Mary Baker Eddy – A New Look At Her Place in Bible
Prophecy
(And Its Deep Meaning For These
Crisis-Ridden Times)
by Helen M. Wright
Dear Reader: In explanation of the few pages
that might come loose: Six years ago when Boston attorneys threatened to sue
because a copyright was claimed on the beautiful Bliss Knapp material, the
writer removed the “offending” pages and pasted in substitute pages.
The glue is not holding up. But this may eventually add to the book's
value.
© Copyright Helen M. Wright 1980ISBN 0-9604648-0-8
Dedication:
This book is lovingly dedicated to the spiritually-minded reader, to the pure
in heart, and in particular to: Bill, Anna, Zoltan, Grace, Marie, Francie,
Rookie, Kathleen, Johnny, both Margies, Juliann, Tommy, Rocky, Sally, Jackie,
Bessie, Elsie, Florence, Tina, Billy, and Diane with whom I (as the Moderator)
held regular meetings for over two decades, and with whom I have had an
unbroken friendship stretching over more than four decades.
Acknowledgments: Gratitude and appreciation is
expressed—To my husband Bill, who encouraged me to write this book and
assisted in many ways.— To John W. Doorly of London, England, who as early
as 1916 began to glimpse the working of the system in the textbook, Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy—”the
system that she denominated Christian Science.” Since 1945 Doorly
and the illustrious students who have followed the same line have published
over one hundred books and pamphlets explaining the system of Christian Science
which Mrs. Eddy embodied in the textbook.— To Richard Oakes for making
available to the world—in his two books: Essays and Other
Footprints, and Divinity Course and General Collectanea— some
of the Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr. Collection of the wonderful Mary Baker Eddy
teachings not contained in her published writings.— To Ralph Geradi, who
for over half a century has been a true and trusted friend of the Christian
Science movement, and has filled a unique and special part in God's
plan.—To International Metaphysical Association, Inc., for their generous
and faithful world-wide support of the pure Science of Christian Science
activities, and their wholehearted support in the publication of this work.
Foreword
Mary Baker Eddy, the Revelator to this age,
can be known and understood only through her writings. To Scientists who are
seeing that the textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,
reveals their true identity as coexistent and coeternal with God, Mrs. Eddy's
name, like the name of Jesus, becomes ever more sacred. Her God-appointed
mission to complete the works of Christ Jesus on earth—to discover the
grandeur of divine Science and to found it in human consciousness—was
sublimely consummated. She revealed humanity's oneness with God, the one Mind
and divine Principle, Love. She showed us that what Jesus did individually each
one of us can and must do, so that man generically is found to be God's image
and likeness.
Jesus offered the highest proofs of divine
Love, but his hearers understood neither his words nor his works. History
repeated itself in the reception given Mary Baker Eddy, and in 1893 she pointed
out to her most advanced students that “for the world to understand me in
my true light and life would do more for the Cause than aught else could. This
I learn from the fact that the enemy tries harder to hide these two things from
the world than to win any other points. Also Jesus' life and character in their
first appearing were treated in like manner. And I regret to see that loyal
students are not more awake to this great demand in their measures to meet the
enemies' tactics” (Divinity Course and General Collectanea,
hereinafter abbreviated to “DCC,” p. 111. See Appendix).
The central theme of these seminars is,
first, to show Mary Baker Eddy's place in Bible prophecy; and second, to show
that Mrs. Eddy as Revelator, Discoverer, Founder, and Demonstrator of divine
Science, laid the foundations in human consciousness that are ushering in a
totally new structure of consciousness. Then as Isaiah said: “unto us a
child is born.”
Because of the world's gross materialism and
its utter lack of mental preparedness to receive a spiritual revelation of the
magnitude of that which came to Mary Baker Eddy in the year 1866, she had to
veil this Science of the Christ, this spiritual leaven, in her textbook. Much
of her highest teaching is cloaked in mystical symbolism. She hid it in such a
way as to require growth in spiritual understanding before her meaning could be
understood.
While a great deal has unfolded in the
seventy years since Mrs. Eddy left us in person, it may require the entire
seven-thousand year period, or the next millennium to fully disclose to
humanity as a whole what is contained in the textbook, Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures, and its solution for all humanity's woes.
To make available to others our research and our glimpses of
the meaning of this mystical symbolism, as well as to call attention to Mrs.
Eddy's place in scriptural prophecy, has been the objective in recording these
class Sessions. The Sessions are based on Mrs. Eddy's statement: “Those
who look for me in person, or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me
instead of find me” (My. 120:2). We find Mary Baker Eddy in her
writings as well as in scriptural prophecy as “The woman,” whom
Jerimaiah (31:22) said would, “compass a man,” meaning she would
teach all that Jesus had proved to be true, and bring the second coming of the
Christ,” “the Comforter.”-Helen WrightAutumn 1979
Explanatory
Notes:
Many of the explanations brought out by the students in these
Sessions can be found in the writings of ALICE ORGAIN and other early recorders
of the life and teaching of Mary Baker Eddy.
Italics not appearing in the original are
sometimes used in quotations, not to emphasize, but to identify that portion of
the quote directly applicable to the point under discussion.
Abbreviations for the titles of Mrs. Eddy's
writings are those used in the Concordance to (Miscellaneous Writings and
Works Other than Science and Health.)
References to Science and Health with Key to
the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy are shown in parenthesis, e.g. (464:12).
EOF and DCC:
EOF is the abbreviation for Essays and Other Footprints
DCC is the abbreviation for Divinity
Course and General Collectanea.
Spelling of fulfil and fulfilment, practice and practise is
in conformity with Mrs. Eddy's spelling.
CONTENTS
PART I: MARY BAKER EDDY'S DIVINELY
PROPHESIED MISSION
PART II: MRS. EDDY FOREVER FOUND IN HER
WRITING SESSION
APPENDIX
PART I: MARY BAKER EDDY'S
DIVINELY PROPHESIED MISSION
SESSION 1: GOD'S
MESSENGERS
INTRODUCTORY
Moderator: In this present series of
seminars we are going to look at Mary Baker Eddy in a new way. We will see her
not as an individual but as the fulfilment of the prophecies regarding her that
run through both the Old and New Testament. These prophecies culminate in
Jesus' prophecy to St. John concerning the woman of the Apocalypse who was to
bring the Comforter Jesus had promised in chapters 14, 15, and 16 of St. John's
Gospel.
This Comforter, Divine Science, enables man
to become aware of his perfect completeness as an ever-present fact. The woman
in the Apocalypse who symbolizes generic man (561:22) brings forth a
“man child,” called Science and Health. In the sixteenth to the
fiftieth editions of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy identifies herself
unmistakably with the woman of the Apocalypse.
What does this tell us?
The woman of the Apocalypse, who symbolizes
generic man, “weds” her own “man child,” Science and
Health. This simply means that the Mind, God, that wrote Science and Health is
wedded to the truth expressed in that “precious volume.”
Jesus prophesied that the Comforter, Divine
Science—all that the woman of the Apocalypse stands for—would reveal
to you all things, would teach you all things, and would bring to your
remembrance all things that he had said. Jesus further stated that he had yet
many things he would like to say unto his disciples, “but ye cannot bear
them now [it would take nineteen centuries of spiritual growth before men would
be ready for his 'second coming'.] Howbeit when he, the spirit of Truth, is
come, he will guide you into all truth. . . .” (See John 14, and 16.)
Tommy: Jesus was speaking
for all mankind, and was foreseeing the time when the “spirit of
Truth,” the Comforter, Divine Science, would lead man, generically
(meaning all mankind), to be the Son of God. He foresaw the time when everyone
on earth would have the same understanding of God that he had
Moderator: Yes, Tommy, Jesus
called himself the “bridegroom” (John 3:29). He could call himself
the bridegroom because he had “wedded” himself to divine Science,
meaning he understood Divine Science and practised it.
Bessie: In this biblical symbolism,
who would the “bride” be?
Moderator: The Mind of Christ, the
Mind that wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, would be the
Bride. The Bride is the Science that explains how Jesus performed his works,
and how each one of us can do what Jesus did, and do even greater works. (As we
continue with these Sessions all these symbols Mrs. Eddy uses in Science and
Health such as “Bride,” “Bridegroom,” “Father,”
“Mother,” “woman of the Apocalypse,” “wilderness
woman,” “man child,” and many other symbols, will become quite
clear. As in any other subject, patience and a desire to understand are the
prime requisites.)
Kathleen: Then this would be why Mrs.
Eddy can equate herself with the woman of the Apocalypse as she so unmistakably
did in former editions of Science and Health?
Moderator: Yes, Kathleen. And as she
unmistakably does in our present edition on page 565 where she states that
while the impersonation of the spiritual idea had but a brief history in the
earthly life of Jesus, of his kingdom there shall be no end. This immaculate
idea, she says, “represented first by man,” meaning by Jesus, and
represented “last by woman,” meaning by Mary Baker Eddy, will
“baptize with fire; . . .”
