of sense, sad at the prospect of Soul only! thus, when the
world is bidden come to the feast and Truth of being, one has a farm, another a
merchandise, and another a wife, therefore they cannot come; but ere long Truth
compels us to come in ways we least expect. When sickness overtakes man, he is
weak with all his imaginary strong-holds of matter, having nothing but material
law to lean upon, and this, he owns he has
434
transgressed, where can he look for immortality?
Is it to person or Principle, to matter or Spirit, to body or Soul, he finally
flees ?
If matter is the identity of man, existence is
but a continuation of personal sense that proves itself the source of pain. To
contend for personal sense, and against mind's control over the body, is like
the defendant arguing for the plaintiff, and in favor of a law that sentences
him to suffer. Sin, sickness, and death, would destroy man; then why should we
sustain these by a supposition of their inherent power and control over man,
making him amenable to laws that destroy him. Until metaphysical science
becomes popular, the weal, or vain will never advocate it, however much they
are benefited by it. Those of a very different mould are commissioned for its
hours of depreciation and struggles. The final proof that all is Spirit
hastens. Life will be demonstrated ere long according to our statement of it,
viz., Spirit and not matter; then shall we marvel at the tenacity of opposite
opinions, that with the law and prophets and science, we must at length learn
Truth of the things we suffer. Because science is in advance of the age we
should not say, "adhere to personal sense to-day, for our present life depends
on matter." If this is the case, man is mortal; but it is not so, and we cannot
advance in science until we lose this belief. Error is not a necessity at
present or in the future, and to-day is the acceptable time of Truth; the
present, even as the future, demands the science of being. To stop utterly
eating and drinking until your belief changes in regard to these things, were
error; get rid of your beliefs as fast as possible, and admit
435
the Principle, for it is the platform of health,
joy and immortality. To reach this proof by degrees, and only as we are capable
of doing so with increasing health, harmony and happiness, is the only proper
method. We would not, for we could not transform the infant at once to a man,
or keep the suckling a life-long babe. Man need not spend his days in ignorance
of the science of Life, expecting death will make him harmonious and immortal,
for it will not; we advance to Life understandingly, therefore we cannot step
at once from death to Life, or from matter to Spirit. Only as we understand the
Principle of being, and reach perfection, are we Spirit, and eternal.
Death cannot advance man but one step towards a
higher existence, insomuch as it changes not his belief but in one thing,
namely, that he died, and of the disease he supposed was killing him. Mortal
man is the same after as before the change called death; his body is the same
belief of man, the same supposed personal sense, Substance in matter, and Life
in the body, as before death; and so long as this error remains, mind being the
same, the body remains mortal. We are never Spirit until we are God; there are
no individual "spirits." Until we find Life Soul, and not sense, we are not
sinless, harmonious, or undying. We become Spirit only as we reach being in
God; not through death or any change of matter, but mind, do we reach Spirit,
lose sin and death, and gain man's immortality; hence the need to commence
Life's lesson to-day. We gain no higher experiences from death except to learn
we die not, and this we gain of Life only and not death. The science of being
reveals Substance, Intelligence
436
and Life, not matter but Spirit. Herein also we
learn the immense disparity between the belief of Life in matter and the
reality of being. Science makes the demonstration of Life perfection; and this
we all must show before we have any grounds to say we understand Life, or are
Spirit. Instead of this science requiring too much of man, at present we do not
perceive one half the rightful claims it has upon us, or we should urge them at
once on our own acceptance. The Scriptures inform us man liveth "not by bread
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Truth is the
Life of man, but the age objects to making this practical, which is generally
the case with all high requirements. We ask, consistently with the demands of
God, and to-day, that less thought be given to what we shall eat, drink, or
wear, that we live more simple and primitively, for this will increase
longevity and morality. If we admit food can disturb the harmonious functions
of mind and body, either the food or the belief must be dispensed with before
man is harmonious. The belief that matter governs the Life of man must be met
and mastered on some basis before man is learned immortal. Sickness is abject
slavery; an invalid haunted by the belief of physical suffering that masters
him at all points and on all occasions, is the most pitiful object on earth.
Laws of health constitute a government of matter over man wholly unnatural;
they attach penalties to our best deeds.
We ought to learn from history and experience
the less we believe these so-called laws the less we suffer from their
infringement, and the better we obey God's spiritual law. People who know
nothing of physiology,
437
hygiene, or materia medica, until missionaries
give them of this "tree of knowledge," suffer not as we do from the so-called
laws that we say must be obeyed or they kill us, and they enjoy better health
than those obeying them. What, then, shall we say of law "more honored in the
breach than the observance?" Slavery must yield to innate right, and destroyed
in mind, it will die out of forms of government; ignorance of our inalienable
rights makes us slaves. If we recognized all being, God, we would perceive our
dominion over Sickness, sin and death; for governments oppressive and unjust
Wisdom layeth its hand upon to destroy, and they fall forever before the might
of understanding. The watchword of freedom from the bondage of sickness and sin
is not taken up; it has no inspiration for mankind.
This is owing to the fatal belief that error is
as real as Truth ; that evil has equal power and claims with good, and discord
is as normal and real as harmony; such admissions work badly. That matter is
solid Substance, and Spirit essence inside of matter; that Spirit is Life, but
dwells in decay and death; that Spirit is God, but cannot make man without
partnership with matter; that man is not man until he is matter; are false
admissions and contradictory statements that Seem too absurd to be permitted a
place in reason. If man is matter, he is not mind, and dust is as intelligent
as Deity. If Intelligence or Spirit is in matter, the infinite is in the
finite, and Spirit is less than matter, for we cannot place the greater within
the less. If man existed not forever, and before material structure, he does
not exist after his body is disintegrated. If we
438
live after death we lived before birth. Life has
no beginning, therefore no end; all that is material must disappear before man
is found immortal. How strange, then, to conclude man would have had no
individual being unless he had been individualized through matter, an
impossible beginning of Intelligence.
The body never affected the Life of man for a
moment; eating never made him Eve, nor abstaining from food caused him to die.
Do you believe this? No! Do you understand it? No! and this is the only reason
that you doubt it; the cadaverous dyspeptic learning this, has a sweet face
without a sour stomach, and is nearer the kingdom of heaven than you. We are
attracted or repelled mentally without knowing the thoughts that lead to this.
We weep because others weep, and laugh because they laugh, and have small-pox
on this ground, for disease is not hereditary or contagious only through mind.
The more spiritual we are, the more conscious to us is an error of belief.
Surrounded by minds filled with thoughts of disease, constantly dwelling upon
their bodies, and with some complaint always ready, the spiritual suffer
greatly in this mental atmosphere; such involuntary agents of pain to
themselves and others, must be reformed. When mental contagion is understood,
these people will be avoided as we now avoid small-pox. To stop the manufacture
of disease and give us a better mental atmosphere, is worthy the present age of
progress. We would sooner risk our health, inhaling the miasma of a rice swamp,
than be obliged to listen constantly to complaints of sickness, or through
sympathy or society be kept in the mental atmosphere of the sick; some natures
may stand it, but ours has a struggle.
439
We admit man is immortal, -- our only evidence
of this, however, we gain from his harmony; discord, sickness or death never
begat this conclusion. Immortality was never demonstrated to personal sense;
but apprehending in the least, Soul and science, no man doubts his eternal
existence. Physical effects proceed from mental causes; the belief we can move
our hand moves it, and the belief we cannot do this renders it impossible
during this state of mind. Palsy is a belief that attacks mind, and holds a
limb inactive independent of the mind's consent, but the fact that a limb is
moved only with mind proves the opposite, namely, that mind renders it also
immovable. Medical works fill the mind with images of disease that are liable
sooner or later to be re-produced on the body. The consent of mind must first
be given that palsy is practical, then the circumstance said to produce it, and
the result follows you have it developed.