There are many other passages in her
writings in which, when we look with spiritual sense, we have no difficulty
grasping the fact that Mrs. Eddy very definitely identifies her mission with
what is symbolized by the God-crowned woman.
Science and Health is the “little
book” with which the God-crowned woman is pregnant. In Revelation 12:5
this “little book” is referred to as “a man child”:
“And she brought forth a man child…” This man child is
TRUTH, which Mary Baker brought to this age. It is the second coming of the
Christ. This second coming of the Christ is destined to lift man out of the
belief of mortality and into his native province as one with God.
Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures is the whole Word of God. It encompasses the Bible. Through the
“system” Science and Health contains, it is a full and final
revelation of God's nature and of man's nature as God's reflection. This
revelation, being a Science, will unfold forever, since “God expresses in
man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher
and higher from a boundless basis” (258:13).
Francie: It is this wonderful
revelation, then, that is equated with “the Lord God Almighty”
in Revelation 21:22 (576:8), isn't it?
Moderator: Yes, Francie, it is the
revelation and the founding of it in human consciousness that is equated
with “the Lord God Almighty”—the revelation and all it
signifies and entails, and its complete assimilation by humanity.
We can see, therefore, that Mary Baker
Eddy's consciousness must be Spirit since “Spirit is the only substance
and consciousness recognized by divine Science” (278:4). Spiritual
consciousness enabled Mary Baker Eddy to receive this profound revelation even
as it will enable us to receive revelation. So it is the God-consciousness of
Mary Baker Eddy that is equated with the “Bride” of Revelation, as
well as with the woman of the Apocalypse, as we shall see.
The important thing to remember as we
progress with these Sessions is that Jesus manifested the idea of the
fatherhood of God and Mary Baker Eddy manifested the motherhood of God. Through
her discovery of divine Science—as its Revelator and Demonstrator and her
founding of it in human consciousness—Mrs. Eddy revealed God's motherhood
character. This means that she revealed divine Love. It is only through divine
Love that man, generically—meaning all mankind, humanity as a
whole—can become the Son of God, as is divinely prophesied in the symbol
of the woman of the Apocalypse. Becoming the Son of God means the ushering in
of divine brotherhood, or divine unity. There can only be true individuality
when individuality rests upon this Christ Science, because this Christ Science
shows God (Principle) to be the only creator and the Father of all, the divine
Principle of all. This means that every individual consciousness reflects its
divine Principle, Love, and via Principle, reflects every other consciousness,
which also reflects the living love of its divine Principle. This is the
“unity” of divine Love. Love is the Principle of unity, and there can
be no true unity without it.
Who would like to add something regarding
Jesus' prophecy to St. John about the woman of the Apocalypse, and how Mary
Baker Eddy fulfilled that prophecy?
Anna: Mrs. Eddy introduced a totally
new way of looking at God. She discovered divine Science which is a completely
new Science that shows the nature of God. Her discovery was a Science that
explained God, or Being. She explained Principle and Principle's universe as
God presented it to her, discarding once and for all the viewpoint of
conventional religion. Therefore if we want to be Scientists we too must start
with God Principle, and leave the ruts of human thinking and reasoning.
In her reasoning Mrs. Eddy always started
with God, Principle, and never left God's standpoint. This approach was totally
new. Religion had always started with man and consequently arrived at a
man-like God. But, as the woman of the Apocalypse, Mrs. Eddy had to start with
God and never leave God's standpoint. She wasn't the woman of the Apocalypse
only from 1866 to 1910 but for all time, and when we understand that Mary Baker
Eddy is the woman of the Apocalypse, we no longer have a fleshly person
or a time sense. “Mrs. Eddy” and “the woman of the
Apocalypse” are just different names for the same sense, but neither of
them is a person. What Mrs. Eddy wrote was the woman of the Apocalypse writing
it; what Mrs. Eddy brought was the woman of the Apocalypse bringing it. The
woman of the Apocalypse is just a symbol for what Mrs. Eddy brought to the
world. Mary Baker Eddy is the name God uses to give Science and Health
to the world. Science and Health shows the Science behind Jesus' startling and
yet natural demonstrations and examples as God's Principle’s personal
representative.
Moderator: Note to the reader: In
Part I of this book Mrs. Eddy is introduced, and the reader is shown how and
why, because of personal viewpoints, she was lost to many—to those who saw
her only as another mortal—just as Jesus was lost to those who saw him
only as the son of Joseph and Mary.
In Part II Mrs. Eddy is found.
Part I shows the logical growth from the idea
of wonderful and creative persons to the certainty of one all-responsible
Person. Through the evidence presented, the most materially-minded inquirer
would be forced to admit that Mary Baker Eddy was not an ordinary
person—in fact Mrs. Eddy would be “lost” if she were confined to
the ordinary sense of “persons.” The inquirer is led to see that Mary
Baker Eddy had to be the way God was appearing to so-called material,
personal, thought—first as a scribe of thought contained in a book, and
finally as the God-offering that embraces and closes the book when its contents
have been assimilated and man finds himself as God's own image and likeness.
The reader finds himself as “incooporial, divine, supreme, infinite Mind,
Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love, of which man is the image and
likeness.
PROPHECY INVOLVES
FAITH
Moderator: Our subject for today
is Mary Baker Eddy's place in Bible prophecy. Prophecy involves the genius of
faith. Why is faith important?
Anna: It's important because what Mrs.
Eddy discovered is unseen to the physical senses. Through the Science and
system presented in the Christian Science textbook, she has given us the method
whereby we can, individually, receive revelation direct from God divine
Principle, in the same way she did.
Unequivocally she teaches that man is not a
corporeal being, but is an infinite spiritual calculus of divine ideas, always
bringing forth new revelations of goodness and perfection.
A doctrine as radical as this, that can in no
way be compromised with the evidence of the five physical senses, must at first
be accepted on faith since mortals are prone to believe only what they are
aware of through sense testimony and what they have been taught to believe. The
false testimony of the eye tells us the sun rises and sets. Until recently we
had to accept on faith what natural science had discovered to be the fact about
the earth's daily rotation.
Bill: Faith is important because it is
the open door to learning in any subject. If I want to learn music I accept on
faith that learning the seven notes: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, (do), will
pave the way to my eventually understanding music. If I want to understand and
use arithmetic, I accept on faith that learning the four basic functions:
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, is essential. To acquire
reading skill, I accept on faith that learning the alphabet is a necessary
first step.
Dawning of Spiritual
Realities in Faith
Sally: I like to think of the faith our
great inventors had, and the faith that people like Charles Lindberg had when
he flew the Atlantic, and the faith our spacemen had, more recently, when they
journeyed to the moon.
Mrs. Eddy says that spiritual realities dawn
in faith and then glow full-orbed in spiritual understanding. (298:3) [This
is so because as Jesus taught, “the kingdom of God is within you.”]
Francie: You might say that faith is
that element of intelligence that enables divinity to reach humanity.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen.” Through faith, patience and persistence we inherit the promises of
our union with God. As we strive to enter the kingdom of heaven we constantly
turn away from material sense and look toward the imperishable realities of
Spirit. (21:9)
In Hebrews we read, “Through faith we
understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which
are seen were not made of things which do appear” (11:3).
Moderator: We have seen how valuable
and indispensable faith is. Now let's look a little more closely at Mrs. Eddy's
place in Bible prophecy.
Why is it important to be aware of Mrs.
Eddy's place in Bible prophecy?
Kathleen: If we know her place in
Bible prophecy it is a great aid to our understanding, because as has been
pointed out, we accept spiritual realities on faith before we completely
understand them. Moses was appointed to lead the people out of darkness. In
order to lead them, he had to evoke their faith and allegiance.
God's Messengers
Mistakenly Seen As Mere Mortals
Moderator: Jesus had difficulty
persuading his followers that he had a message straight from God, just as Mrs.
Eddy had the same difficulty nineteen centuries later when she came to complete
his work on earth, and fulfill Jeremiah’s prophecy: “A woman shall
co-pass a man” which Mary Baker Eddy did in the great divine revelation
that came to her.
The disciples and others saw Jesus as the
son of the local carpenter. This is why they were tempted to forsake and deny
him at the crucifixion. Jesus had to arouse them from this spiritual ignorance.
Both before and after the crucifixion he continually drew their attention to
his role in Bible prophecy, to the part he was to play in God's plan of
salvation.
In the conversations he had with his
followers, after his resurrection, we are shown, unmistakably, the importance
he placed on their seeing his role in scriptural prophecy.
Anna: That they had not taken Jesus
seriously is implied in St. John's report of the conversation between Jesus and
Mary Magdalen (John 20:15-17) and in John's statement: “for as yet they
knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead” (John
20:9). But Jesus refused to be defeated in his life-mission, and he instructed
Mary Magdalen, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my
Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17).