Ossification, or any abnormal formation of bone,
is produced by mind alone; for a bone never grew independent of mind, and the
cause producing this can remove it. What the physician and others determine is
fatal in a case, and above all what the patient believes regarding this, is the
only obstacle in the way of the recovery. A condition of matter must first have
been a condition of mind; hence to destroy the former we must begin with the
latter, and when the cause is removed its effects disappear. We will suppose
two parallel cases of bone disease, both produced similarly and attended by the
same symptoms; for one we employ a surgeon, and for the other a scientist. The
surgeon, believing matter forms its own conditions, entertains doubts or fears
in
440
regard to the case, and his state of mind is
communicated to the patient, whether verbally or otherwise. While we vainly
suppose the sick feel the effects only of thoughts expressed, they feel more
surely the unexpressed fear, doubt, or anxiety, inasmuch as it is more intense.
The scientist, understanding how mind alone forms every condition of matter,
gives courage and strength to the patient while imparting to his understanding
the Truth of being that destroys error, and restores the limb without
stiffness, displacement, or unnatural formations; whereas the surgeon's similar
case will terminate, if not fatally, in some unnatural condition of the joint.
Understanding the cause of disease wholly mental, a scientist will never for a
moment admit general opinions regarding it, or take physical symptoms into
account, except as mental conditions or beliefs to be destroyed through
mind.
Personal sense and science clash, of course, in
this statement, for they are opposites and without affinity, and this quarrel
will wax warmer until it is over, and sense yields to science. Pride,
ignorance, prejudice or passion will close the door on science until future
centuries open it wide to man, and he regains the harmony of being. If Life and
Intelligence depend on organization, man is material; and stop the functions of
the body, or let the body be spiritual, and man is annihilated; and there must
be a new creation of man. If Life escapes from matter it is not Spirit, and
must return again to matter, in which case there is no spiritual existence. If
material existence is real, the spiritual is unreal, and vice versa ; if
Life is matter, or in matter, it cannot continue outside of matter; and
material decomposition
441
must reduce material man to dust. Even the worm
begotten of death, springing from corruption, we name Life in matter; making
Life a product of death and death a product of Life. When will the age awake to
reason on being, as fairly as on other subjects.
We should object to natural history leaping thus
the barrier of species. There is neither vegetable, animal, nor organic Life,
if Life is Spirit, and the testimony of Scripture and demonstration of Life
prove that it is. Called to the bed of death -- the Truth of being is your only
resource to restore health and raise up the so-called dying; on its basis alone
can you recognize immortality, and dispute personal sense or the apparent fact
of death, with Soul; man is not dying if Intelligence is Life; man's being is
mightier far than death, for Truth is mightier than error. Your privilege is to
prove "He that believeth in me," i. e., understandeth the Truth of being,
"shall never see death." Understanding Life, destroys death. We have
demonstrated the effect of this statement of science on the sick sufficiently
to establish its practical value. Though we admit man is immortal, we apprehend
Life only as a thing material, or escaping from the body; this is not correct;
personal belief and error is responsible for this wrong statement of God. Death
is but another phase or belief of the dream of life in matter; and while there
is no reality in either, both will continue until the science herein stated is
understood. The obsequies of the dead are a pitiful part of this dream, when we
remember Life has neither beginning nor end. The so-called dead, although
liberated from their belief that Life has ended, or even changed to them, are
separated
442
from our opinions and recognition of them; and
they have no more cognizance of the body we are disposing of than we of their
actual existence; these two dreams of Life are separated never to unite again
until we pass into their phase of belief, or at length reach the understanding
of Life and yield the error of personal sense, or matter-man, for Life that is
God.
Science reveals immortality in such a light it
precludes the possibility of Life in mortality. The lessons of earth should
lift the affections and understanding to a spiritual base whereby we lose error
to gain Truth, for, "he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."
Electric currents never passed from Spirit to matter; Spirit evolves the idea
of Life, and this idea has no fellowship with matter or decay; to this final
understanding we are all hastening.
We will suppose a case on the docket of mind, in
which a man is charged with liver complaint. The patient feels ill, ruminates,
and the trial commences. Personal Sense is plaintiff; Man, the defendant;
Belief, the attorney for Personal Sense; Mortal Minds, the jury, and Materia
Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Mesmerism, and Mediumship the judges. The evidence
for the plaintiff being called, testifies:
" I am Laws of Health, was present on the nights
the prisoner (patient) watched with the sick, and, although I have the
superintendence of human affairs, was personally abused on those occasions, and
informed I must remain silent until called for at this trial, when I should be
allowed to testify in the cue. Notwithstanding my rules to the contrary, the
prisoner watched with the sick every night in the week; ,when thirsty,
he gave
443
them drink, and when sick, and in prison, he
visited them;" at the same time attending to his daily labors, partaking of
food at irregular intervals, sometimes retiring immediately after a heavy meal,
etc., etc., until he was guilty of liver complaint, that we construe crime,
inasmuch as we deem it punishable with death; therefore I arrested the man in
behalf of the State (body) and cast him into prison. At the time of the arrest
he summoned Physiology, Materia Medica, Mesmerism, and a masked individual
named Mediumship, to prevent his punishment or imprisonment. The struggle, on
their part, was long; missives of matter were employed vigorously but
unavailingly; Materia Medica, held out the longest, however, being paid for it;
but at length they all gave up their weapons to me (Laws of Health) and I
succeeded in getting Man into close confinement." The next witness being
called, stated:
1, 1 am Coated Tongue, covered with a foul fur
placed on me the night of the liver complaint, Morbid Secretions, Irregular
Appetite, Constipation, Foul Stomach, and Debility being witnesses. Morbid
Secretions mesmerized the prisoner, took control of his mind, producing
Somnolence, etc., making him despondent, also, the sooner to precipitate his
fate." Another witness being called, took the stand and testified:
"I am Sallow Skin, dry, hot, and chilled by
turns since the night of the liver complaint. I have lost my healthy hue and
become bad-looking, although nothing on my part occasioned this; I have daily
ablutions, and perform my functions as usual, but I am robbed of my good
looks." The next witness testified:
"I am Nerves, generalissimo of man, intimately
ac-
444
quainted with the plaintiff, Personal Sense, and
know him to be truthful and upright, while Man (the prisoner at the bar) is
capable of falsehood. I was witness to the crime of liver-complaint; knew the
prisoner would commit it, for I convey messages from my residence in matter,
alias brains, to the body, and am on intimate terms with Error, a
personal acquaintance of the prisoner, but a foe to Man." The name of this
third person was called for by the court, and the reply was, "Mortality,
governor of the state (body) in which Man is supposed to reside." In this state
there is a statute regarding disease, namely, that Man upon whose person
disease is found should be treated as a criminal and punished with death.
Judge. "Did Man, by doing good to his neighbor
possess himself of disease, transgress your laws and merit punishment?" "He
did." The deposition of Bowels was then read, they being too inactive to be
present. Another witness took the stand, and testified as follows: "I am
Ulceration; was sent for shortly after the night of the liver-complaint, by
Laws of Health, who protested the prisoner had abused him, and my presence was
required to make valid his testimony. One of the judges, (Materia Medica) was
present when I arrived, endeavoring to assist the prisoner to escape from the
hands of what he termed justice, alias nature's law; but my sudden appearance
with a message from Laws of Health changed his purpose, and he decided at once
the prisoner (patient) should die."