So Mary Magdalen alerted the disciples. Had
she not done so, they might not have been receptive enough to recognize him.
Their unbelief might have shut him out, since they were absolutely convinced he
was dead. The crucifixion and death of Jesus caused the disciples and his other
followers to doubt his teachings. On the walk to Emmaus, even though they had
been alerted by Mary Magdalen, they were still questioning his
Messiahship—they “reasoned.” They were uncomprehending. It was
then that Jesus saw the need of defending his mission, so he “drew near
and went with them,” and expounded in all the Scriptures the things
concerning himself. (Luke 24:15-16). His renewed explanations, together with
all that had happened, finally opened their eyes. They saw Jesus' true identity
as portrayed in Bible prophecy, and they were never again tempted to forsake
his teaching or be disloyal.
It is the same with Mary Baker Eddy and her
teaching. She explained her place in Bible prophecy, just as Jesus had
explained his. She was not just another religious leader. She was commissioned
by God, divine Love, to bring the promised Comforter, and complete the works of
Christ Jesus on earth.
Moderator: We look for Mary Baker
Eddy not only in her writings but also in the many prophecies and references to
her coming found in the Bible.
John the Baptist had been quick to recognize
Jesus as the Lamb of God, but not so the chief priests and elders who were
always trying to trick Jesus into saying something for which they could condemn
him. When the elders asked him by what authority he did his mighty works, he
questioned them about John the Baptist whom the people loved. (Matt.
21:24-27) He didn't tell them anything. He had the wisdom to let his
heaven-bestowed authority remain a mystery to them. Mrs. Eddy did the same.
Jesus and Mrs. Eddy both knew that spiritual things must be spiritually
discerned.
We are today being asked if Mrs. Eddy's
teachings are from heaven or of men. Mrs. Eddy knew her teaching was from God,
that she was fulfilling Bible prophecy, but she also knew that the less said
about it in her lifetime the better. Unwise talk about it only stirred up her
enemies to heap on her more scorn, envy, reviling, and hate. This led her, when
dealing with enemies, as for instance in the Woodbury lawsuit (according to
Bliss Knapp), to advise her lawyers to convince the court that “a little
white-haired old lady couldn't possibly be the woman of the Apocalypse.”
Mrs. Eddy did this to offset the enemies' charges, and circumvent their sly
maneuvers to discredit her divine mission.
Again, in her diversionary tactics, she
calls attention to the woman spoken of in the twelfth chapter of Revelation as
prefiguring no special individuality, but as just symbolic of purity much as
the Statue of Liberty is symbolic, and doesn't represent any particular man or
woman. While this is true in one respect, we could say the same thing regarding
Micah's prophecy of Jesus (chapter 5:2) made many centuries before Jesus
appeared; or Isaiah's prophecy (chapter 53) or any of the prophecies referring
specifically to Jesus.
When something Mrs. Eddy had to say as a
temporary defense strategy for the protection of her founding mission—or
when she is reported to have said this or that—if it conflicts with what
she said in Science and Health, all loyal Christian Scientists will adhere to,
and honor, what Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health. In her chapter, The
Apocalypse, Mrs. Eddy makes it clear to the discerning reader that St. John's
revelation concerned her mission to complete the work of Christ Jesus on earth;
and that the God-crowned woman and the wilderness woman symbolize her two-fold
mission: first, of receiving the revelation—that is, making the
discovery—and second, founding it in human consciousness. But it must be
clear that in equating Mrs. Eddy with the woman of the Apocalypse we do so in
consonance with her statement that looking for her elsewhere than in her
writings would mean losing her instead of finding her. (My. 120:2) Equating
Mrs. Eddy with the woman of the Apocalypse is revolutionary. It will be
repeated many times. All students must clearly understand that what is equated
with the woman of the Apocalypse (who symbolizes generic man) is the God-Mind
with which Mrs. Eddy is identified. When Peter correctly identified Jesus,
saying, “Thou art the Christ,” it was the teachings of Jesus he was
referring to, and not the personal Jesus. When we speak of Mary Baker Eddy in
the same way, it is her writing and teaching that we are identifying as the
Christ, not her physical personality. As a human personality, Mrs. Eddy counted
herself as the weakest of mortals, but as the Discoverer and Founder of Divine
Science she knew she was the bone and sinew of the world.
Mrs. Eddy Recognized
As Prophesied Woman Of Apocalypse
Margie: Carolyn D. Noyes, an early
student of Mary Baker Eddy, states that a distinguishing feature of Mrs. Eddy's
students and loyal followers, and of her faithful Normal teachers, was that
they recognized Mrs. Eddy to be the woman St. John prophesies in Revelation
XII. They recognized that the “little book” spoken of in a previous
chapter of Revelation is Science and Health, because the “angel”
thought, meaning the Mind of Mary Baker Eddy, that brought the book, declared
there should be time no longer. Only Science and Health brings such a message;
it reveals the unreality of mortal mind and of all that goes with mortal mind,
and time belongs to mortal mind. Just as in mathematics where 2x2=4 has nothing
to do with time.
Mrs. Eddy's Science and her spiritual
interpretation of the Bible insure the understanding that time is a mortal
element. The city foursquare appearing at the end of the Bible is a view of
timeless reality, which impels the journey from sense to Soul, until God's
kingdom is revealed as ever-present, and time and mortality “fall into
oblivion, 'unknelled, uncoffined, unknown' “ (441:11).
“Mrs. Eddy's loyal students knew that
Truth, Christ, would come by the woman—by the woman St. John prophesies in
Revelation XII. Mrs. Eddy's loyal students,” writes Mrs. Noyes, “knew
that no mortal could have been instrumental in the coming of Christian Science;
they knew that the ‘little book’ must be in accordance with the
prophecy, “the seed of the woman.” They recognized that the
“little book,” Science and Health, makes it clear that the unity of
the male and female as two individual natures in one, was the divinely united
spiritual consciousness that perfectly reflects God. In this consciousness
there is no impediment to eternal bliss, and this divinely united spiritual
consciousness is the central theme of Science and Health. “In so
believing,” states Mrs. Noyes, “they recognize the only true Leader
in Mrs. Eddy, the Revelator, the Discoverer and Founder of the Christ, Truth;
and they recognized Science as containing the whole undivided Truth that is
saving the world. They consider it an altogether sacred book, as prophesied by
St. John; and they feel confident by the results of their work in casting out
error and healing all manner of discord that it is the Word of God, and it will
save all who trust in it; they see in it a continuation and confirmation of
Jesus' teaching” [Miscellaneous Documents Relating to Christian
Science], p. 277. See Appendix).
Moderator: It seems clear that if the
world is to receive the message Mrs. Eddy brought then it must have the
right evaluation of the messenger. All Christian Scientists know that
the advent of Jesus was the “first coming” of the Christ, and they
are just as convinced that Mary Baker Eddy's discovery of divine Science and
the founding of it in human consciousness as Christian Science, fulfilled the
prophecy of the “second coming.” Both the Old and New Testaments
supply ample biblical authority for the conviction that Mrs. Eddy was God's
messenger. She was the woman who was to take the leaven of Spirit and Truth and
hide it in a right interpretation of Science, Theology, and Medicine until the
whole lump of mortal error—the material theoretical
life-basis—yielded to the spiritual and divine Principle, and the whole
earth was transformed by Truth. One God can have only one whole divine
and perfect reflection. This one whole divine and perfect reflection is generic
man—the Christ.
Mrs. Eddy's prophetic role must be
understood, not for her glorification, but simply because seeing her as God's
representative to this age is a necessary step to seeing Truth correctly. If we
look for Mary Baker Eddy in her writings (My. 120:2) then the name Mary Baker
Eddy is synonymous with this one whole divine and perfect reflection, or
generic man, the Christ. But Mary Baker Eddy is not synonymous with the divine
reflection or generic man if we look at her as a person, a human personality.
Restoring Mrs. Eddy to her rightful status in world consciousness and thus
retoring to Christian Science its temporary “lost element of
healing,” stands as the Mary Baker Eddy Institute’s Holy Grail.
Christian Science
Originating With God
Grace: Christian Science couldn't
have been a human invention; it must have originated with God. Only by divine
revelation could Mrs. Eddy have discovered the Science that is destined to
revolutionize world thought and usher in the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Moderator: Yes, Understanding the
healing Truth she discovered returns. Mary Baker Eddy, the Revelator,
Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science to the spiritual pinacle where she
so rightfully belongs.
Mrs. Eddy always made sure her students
understood that it was the truth revealed to her by divine Mind, and which
found expression through her, that was the Leader of the Christian Science
movement. It was never a corporeal personality.