The testimony for the plaintiff (Personal Sense)
being closed, Materia, Medica arose and with great solemnity addressed the
jury, (Mortal Minds) analyzing
445
the offence, reviewing the testimony, and
explaining the law relating to liver-complaint, the conclusion of which was,
that laws of nature render disease homicide. In compliance with a stern duty,
Materia Medica said he must charge the jury not to allow judgment to be warped
by the petty suggestions of Soul; to regard in such cases only the mortal
evidence of Personal Sense against Man. As the judge proceeded, the prisoner
(patient) grew restless, his sallow face blanched with fear, and a look of
despair and death settled upon it. A brief consultation ensued, when the jury,
Mortal Minds, returned a verdict of guilty, the prisoner being charged with
liver-complaint in the first degree. Materia Medica then proceeded to pronounce
the solemn sentence of death upon the patient, who, for loving his neighbor as
himself, was found guilty of benevolence in the first degree, that led to the
committal of the second crime, liver-complaint, that matter-laws construe
homicide, for which crimes we sentence this man to be tortured until he is
dead, and may God have mercy on his soul.
The prisoner, (patient) was then remanded to his
cell (sick bed) and Theology sent for to prepare Soul that is immortal, for
death! the body, called Man, having no friends. Ah! but Christ, Truth, was
there; the friend of man, to open wide those prison doors and set the captive
free. Swift on the wings of Love a message came, "Delay the execution! the
prisoner is not guilty." Consternation filled the court-room, some exclaiming,
it is contrary to law and order; others,
Christ walks over our laws, let us follow
Him."
After much debate and opposition, permission
was
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obtained for a trial at the bar of Spirit, where
Science should appear as counsel for the poor prisoner. Witnesses, judges, and
jurors of the Mental Court of Common Errors were summoned to appear at the bar
of Truth. When the me for man versus matter opened, his counsel was
regarding the prisoner with the utmost tenderness, but that solemn, serene look
changed, the earnest eyes kindling with hope and triumph uplifted for a single
moment, turned suddenly to the Mental Court of Common Pleas, and Science opened
the argument by saying: "The prisoner at the bar has been sentenced unjustly
his trial was a mocking tragedy, morally illegal; Man has had no counsel in the
case; all the testimony was on the side of matter, and we will unearth this
foul conspiracy against the liberty and life of Man. The only valid testimony
in the cue proved the alleged crime was never committed, and the prisoner
unworthy of death or of bonds. Your Honor, Materia Medica, has sentenced Man,
the image of God, to die, denying justice to the body, has recommended mercy
for Spirit who is infinite Wisdom and Man's only law-giver! Here you win please
inform us who or what has sinned; has the body committed a deed ? Your counsel,
Belief, argues, that which never sinned should die, while mind, that is capable
of sin and suffering you comfort and commend to mercy. The body committed no
offence, and man in just obedience to higher law, helped his fellow man, which
should result in good to himself. The law of our Supreme Court decrees, whoso
sinneth shall die, but good deeds immortalize man, bringing joy instead of
grief, pleasure instead of pain, and life instead of death. If liver com-
447
plaint was induced, trampling upon Laws of
Health, it was a good deed, the witness is a usurper of man's liberty and
rights, and should be consigned to oblivion. Watching beside the couch of pain
in the exercise of Love, that fulfills the whole law, doing unto others as ye
would they should do unto you, is no infringement of law, for no demand, human
or divine, renders it right to punish a man for doing right. If man sins, our
Supreme Judge of equity decides the penalty due to sin; but he can suffer only
for sin, and for naught else can he be punished according to the laws of God;
then what jurisdiction has your Honors, Materia Medica and Physiology in the
case? 'Sittest thou to judge a man after the law, and commandest him to he
smitten contrary to the law?' The only jurisprudence to which the prisoner
shall be made to submit is Truth, Life and Love, and if these condemn him not,
neither shalt thou condemn him, but shall restore to him the liberty against
which you have conspired.
1 Your principal witness (Laws of Health)
deposed he was an eye-witness to the good deeds for which you sentence a man to
die, and even betrayed him into the hands of your law, then disappeared on that
occasion to reappear on this, against Man, and in support of Personal Sense, a
known criminal. The Supreme Court of Spirit, versus matter, finds the
prisoner, on the night of the alleged offence, acting within the limits, and in
obedience to the divine statute, upon which 'hangs all law and testimony,
giving a cup of cold water in my name,' etc.; and thus laying down his life, he
should find it; such deeds beer the justification, and are under the protection
of the Most High ruler. Prior
448
to the night of the arrest the prisoner summoned
two judges, Materia Medica, and Physiology, to prevent his committing
liver-complaint; but they employed their sheriff, Fear, who handcuffed him and
precipitated the deed you would now punish, leaving Man no alternative but to
believe your law, fear its consequences, and be punished for all this. The
judges struggled hard to rescue the prisoner from the penalty they considered
justly due; but failing in this, ordered him to be taken into custody, tried
and condemned, whereupon these abettors appear at the bench to sit in judgment
against him, and recommend the jury, Mortal Minds, to find the prisoner guilty.
Their Honors sentence Man to die for the offence they compel him to commit;
construing obedience to the law of Love disobedience to the law of Life,
claiming to wrest Man from the penalty of law at one time, and at another
sentencing him by it.
"One of your principal witnesses, Nerves,
testified he is a ruler of the State, (body) in which he says Man resides; that
he is on intimate terms with the plaintiff, and knows Personal Sense to be just
and truthful, but man, the image of God, a criminal. This is a foul aspersion
on his Maker, unworthy a worm; it blots the fair escutcheon of Intelligence;
'tis a malice aforethought to condemn Man in defence of matter. At the Bar of
Truth, in the presence of Justice the judge of our Supreme Court, and before
its jurors, Spiritual Senses, I proclaim this witness, Nerves, destitute of
Intelligence, without Truth, possessing no reality, and bearing the messages of
Error only. Man self-destroyed, the testimony of matter respected, Intelligence
not al-
449
lowed a hearing, Soul a slave recommended to
mercy, whose body is supposed to be executed-are the terrible records of your
mental Court of Common Pleas."
Here the opposite counsel, Belief, called
Science to order, for contempt of court, and their Honors, Materia Medica,
Anatomy, Physiology, Mediumship, and Mesmerism rose to the question of
expelling Science from the bar, for high-handed treason, and stopping the
judicial proceedings. But Justice, the judge of the Supreme Court of Spirit,
overruled their motion on the ground that parliamentary usages are not allowed
at the bar of Truth, that holds jurisdiction over the petite Court of
Error.
Science then read from his own statute, the
Bible, remarking it was better authority than Blackstone, extracts from the
Rights of Man. "And I give you power over all things that nothing shall by any
means harm you." "Let us make man in our image, and let him have dominion over
all the earth." "Whoso believeth in me shall not see death," etc.; proving the
witness, Nerves, a perjurer, and instead of a governor of the state, (body),
wherein man was falsely reported to reside, an insubordinate subject, prefering
false claims to office, and bearing false witness against Man. Then turning
suddenly to Personal Sense, (by this time silent) Science continued, I order
your arrest in the name of Almighty God, on three separate charges: perjury,
treason, and conspiracy against the rights and existence of God's image and
likeness. Another testimony, equally unimportant, said that a garment of foul
fur was spread over this witness, by Morbid Secretions, on the night of the
liver-complaint, while the facts in the case proved
450
this fur was foreign, and imported by Belief,
the attorney for Personal Sense, who is in company with Error, and smuggles his
goods into market without the inspection of Soul's government officers.
Whenever the court of Truth summons Furred Tongue to appear for examination, he
disappears, and is never more heard of. Morbid Secretion is not an importer or
dealer in fur, but we have heard their Honors, Materia Medica and Mediumship
explain how it is manufactured, and know they are on friendly terms with the
firm of Personal Sense and error, receiving pay for their goods, and
introducing them into market. Also be it known, that Belief, counsel for the
plaintiff, Personal Sense, is a procurer for this firm; manufactures for it,
keeps a furnishing store, and advertises largely for this firm. Ulceration
testified he was absent from the state (body) when a message came from Belief,
commanding him to take part in the homicide; at this request he repaired to the
spot of liver-complaint, frightened away Materia Medica, who was manacling the
prisoner under pretence of saving him, but this ignorance, not malice, was in
fact an unconscious participation in the deed, for which Laws of Health has had
Man, innocent of all crime in the case, imprisoned, tried and condemned to
die.