Her discovery of Christian Science fulfilled
prophecy, and Mrs. Eddy constantly endeavored to turn the thoughts of her
followers away from herself as a human personality to the contemplation of the
Science, the divine revelation, that had come from God to the world through
her. She brought the Christ Science, “the divine manifestation of God,
which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error” (583:10).
There is an article by Mrs. Eddy explaining
the scientific phenomenon of individual being as the final outcome of the life
more abundant. In it she said:
Jesus' mission on earth was to show by
demonstration that there is no corporeal personality, no sickness, no sin, no
death.
According to Christian Science, the word
“person” means divinity, not humanity. This Science teaches that
there is absolutely no such thing as physical personality. The incarnation (or
fleshly environment) of Jesus was intended to illustrate the process by which
physicality (or so-called material personality) is
diminished—that proportionately as the human mind is
spiritualized, physical personality decreases, until it finally disappears, as
Jesus vanished in the ascension.
Jesus' work was individual, and can never be
repeated. His reappearing must be impersonal. His second coming must be as an
idea, not as corporeality. The second coming must present, not mind as
incarnated in matter, or soul circled in the flesh, but a realization of Life,
Truth, and Love in their spiritual signification, as set forth in the
Scriptures and in Science and Health.
The mother who believes she gives, or can
give, birth to a babe whose career will be an improvement upon that of
Jesus—or will even reproduce his individuality—labors under a greater
delusion than is found in the widely diffused doctrine concerning the second
advent of Christ; because this [belief in a human personality] implies that the
infinite can be embodied in the finite, and that there can be a material
reappearance of what St. Paul calls 'the man Christ Jesus'; whereas the Savior
proved that his growth was a progress upward and out of corporeality,
into Spirit, not a retrogression downward, into the flesh. [Note: The
belief that mortals are here to create othermortals is very strong. And it was
the Chapter “Marriage” that saved the Cause. Mrs. Eddy did not want
to teach today more than what the age has strength to bear. Jesus was crucified
because he taught “death would never cease until ye women cease your child
bearing; and “blessed are the wombs that never bear and the paps that
never gave suck” Mrs. Eddy did not want to be crucifed so she wrote the
Chapter Marriage.
“No mortal man or woman ever will, or
ever can, take Jesus' place, or again fulfil his earthly mission. His work is
already accomplished and needs no duplication. What will be developed through
Christian Science, and is now unfolding itself, is the purer idea and spiritual
manifestation of the Christ character in word and deed. The personal appearance
of the Master was but once, and for all time.”
“The spiritually scientific phenomenon
of individual being is the final outcome or result of the life more abundant
which the Savior gave to the world in his demonstration of the unreality of
what is called material personality, and his witness that the belief of any
possible life, substance, and intelligence in or of matter is an illusion. He
is simply mad who avers that a mortal and material man or woman is Deity, the
divine Principle, or can be the divine idea. Such a blasphemous allegation,
such a materialistic conjecture, such a misdirected imagination is
anthropomorphic, and leads to atheism ...” (EOF. 23).
The Christ
Character
Elsie: What would be “the Christ
character” that Mrs. Eddy speaks of?
Margie: I think it would be those
third degree qualities Mrs. Eddy writes of: “wisdom, purity, spiritual
understanding, spiritual power, [love], health, holiness” (116:2). The
more these become natural to us, the more the depraved and physical-unreality
traits such as evil beliefs, passions and appetites, etc., are supplanted by
the wonderful transitional qualities of humanity, honesty, affection,
compassion, etc., which then again, in turn, lead us to the spiritual qualities
of wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, etc. (115-116)
Mrs. Eddy wanted Christian Scientists to
look into their own hearts and turn upon themselves the magnifying lens of
Truth that brings to light their errors. She felt that an unwise word or deed
of ours is a shovelful of earth thrown upon the grave to which the enemies of
our cause would consign Christian Science. We all must learn, when alone, to
guard our thoughts, when struggling with mankind, our temper, when in society,
our tongue. No reproof, she says, is as potent as the silent lesson of a good
example. (Mis. 126:20) There is no limit on how fast we can go in reforming and
transforming ourselves, but we should not attempt this too rapidly with our
neighbor. “The warfare with one's self is grand. It gives one plenty of
employment” (Mis. 118:25). It's a wise dog that scratches his own
fleas.
Every minute we are faced with a choice of
operating in the calculus of Spirit and Truth, or in the material calculus that
counterfeits our divine identity and beingness, and leads only to death. The
basis of Christian Science is love loving, returning good for evil; love that
sufferith long, and is kind. This, Mrs. Eddy said, is the basis of Christian
Science.
Sally: We must learn that Love alone
is life. Learning this gives birth to the true man, to reality. Then
individuality is universal in its expression and brings about collective
salvation, the brotherhood of man. This divine brotherhood can only come about
as we lay down the mortal belief of life, substance, and intelligence in
matter, and so become one with our divine Principle. The Ego of each one of us
is not in ourselves but in the divine Principle, God, from which our
reflection, is inseparable. Remember, our Mind, being God, has a reflection or
it wouldn’t be Mind.
The Transitional
Qualities
Bessie: I sometimes get the feeling
that many think they can succeed without what Mrs. Eddy calls “second
degree” qualities (115:26), the “transitional” qualities,
namely: humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, etc.
Moderator: Those who think that, will
be turned sadly awry. These qualities are encompassed in the spiritual
qualities of wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, etc, that make up the
Principle of our being. And this Principle of our being which encompasses the
moral or “transitional” qualities is just as inexorable as the
principle of mathematics. When we believe 2x2=5 we suffer from that error in
our calculations until it is corrected. Mathematics isn't literature that needs
only to be read; neither is Christian Science. Thinking to enter the kingdom of
heaven without the “transitional” qualities of humanity, honesty,
affection, compassion, etc., is like starting with the letter and thinking to
succeed without the spirit. Life and Love demand that we work out our own
salvation but this cannot be done without encompassing the
“transitional” qualities, the moral qualities. Bringing to light the
true man in place of the caricature presented by the senses means the culturing
and incorporating of those wonderful transitional qualities in our daily life.
There can be no individuality divided from
the divine Principle which includes the transitional qualities. True
individuality is the reflection of divine Principle, Love, and must be
integrated within the universal being of God. In reality we all come from the
same source, so the transitional qualities are innate in us all.
The system of Christian Science enables each
one of us to become individually self-governed, and to be a law unto ourselves.
Imbibing the spirit and gaining a spiritual understanding of the order,
diversification, categories, and system which constitute the Science of
Christian Science is the Spirit itself, and makes the letter and Spirit one,
and in this oneness the moral, the transitional qualities, are included.
The Bible And Mrs.
Eddy
Tina: We have talked a lot about the
Bible and about Jesus. What part did the Bible play in Mrs. Eddy's life work?
Florence: We know the Bible was a
comfort to Mrs. Eddy during her entire life. After she discovered Christian
Science she realized it had prophesied her coming, but the Bible was a closed
book until God revealed its meaning to her seventeen years after the
publication of Science and Health. It was not until 1883 in the sixth edition
that she received the Key to the Scriptures.
I think even Christian Scientists tend to
forget that at the time Mrs. Eddy brought the Comforter, Divine Science, the
“Christian” conception of Jesus was very limited. Very little was
taught of Jesus beyond a crucified Savior dying to appease an angry God who
refused the world salvation without the shedding of blood—and that,
literally. Further, it was generally believed that man's salvation depended
only upon asking forgiveness in His name, etc. So we need only compare the
world's concept of God and Jesus before the advent of Mary Baker Eddy in order
to perceive how she has revolutionized the world's thinking on these subjects.
She resurrected Jesus from a “crucified Lord” to “him,
glorified.” She has indeed fulfilled Jesus' promise of the
“Comforter” who would reveal all things.
Today, Christian Scientists, and the world
in general, have become so accustomed to the higher concept of Jesus revealed
by Mrs. Eddy, they scarcely remember what the “Christian” concept of
Jesus was a century ago. But it will take much spiritualization of thought to
understand all she has written. Centuries will elapse before the world
generally becomes aware of what Mary Baker Eddy brought in fulfilling her
mission as the second coming of the Christ. But that understanding will come
and as we restore Mary Baker Eddy to her rightful status in world consciousness
we will also restore the healing ability of Christian Scientists.
Tina: Mrs. Eddy loved her Bible,
didn't she?
Moderator: Yes, Tina, all her life
she went to it for comfort and guidance. She saw how genuine the Scriptures
were. “The genuineness, in the main, of the Scriptures is that the views
of their writers exposed them to suffering and violent deaths, and yet they
held steadfastly to the facts which they recorded. Had they not been honest in
their records they would have been men encountering great suffering in the
maintenance of what they knew to be false and by immoral means attempting to
establish a cross-bearing Christianity” (EOF. 49). Mrs. Eddy saw the
Scriptures as an infallible guide when understood spiritually. She saw
them as containing the truth of God and man, of Soul and body.
Victory Prophesied For
Her Mission
Anna: Also, Mrs. Eddy loved the
Scriptures because they testified of her and foretold her divine mission to
complete the works of Christ Jesus on earth. This was a herculean task and, as
we have seen, Mrs. Eddy stood absolutely alone, just as alone as Jesus had
stood nineteen hundred years before. She had to begin where Jesus left off. Her
great comfort was her Bible and its prophecy of the ultimate victory of her
cause. She had nothing else to lean on. Her help had to come from God, from a
higher than human source. No one on earth could know the burden Mrs. Eddy bore
in carrying out the divine purpose dictated by God, namely, to find evil to be
nothing and divine Love to be All, thus laying in human consciousness the
foundations of heaven, through the Science and system embedded in the textbook,
where it could be studied, pondered, and learned.
Juliann: Isaiah 54 is an instance
where the Bible comfortingly prophesied victory for the Science Mrs. Eddy was
to establish on earth: “Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed; neither
be thou confounded; ... For thy Maker is thine husband; ... for the Lord hath
called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit.... 0 thou afflicted,
tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair
colors, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.... In righteousness shalt thou
be established.... No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and
every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.”
Micah, who prophesied the birthplace of
Jesus, also prophesied of her that “travaileth”:
“But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though
thou be little ... yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be
ruler in Israel [ruler within each consciousness—each spiritual, divinely
scientific consciousness] whose goings forth have been from of old, from
everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which
travalleth hath brought forth; then the remnant of his brethren shall return
unto the children of Israel” (Micah 5:2, 3). Mrs. Eddy explains this verse
as showing that the “Jesus thought” is the mediator between God
(perfect Mind) and man (human mind), or we can say it is the link between the
human and the divine. This “Jesus thought” must reign until it has
put all enemies under its feet. (See I Cor. 15:25.) When all enemies have been
put under its feet we reach Science (the Bride). In the great revelation that
came to Mrs. Eddy in 1866 she glimpsed the fact that on the level of Science
itself everything is perfect now; everything is God, Mind, Principle and His
reflection—“the moon was under her feet”—hence there is
then no longer a need for a mediator between God and God's own
reflection of Himself. But until Science itself is understood and demonstrated,
Christian Science, absolute Christian Science, and divine Science are here to
guide us into a spiritual divinely scientific consciousness that knows no evil.
As the Master said, “He [Christian Science] shall glorify me.”
Bill: Mrs. Eddy needed every bit of
encouragement the Bible could give her. This was especially true in the early
years when no student remained loyal for very long. In October of 1876 she
wrote Daniel Harrison Spofford, “The mercury of my mind is rising as the
world's temperature of thought heats up and the little book ‘sweet in the
mouth’ but severe and glorious in its proof, is about to go
forth…But, my student, in my lonely chamber I read the coming storm. I
feel it gathering…I feel like a tired and wounded soldier of the cross,
taken to the rear; but my wounds are enlivening my soldiers, I do believe; if
so, God give me more—and teach me all I need—and make me more of a
blessing; poor, weak and unworthy, on one hand, august and glorious on the
other! Pray for me, dear student.” (Preserved in Alice Orgain
Library.)
Mrs. Eddy Laying Her
Own Foundations
Moderator:Before Mrs. Eddy could show
that Jesus was demonstrating a Principle she had to lay her own foundations. As
the Bride-consciousness, she had to bring her foundations with her from heaven,
just as though there had never existed such a person as the Galilean Prophet
(My. 318:31). The foundations she laid were revealed to her by God, divine
Principle; therefore in her writings she shows that Jesus was demonstrating a
Principle. The works he did had no more to do with his personality than if he
had been a great mathematician demonstrating the principle of mathematics. Our
ability to demonstrate mathematics has nothing to do with our so-called
physical body; it only has to do with learning and understanding the principle
of mathematics. To those who understand the mission of the Comforter, the name
Mary Baker Eddy is synonymous with divine Principle, Love. (See My.
120:2.)
Anna: So we can see in fulfilling
Jesus' promise that the Comforter would reveal all things, Mrs. Eddy actually
had to lay her own foundations because the teaching of Jesus had largely been
lost, and its Principle had never been understood. The Bible, through material
interpretation, had become a valley of dry bones. (See Ezekiel 37.) Mary Baker
Eddy's work was to regenerate the dry bones of the Bible-symbols into living
ideas. As Alice Orgain points out, “Surely Abraham, as Bible symbol, is
not as great as ‘fidelity’ or idea in Science and Health;
surely Moses, as Bible symbol, is not as great as ‘moral courage’ in
Science and Health, etc.” (As It Is, p. 48). Also, see Glossary
(579-599). Each of the Bible characters, Mrs. Orgain explains, is something we
each are innately.
Mrs. Eddy was the first to interpret the
Scriptures in their true sense and so reveal the spiritual origin of man.
“God requireth that which is past, “ i.e. God required Mrs. Eddy to
interpret the Bible in its spiritual meaning so that it could become the
foundation for her great discovery that all is infinite Mind infinitely
manifested.
Tommy: Further answering Tina's
question, “What part did the Bible play in Mrs. Eddy's life work?” it
is vital to remember that in “the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God
gave unto him,” Jesus prophesied the coming of divine Science, the
Comforter, the spirit of Truth. It was to come in the form of a book. This book
was in the hand (hand stands for power) of the angel, meaning in the Mind of
Mary Baker Eddy. God was the Author of the textbook, but to make it
understandable to us, God used Mary Baker Eddy as His divine channel, just as
two thousand years ago He used Jesus as His divine channel for His Message at
that time.
Mrs. Eddy's “Key to the
Scriptures” made it possible to interpret the Bible spiritually, and to
see the Science in it. The Key consists of her seven synonymous terms for God
and her revelation of how these seven synonyms operate through the Word,
Christ, Christianity, and Science, which today we would call input, process,
output, and feedback. Mrs. Eddy also revealed in the textbook how these
seven synonyms for God operate on the four levels of spiritual consciousness.
Mr. Doorly was the first to discern in the textbook of Christian Science the
divine system which Mrs. Eddy had provided as the key to the Scriptures.
Francie: It is interesting that Mrs.
Eddy knew that every advancing epoch of Truth would be characterized by a more
spiritual apprehension of the Scriptures that would show their marked
consonance with the textbook of Christian Science Mind-healing in which she
gave us the Science of the Word, the Science of the Christ, the
Science of Christianity—in other words, the Science of
being. (See Mis. 363:30.)
Moderator: We have been talking about
God's messengers, His “two witnesses,” Christ Jesus and Mary Baker
Eddy. We have seen that when faith “glows full-orbed in spiritual
understanding,” God's messengers will not be looked upon as mere mortals,
but will be seen as God, Principle, Love, coming to us as Jesus the Christ, and
as Mary Baker Eddy. Those who look for Mary Baker Eddy in her writings will see
her as the prophesied woman of the Apocalypse, and will realize that Christian
Science originated with God, not with a mortal.
In our Session today we have seen that
“the divine must overcome the human at every point” (43:27); all
mortal traits and characteristics must be supplanted with the Christ character,
as we more and more let the spiritual qualities (S&H page116) replace the
depraved qualities of mortal mind. In this way we gradually come to manifest
the image and likeness of God, [and this in turn allows us to grow into seeing
that we are Mind, Principle, or God].
Only that consciousness which is Love alone
can become aware of reality, and become one with it. “The beast bowed
before the Lamb,” before the consciousness that is Love (womanhood). Mrs.
Eddy says, “It was supposed to have fought the manhood of God that Jesus
represented; but it fell before the womanhood of God, that presented the
highest ideal of Love” (Hea. 10:5). Jesus, with the manhood
qualities of God, proved there is no intelligence, substance, or life in
matter. Then Mary Baker Eddy, showing the divine Science that lay behind his
ability to give this proof, founded in human consciousness the great truth that
All is infinite Mind infinitely manifested, for God is All-in-all. (468:9)
During the coming millennium this will all become practical.
Bill: We've talked a lot about
“prophecy” and Mrs. Eddy's place in prophecy. Before we leave could
we have a word on just what prophecy is?
Moderator: Prophecy considered in the
light of Christian Science has a meaning or aspect not recognized by other
systems of religion. In Christian Science, prophecy is not merely the
tabulating of future events chronologically and then awaiting their coming.
This, in effect, would be fatalism, which is paganism. Christian Science is
founded on Principle, God, and is demonstrable according to pure spiritual law.
The blessings Christian Science brings are
not to be postponed. They are omnipresent, here and now, so one doesn't
have to wait for them. To accept all the good that has been prophesied for us,
only one thing is necessary, namely: ENLIGHTENMENT, understanding.