Science then turned from the abashed witnesses,
with words like sharpened steel, pointed at the hearts of Materia Medica,
Physiology, the felon Mesmerism, and the masked form, Mediumship, saying: God
should have smitten thee, thou whited walls, sitting to judge in justice, but
condemning in thine ignorance the prisoner who sought your aid in his struggles
against the deed whereof you accuse him, then coming to his rescue
451
only to fasten, through false testimony, an
offence on the prisoner of which he is innocent; aiding and abetting that for
which you would sacrifice man, declaring your executioner, Disease, to be God's
servant and the executor of His laws, when our statute decides your witnesses,
jurors, and judges condemned, by higher law, and only awaiting the executioner,
Progress. We send our very best detectives to whatever locality you report your
Disease, but visiting the spot, they learn it was never there, or it could not
elude their discovery. Your Mental Court of Errors, at which you condemn or
acquit man on the ground of disease, is the oleaginous machinations of your
counsel, Belief, that Science arraigns before the supreme bar of Soul, to
answer for his blood-shed. You taught Morbid Secretions to make sleep befool
his reason, before sacrificing man to your gods; your jurors, Mortal Minds,
were mesmerized by your attorney, Belief, and compelled to deliver man to his
open-jawed packs. You would transform good deeds into crimes, to which you
attach penalties; but no warping of justice renders disobedience to Laws of
Matter, disobedience to God, or an act of homicide; for matter cannot kill what
Spirit has made.
Even penal law construes homicide under stress
of circumstances justifiable, and what greater justification hath a deed than
that it did good to our neighbor, wherefore, then, we ask in the name of
outraged justice, do you sentence Man for ministering to the wants of his
fellow man, in obedience to higher law? You cannot walk over the supreme bench;
Man is amenable only to God, who sentences for sin only. The false and unjust
beliefs of your Mental Court of Errors enact
452
a law of sickness, then render obedience to this
law punishable as crime; such are the spurious enactments of "knowledge." In
the presence of the supreme law-giver, standing at the bar of Truth and in
accordance with its statutes, I repudiate the false testimony of Personal
Sense, forbid his entering more suits against man to be tried at the bar of
matter, and appeal to the just and equitable decisions of Spirit to restore the
prohibited rights of the body.
Here the counsel for the defence closed, and the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with benign and imposing presence,
appropriating, comprehending, and defining all law and evidence explained from
His statute, the Bible, how law punishing aught but sin is null and void. Also
that the plaintiff, Personal Sense, is not permitted to enter suits at the bar
of Soul, but required to keep perpetual silence, and in case of temptation, to
give heavy bonds for good behavior. The plea of Belief we deem unworthy a
hearing upon all occasions; therefore, let the things it has uttered, now and
forever, fall into oblivion, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. According to
our statute, Laws of Matter cannot bear witness against man, neither can Fear
arrest him, nor Disease cast him into prison; our law refuses to recognize man
sick or dying, but holds him the image and likeness of immortal Soul; reversing
the testimony of Personal Sense, and the decrees of the Court of Error in favor
of matter versus man, we decide in favor of man and against matter; therefore,
we recommend that Materia Medica, Physiology, Laws of Health, Mesmerism and
Mediumship be given a public execution at the hands of our Sheriff, Progress.