In the past, enlightenment has seemed to
come only through cycles of time and a gradual development. When the prophets
saw that by means of right knowing they could prevent disasters, they were led
to prophesy the coming of the Christ, the divine idea that saves and heals.
In Christian Science there can be no
prophecy but the prophecy of good, since God infinite good is All-in-all, and
there is nothing else that has reality. Speaking of John the Baptist, Mrs. Eddy
said: “He who knew the foretelling Truth, beheld the forthcoming
Truth” (Mis. 82:6), and this is the true character of prophecy.
Anything that was true in the time of the prophets is eternally true. All good
is now and always has been self-existent as our true Mind and intelligence.
Good requires no time and no thinking process. Good is and always has been
spontaneous and immediate, needing no development. In Christian Science we
correct things both inside ourselves (character faults) and outside ourselves
only in the proportion that we correct our own consciousness.
In Revelation we read, “Behold, I make
all things new.” This “I” that makes all things new is your true
“I” and everyone's true “I,” since there is only the one I
AM that we all are in reality. In Christian Science this “I” is
revealed as infinity, since every idea reflects every other idea via divine
Principle, God which we are. Therefore, reflecting Truth, infinity, it is our
duty and privilege to fulfil prophecy in righteousness, scientifically. Waiting
for something to happen is not Christian Science. We reject evil, of any kind,
as pure illusion or as Spirit incorrectly viewed. What we are looking at is
always Spirit, God, if rightly viewed and beheld.
Any view of prophecy that makes sin and
suffering inevitable or which makes progress contingent upon either or the
other is contrary to Christian Science. To maintain a mental attitude that
postpones our blessings tends to deprive us of them. The fact is that all good
is now; there never will be more good than there is this minute. Just as with
the principle of mathematics where all mathematical possibilities are now; time
and space do not enter.
SESSION II: SOME HIGHLIGHTS
—
MRS. EDDY'S FULFILLING OF PROPHECY
Moderator: Today we will be looking
more closely at the woman of the Apocalypse, and we will see how Mary Baker
Eddy fulfilled St. John's prophecy of this woman. We have seen that the woman
of the Apocalypse is also a symbol for each one of us. The “child” we
are bringing to birth, through sore travail, is our recognition of our true
Christ selfhood. Through the study of our textbook, Science and Health, we each
become a mother to this “Child,” to this understanding that Principle
and its idea is one, that subject and object is one, and that
manhood and womanhood is one and indivisible.
Today we will delineate a few of the
highlights in Mrs. Eddy's life as she fulfilled her mission of teaching,
guiding, helping, explaining, and nurturing her students in support of the
divine seeds she was sowing in human consciousness.
PICKING UP WHERE JESUS
LEFT OFF
Mrs. Eddy had to begin where Jesus
left off. Jesus showed the ascending footsteps. Mrs. Eddy, in accordance with
Jesus' prophecy that the Comforter would “bring all things to your
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26), had to lay the
same foundations that Jesus laid before she could go on to her own mission of
revealing the motherhood character of God.
The Comforter, or the Bride-consciousness,
is a divine Science. A Science shows the motherhood of God because it teaches
us in easy steps how we can lay off the mortal and put on the immortal nature
of our being.
The only way we can become this
Bride-consciousness, which means complete at-one-ment with God Principle, is
through the assimilation of the truth in Science and Health, the textbook of
Christian Science. As we assimilate its teachings, we approach nearer and
nearer to this divine Principle. Of this process—the process that leads us
to the Bride-consciousness—Mrs. Eddy says: “When you eat the divine
body of this Principle [the Principle that is the
Bride-consciousness]—thus partaking of the nature, or primal elements, of
Truth and Love—do not be surprised nor discontented because you must share
the hemlock cup and eat the bitter herbs . . . “(559:23). The
Bride-consciousness cannot come unless we lay down the mortal, and laying down
the mortal is usually resisted to the hilt, and proceeds slowly through great
suffering, sweat, tears, agony. He that overcometh gains the
Bride-consciousness, which is always present. Mortal consciousness,
however—with it’s adamant of self-will, self-justification, self-love
(242:16)—hides and wars against the spirituality that constitutes the
Bride-consciousness. (For further explanation of “Bride” see
“Definitions” in Appendix.)
Marie: Did Jesus have the
Bride-consciousness?
Anna: Yes, Jesus was using Science or
the Bride consciousness or he could not have made what Mrs. Eddy calls
“his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the
flesh.” Only through the Bride-consciousness or an understanding of man's
oneness with God, could Jesus have managed such a feat. Jesus is called the
Lamb of God because he totally sacrificed the mortal sense of life. And because
he got self out of the way he was in a position to wed the Science of Love, the
Bride-consciousness. In mathematics we only wed the principle as we get self
out of the way and abide strictly with the principle.
Rocky: What is meant when you speak
of Mrs. Eddy's manhood reflection of God? How does it differ from her bridal
reflection?
Grace: Her “manhood”
reflection of God was her wilderness-woman or motherhooding phase, meaning her
teaching and all that was necessary to lift the students up to her level of
understanding, whereas the Comforter, or the Bride-consciousness, is both
masculine and feminine. “The Lamb's wife presents the unity of male and
female as no longer two wedded individuals, but as two individual natures in
one” (577:4).
The Bride-consciousness has to include the
masculine elements since she must bring her own foundations (the ascending or
masculine phase) with her from heaven. We will see this more clearly as we go
along. The Bride-consciousness, being the full reflection of God, Principle,
Love, must encompass the foundations Jesus laid and bring these foundations
with her as she comes from heaven. Mrs. Eddy's mission was a descending
mission in contrast to Jesus' ascending mission. Her mission started from
God instead of teaching mortals how to reach up to Him.
Florence: We saw in our previous
session that the woman of the Apocalypse symbolized the mission of Mary Baker
Eddy who was to show that the real life of man is entirely separate from the
dream of material living. In material living the delusion persists that man and
woman are separate. They believe that through physical union they can become
creators and create other physical bodies in their own image and likeness, thus
usurping the prerogative of the divine creator who creates all spiritually in
the image and likeness of divine Mind. The woman of the Apocalypse symbolizes
the end of human birth, the end of sin, disease, and death. She symbolizes the
fact that lust and hypocrisy will be overcome because of the teaching of the
“little book,” which destroys the dragon of Old Theology. The dragon
is destroyed because the woman's teaching ushers in a totally new structure of
consciousness wherein man finds himself ever beautiful, complete, and perfect,
since he is the perfect reflection of a perfect God.
Man Both Masculine And
Feminine
The new era brought by the woman shows man
in his true nature, both masculine and feminine, a combination of spiritual
understanding and perpetual peace. We learn heaven is here, now. We need only
awaken out of the Adam-dream to see heaven ever-present.
This divinely scientific view of man may not be fully
understood for centuries to come. It is held back by the adamant mortal traits
of self-love, self-will, self-justification, which war against spirituality and
continue the willful procreation of mortals, the law of sin and death, for sin
brings death, and death will only disappear with the disappearance of sin.
Heaven is a divine state of mind, but it is
not a breeding ground for mortals. Mrs. Eddy severely and vehemently rebuked
James Gilman (artist for Christ and Christmas) when he painted figures
of children or cherubs for the eleventh (or ascension) picture, saying
indignantly, she “would not have anything of this personality
represented which was according to the old idea, as if heaven was a breeding
place of personal forms as this world of belief is” (Recollections of
Mary Baker Eddy, p. 52. See Appendix.)
Who would like to comment further on this
subject?
Human Birth A
Mirage
Johnny: As the teaching of Science
and Health—Mrs. Eddy's “man child”—is assimilated, it
replaces materialistic consciousness with spiritual consciousness. From the
vantage point of spiritual scientific awareness human birth and death are seen
as merely hypnotic suggestion, a mirage, which is dissipated by a correct point
of view. This new dimension of consciousness, which the woman of the Apocalypse
reveals through her “man child,” will destroy forever the physical
plagues imposed by material sense. (575:4)
Our Wedding To
God
Bessie: Mrs. Eddy writes that
“the Revelator saw also the spiritual ideal as a woman clothed in light, a
bride coming down from heaven, wedded to the Lamb of Love.” What does it
mean?
Moderator: In Bible symbolism, the
woman of the Apocalypse who brings forth the “man child,” the Lamb of
Love, is wedded to that “man child,” or Lamb of Love, since the
textbook, this “man child,” is in her own Mind. It is Love wedded to
its own spiritual idea. When you really understand something, you are wedded to
it. The only real marriage is our marriage to God. In divine revelation,
material and corporeal selfhood disappear and the spiritual idea is understood.
The woman of the Apocalypse illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the
divine Principle and divine idea (561:15). This coincidence is called
“the marriage feast.” Understanding our relationship to God is the
“wedding,” the bride wedded to the Lamb of Love.
Billy: What would be the practical
consequences of really understanding that?
Tommy: Heaven on earth. It would give
back the lost likeness and power of God. It would nullify the belief that man
is born of the basest instincts—of “brute instinct”
(63:6-7)—the belief responsible for evil traits in mortals: passion,
appetites, hatred, revenge, etc. The element misnamed matter must be resolved
into its original sin. Human will is that original sin. Sin brought death.
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it
in the lusts thereof. For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:12, 23).
Death is an element of matter, never of Spirit. Matter and death are mortal
illusions. Matter, when examined in the light of divine metaphysics,
disappears, says Mrs. Eddy. If God, divine Mind, is all, matter can be nothing
but an image in mortal erring mind, which spiritual education eradicates and
replaces with the images in the Mind that is Love.
Mary Baker Eddy And
Divine Love
Sally: I would like to read from Mr.
Gale's notes concerning a class he took with Mrs. Eddy: “I shall never
forget the light that shone in her face when we considered the subject of Love.
As nearly as I can recall her words, she said, 'God is Love; to love, is to
express God, and as God is eternal Life, if we always loved we should always
express Life, and never have a belief of death. Hate is the opposite of Love,
and leads to death; therefore never hate anything.'” Love alone is Life,
so if we are not loving, we are not living. How many tombstones could read:
“Died at 30; buried at 80.” We must see the Love of God encircling
the universe and man. We must feel Love.
Vindicating
The Prophecy
Moderator: We have talked about the
woman of the Apocalypse. We will see that in order to fulfil Jesus' prophecy of
the twelve stars on woman's crown (560; Rev. 12:1) Mrs. Eddy must present the
Science which would bring all humanity back to its original divinity and
oneness with “natural good,” God. Nothing but a Science that all
could learn step by step would be able to vindicate this prophecy. Science
enables man to become aware of his perfect completeness as an ever-present
fact. The woman in the Apocalypse who brings forth the “man child,”
Science—and with whom, as we have said, Mrs. Eddy identifies herself
unmistakably in the 16th to 50th editions of Science and Health, on p.
515:6—“symbolizes generic man.”
The whole Word is Science and Health,
which was the result of Mary Baker Eddy's oneness with the Mind of God. Thus,
the Mind of God is her true identity. It is, therefore, in her writings that we
find her true identity and not in her human personality. This is why anyone who
looks for Mrs. Eddy elsewhere than in her writings loses her.
Jesus had a very special relationship with
God because of his greater understanding of true facts. It was the same with
Mary Baker Eddy. It was because of her unique understanding of God that she was
able to fulfil the prophecy of the woman of the Apocalypse.
Johnny: Would Mrs. Eddy's special
understanding of God as Love (representing the motherhood characteristics of
God) also equate her with generic man?
Moderator: Yes, Johnny, because the
woman of the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man (561:22). Generic man here means
that all men together constitute the Son of God—generically man is
the Son of God. This will come to pass through the spiritual education made
available in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. Eventually all mankind will
understand its oneness with God.
Tina: What does it mean?
Margie: It means that as all men
assimilate the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy they will exchange a belief of
being born into a matter body and the sinful misconception of an existence
separate from God, for the true facts, namely, being born of Truth and Love,
born of God. Then men will all be of one Mind. The Mind of God, Love, will be
their only Mind.
Johnny: We could illustrate that by
the fact that we are all of one mind concerning the multiplication table.
Juliann: Or by the fact that today we
all agree the earth is round whereas a few centuries ago only a few
courageous souls dared to voice their conviction that the earth wasn't flat.
When man is Christian Science he is
generic man. Because Mrs. Eddy is one with the textbook she wrote, she is
generic man. The textbook shows us how to find our identity as God, as
incorporeal, divine supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life,
Love, and find man as our image and likeness. Principle and idea is one. The
more we actually understand the textbook and Mrs. Eddy's other writings, the
more it will be seen that what is in the divine Mind is our only identity. In
reality we are an image the divine Mind that has an image and this is the fact
or “seed within itself” that enables consciousness to expand and
reflect every God-like quality. As we gain in understanding we are translated
out of mortal consciousness back into our original God-consciousness that is
one with the divine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind (115:13).
The way we find our God identity is not so
different from the way we identify with the principle of music or math. If we
want to learn those subjects, we abide strictly with their principle and don't
deviate from the principle of these subjects. If we want to bring forth our
God-identity we must stay with the Principle of our being, pay attention to
what the textbook teaches, “abide strictly by its rules, heed every
statement, and advance from the rudiments laid down” (462:14).
Billy: This is why Mrs. Eddy stressed
“unity” so much, isn't it?
Grace: Yes, there can be no unity
when there is “elbowing” for position and power: “The noblest
work of God is man in the image of his Maker; the last infirmity of evil is
so-called man, swayed by the maelstrom of human passions, elbowing the concepts
of his own creating, making place for himself and displacing his fellows”
(Mis. 294:1). Love is the liberator and gives man the victory over himself.
When the victory over self is gained, man joins the fraternity of generic man.
True unity comes about as each one reflects divine Principle, and reflects
every other idea via this one divine Principle.
Francie: The prophets faintly
glimpsed the meaning of the Son of God as it began to form in the matrix of
generic consciousness. Then this matrix of generic consciousness brought forth
great wonders in the life and demonstration of Christ Jesus, on an individual
basis. Nineteen centuries later the same divine matrix brought forth, through
the life and demonstration of Mary Baker Eddy, the collective and universal
counterpart of Jesus' individual demonstration, called Christian Science. Mrs.
Eddy taught that the Christ, which constituted the identity of Jesus and
enabled him to do his mighty works, was the identity of all men. Through
her scientific system of the seven synonymous terms for God operating through a
fourfold calculus of Word, Christ, Christianity, and Science, her textbook
shows us how to progressively lay off the “old man” until man is
found to be the image of infinite good. While the mission of Jesus might be
viewed as proving that there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in
matter, Mrs. Eddy's mission was to show that “all is infinite Mind, and
its infinite manifestation.” Christian Science shows the omnipresence of
present perfection.
Elsie: Mrs. Eddy quotes Rev. Hugh
Black as saying: “The birthplace of civilization is not Athens but
Calvary” ('02:10).
Moderator: And she then says that
“when the human mind is advancing above itself towards the divine, it is
subjugating the body, subduing matter, taking steps outward and upwards . . .
[rising] from sense to Soul, from earth to heaven” (ibid).
The way is straight and narrow, and the
Christian religion is the only one on earth that has “the straight and
narrow way of demonstration, every step of which has been explored from cross
to crown.” The cross is the inevitable symbol of a united divinity and
humanity. Alice Orgain states that pagan religions have no “crosses”
and hence no “crowns.” “A few very spiritual seers have glimpsed
the truths of being and given them to the people from the point of broad
theories, but no other religion has had its demonstrators that bridged the gulf
between their vision and the vision of the people, with their own bodies, as
did Jesus and Mrs. Eddy—Jesus with his specific temple or body; Mrs. Eddy
with the Church body. Jesus bore the specific pains of bodily consciousness;
Mrs. Eddy bore the collective and collected pains (mankind's errors) of Church
and universal consciousness.
So, we find Mrs. Eddy's
“body”—her Principle of being—in her Church, and in its
every purpose, and its resurrection therein” (Alice Orgain, As It Is, p.
856. See Appendix.) The Mother Church was Mrs. Eddy's patient. It typified the
mortal body, the warfare with the flesh, and how to raise oneself out of the
mortal illusion of a matter body. It signifies the cross, something to be
overcome through spiritual education. As our understanding of what is in our
textbook grows, we are progressively liberated from the slavery of believing we
live in a mortal body.
Tommy: As the masculine
representative of the spiritual idea, Jesus showed the unpopular upward
(ascending) steps, namely, the cross-bearing of giving up the mortal, the toil
and sacrifice; in short, the crucifixion of the human in order that the divine
could come to light. His mission was to reveal the manhood characteristics of
God. He would love to have gathered all humanity under his wings but this was
not to be the province of the masculine representative of the spiritual idea.
The gathering had to await his second coming in his femininity (Science), or
his all-encompassing nature as Love which Mary Baker Eddy presented in
Christian Science, the unity of Christianity with Science. But without the
cross, the laying down of the mortal, there can be no crown. The cross is what
the “builders” have always rejected. “Students love the
explanations of Christian Science: God is Love, God is good, God is Mind, etc.
This is the crown of Christian Science. But they dislike the cross of
Christ—the patient, slow bearing of the cross, they shun. They will not
handle animal magnetism. All the cross-bearing they leave to me, while they
love the crown. Yet this lesson they will learn” (DCC. P. 198).