The supreme bench
453
decides in favor of Intelligence, and that no
law outside of mind can punish man. Your personal judges of the Mental Court of
Common Pleas are chimeras, your attorney, Belief, an imposter persuading Mortal
Minds to return a verdict contrary to law and Gospel, while your plaintiff,
Personal Sense, is recorded in our Book of books, a perjurer. Our Teacher of
spiritual jurisprudence said of him, "You were a liar from the beginning." We
have no trials for Disease at the tribunals of Spirit, and man is adjudged
innocent of transgressing physical laws, because there is no spiritual statute
relating thereto. The law of Christ, Truth, is our only code, and "will not the
judge of the whole earth do right ? "
The plea of Science closed, and the jury of
Immortal Mind agreed at once upon a verdict, and there resounded throughout the
vast audience chamber of Soul, "NOT GUILTY"; then the prisoner (patient) rose
up strong, free, and glorious. We noticed as he shook hands with his counsel,
Science of Life, all sallowness and debility had disappeared, his form was
erect and commanding, his countenance beaming with health and happiness;
dominion had taken the place of fear, and man no longer sick and in prison
walked forth, "whose feet were beautiful upon the mountains."
The above allegory illustrates the effect of
mind on the body, how the testimony of personal sense and the plea of belief
would punish man; while the plea of Science commutes the sentence of error,
with Truth.
When symptoms of sickness are present, meet them
with the resistance of mind against matter, and you will
454
control them. Life, that is Soul, must triumph
over sense at some time, and it is wise to-day to learn this of scientific
being. Silently or audibly, according to the circumstances, you should dispute
the reality of disease on the basis of the explanations herein given; when
healing mentally call each symptom by name, and contradict its claims, as you
would a falsehood uttered to your injury. Here is a phenomenon I will state
just as I discovered it; if you call not the disease by name when you address
it mentally, the body will no more respond by recovery, than a person will
reply whose name is not spoken; and you cannot heal the sick by argument,
unless you get the name of the disease; but the higher method of healing in
Christian science is, so to live that your Life, " hid with Christ in God," is
the Life of Soul that destroys the errors of sense. Agree not with sickness,
meet the physical condition with a mental protest, that destroys it as one
property destroys another in chemistry; understanding this in science, your
mind will neutralize the disease, destroy the fear, and the system will regain
its equilibrium.
I have seen a dose of Truth, regarding disease,
produce stronger physical effects than ever I witnessed from a dose of drugs.
The opposite negative neutralizes the affirmative of disease, and thus destroys
it. We have before told you all is mind; therefore, what you term physical
effects, are purely mental ones. The mental admission produces what is named
the physical effect ; hence the fatal results of treatises, admitting,
describing, or locating disease. Diagnosing symptoms physical, to learn the
actual cause of bodily discord, when mind is the only causation, is error,
proved
455
already the procurer, instead of destroyer of
disease. I never presume on statements diametrically opposed to personal sense,
unless I have proved their Truth beyond a doubt. I have tested this mode of
healing with scientific certainty, in many cases, and in no case has it failed
to prove a benefit to the sick. The task, herculean, of introducing a science
has before been tested by patient discoverers; but when the Truth of being is
learned, it will be proved. It was said to us, "The whole world feels you, and
why are you not more widely known?" Could they have seen the little time we
have to be known, and how our work is done, in the closet with the door shut,
,seen by Him who seeth in secret," they would have understood why. To make a
specialty of healing is really impossible for us, when our time, means, and
health are required for the fuller investigation of this subject; to teach,
write, establish practices for students, or halt, perhaps, at measures to be
adopted, because of persecution. None should reject Truth because it exposes
some past poverty of opinion, or requires the surrender of present beliefs.
Indifference to Christian science surprises one when we know it is the eternal
right in which God holds the scales, and adjusts all harmonious balances. Even
doctrines and beliefs are to-day reaching forth their hands for the science of
being; and that which reveals Truth ought not to be misjudged because of
ignorance or prejudice.
Some of our present readers may wish to tone
down the radical points in this work, others to cast them overboard; yet
science will reproduce itself, and as mind changes base from matter to Spirit,
there will be
456
severe chemicalization. Truth cannot be lost; if
not admitted to-day in its fullness, the error that shuts it out will occasion
such discord in sickness, sin, etc., that future yews will point it out, and
restore at length the fair proportions and radical claims of Christian
Science.
FINIS.
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