Grace: Alice Orgain says man uses his
wings to soar (in rising from first seeing that all is mental, to thinking only
in terms of ideas, to finally seeing I AM THAT I AM) as Enoch did, and also
Moses, Elijah, and Jesus; whereas Jesus in his second coming, as
womanhood, descends and “hovers” (Mis. 388:22). Truth's immortal
idea, Mrs. Eddy says, sweeps down, not up as in the ascending manhood idea; it
sweeps down the centuries, gathering beneath its wings the sick and sinning.
(55:15-16) Coming from God it sees only complete perfection. This correct view
heals all discord.
No “Third
Coming”
Elsie: We have talked a lot about the
first and second coming of Jesus. Will there be a third?
Florence: No. When Mrs. Eddy was
asked this question she answered unequivocally: “This is the 'second
coming' of the Christ and it will be the last” (DCC. 234). Naturally a
Science unfolds forever, and each century will bring to light the higher
meaning of the textbook. Jesus presented , the fatherhood qualities of God, and
Mrs. Eddy completed this figure of God by presenting God's motherhood as a
Science that all can learn, and so become the Principle, Love, as we find
“the kingdom of God is within you.”
Marie: What is the “second
coming” that we hear so much about—when man will be restored to his
original perfection which in reality, we understand, he has never lost?
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy says the second
coming is another era of the world's awakening, a higher advent in human
consciousness of the spiritual idea, the true character of God. This idea, Mrs.
Eddy tells us, neither comes nor goes, for it is inseparable from its divine
Principle, the ever-present I AM. But the human concept of this idea has its
periods of light and shade. The second coming of Christ is the next higher,
hence, more spiritual revelation of God's character.
The Christian era, Mrs. Eddy says, presented
the first tangible idea of God's character by its inspired man, Jesus. The era
of Christian Science ushers in through woman the second appearing of His
character, namely, His feminine nature, and this from the necessity of His
nature as the Father and Mother of all, the creator, even the complete and
ever-present idea of God. Therefore this era comes not through Jesus but
through Mary, the type of womanhood and mother of its first and forever
appearing which divine Science alone can give, in which we see “we are
Life, Truth, and Love when we understand them.”
The “third appearing” or
“third baptism” is a different subject entirely, pertaining to the
student's progress out of materiality into total spirituality. The third
appearing or baptism will present but the disappearing of all else, and
establish the supremacy of Spirit. This obliterates the human sense of the
divine, takes away all sense of matter, and reveals the final fact that the
idea, Christ, is not a materialized or finite man or woman, but is the infinite
concept of infinite Mind. (Mis. 205:13)
Difference Between
First And Second Coming
By this explanation Mrs. Eddy endeavored to
dematerialize, unrestrict, and unlimit our human dream of the divine, our
material sense of the spiritual, our finite views of the infinite. She wanted
to give us a scientific concept of Jesus and his mission, and of the nature of
the Christ.
Jesus' work on earth is done, Mrs. Eddy
said. Jesus as an individual finished his glorious earthly career and left
earth for heaven—entered into the infinite sense of Life and its
manifestation. This was the consummation of his earth mission and it needs no
reappearing or repetition to crown its glory.
This scientific concept of man, says Mrs.
Eddy, is not the material Jesus, neither is it the material Mary or Martha, but
it is the spiritual idea dwelling forever in God, the Father-Mother God,
Principle, Love, because this idea is the link in being's chain which
indissolubly unites God and man, and the onrushing centuries will ere long
yield to the sense of its ascendant glory. (See EOF. pp. 48-49.)
Grace: Mrs. Eddy further
distinguishes between the first and second coming in explaining Mark 6:35-44.
She states that Jesus no doubt supplied the literal loaf and fish to their
sense so as to impress upon them at that period (the Christian era) the fact of
his two-fold power, as the way-shower or mediator between the things of the
flesh and those of Spirit. His mission on earth was, declaratively and
demonstratively, from the beginning to the end, to be the mediator between the
flesh and the Spirit, to show, through the senses, the way out of the flesh.
Not so, says Mrs. Eddy, is the Christ's
appearing at this age. Today it is to show through Science and not through the
senses, the power of Spirit and of Good. It is to spiritualize all the meaning
of the Christ, to name Christ the idea and not the person of God, and to
impress, at this period, the Science of Spirit on the mind, through Truth, and
the phenomena of Mind, and not matter, The “second coming” voices God
less in parable and more in the facts of Being. To name Christ the idea and not
the person of God must be the true interpretation of the parable of the loaves
and fishes, because Jesus could in no other way have made the way for the
second appearing of Christ in Science. (See letter to Mrs. E. P. Skinner, DCC.
p. 125.)
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy knew that the revelation of the
truth of being that had dawned on her had to be founded in human consciousness
in such a way that it could be apprehended practically. It must be stated in
terms understandable to all mankind. St. John recorded Jesus' prophecy of the
dual mission of the woman of the Apocalypse: the God-crowned woman with twelve
stars signifies the complete perfection of man which was revealed to Mrs. Eddy;
the prophecy of the wilderness-woman signifies her mission to establish Truth
in human consciousness through her writing and teaching.
Recess
THE PATH OF THE
PIONEER
Moderator: Are there any questions?
Elsie: Isn't it true that few of the
great and good people walking this earth have been fully appreciated in their
time? It usually remains for future generations to realize how truly great and
good they were. Nevertheless they persevered and patiently persisted.
Jackie: Yes, from the world's point
of view, Jesus' earthly career ended disastrously. Mrs. Eddy, too, met with
scorn, ridicule, and persecution when her discovery “undermined the
favorite inclinations of a sensuous philosophy.” To understand, even in
part, what Mrs. Eddy brought, the world must see Mrs. Eddy's direct
relationship to God.
Seditious
Students
Juliann: Very little help came in the
years immediately following Mrs. Eddy's discovery. She was harrassed by pulpit,
press and the medical profession. But actually the seditious behavior of
students she personally took into her fold and taught, caused her the most
grief. Her indefatigable laboring with and shepherding of students during her
first fourteen years of teaching netted her no loyal follower capable of
assisting her in even a minor way.
As the pioneer, Mrs. Eddy stood absolutely
alone while every conceivable object was thrown across her path to obstruct her
progress. But her great love for humanity and the divine inspiration that
continually poured into her Christ-mentality drove her inexorably forward in
her efforts to show us what we already are as God, as incorporial, divine,
supreme, infinite Mind Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love.
Margie: Because Mrs. Eddy uncovered
the carnal mind, it fought back with intent to kill the truth that had exposed
it. This is why her every forward step was resisted and met with persecution.
Ceaseless toil, self-renunciation, and Love cleared the way for Christian
Science. Nothing else could have done it. Mrs. Eddy leaned on the
“sustaining infinite,” and carried the day.
Years later, when she recalled the days of
poverty, hardship, persecution, and ridicule, she wrote in Miscellany,
p. 165, “There is scarcely an indignity which I have not endured for
the cause of Christ, Truth.” When the pulpit launched its furious attacks
on her, she met its venom and vehemence with the example of him who “when
he was reviled, reviled not again.” Her conclusion in Rudimental Divine
Science states: “The true understanding of Christian Science
Mind-healing never originated in pride, rivalry, or the deification of self.
The Discoverer of this Science could tell you of timidity, of self-distrust, of
friendlessness, toil, agonies, and victories under which she needed miraculous
vision to sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this
Science.”
Character of
Revelator
Margie: Sometimes you hear someone
say they read Science and Health and benefit from it, but they feel a certain
antipathy toward Mrs. Eddy. Doesn't this seem very unnatural?
Johnny: Yes, it's unnatural because
the Revelator and her revelation can't be separated. The bearer of God's
message must of necessity be God's Messenger. The Messenger is to be judged by
the truth or falsity of the message she brings. Mrs. Eddy didn't originate or
create the message. She listened, and received the message only because she had
spiritually prepared herself to receive it. Her mission was to bring the
message to waiting humanity.
Sometimes people hope to change the message
by rejecting the Messenger. They don't realize that the truth or falsity of a
statement is in no sense dependent upon the one who gives utterance to it. What
we have to do is to prove all things and hold fast that which is good. We
should not waste our time contending for or against personalities.
Sally: In Mrs. Eddy's day, as in the
time of Jesus, many thought they could get rid of the message from God by
persecuting the messenger. They didn't see that it was impossible for a person
to make or unmake the truth. Nothing a person says, thinks, or does can change
or affect the truth. As we said before, he who would separate the Revelator
from her revelation is but “a thief and a robber.” Who can separate
2x2=4 from its principle?
Bill: The Revelator and her
revelation are inseparable since Mrs. Eddy had to be at that point of
understanding that was able to receive the revelation; she had to be in rapport
with divine Mind. And isn't it true that without the Revelator or messenger,
suffering humanity wouldn't know of God's message or the existence of a Savior.
Mrs. Eddy appeared upon the scene of human life to act a higher part than
others in life's drama. She impersonated good beyond others. She interpreted
good more clearly, and illustrated her interpretation by its effect in
uplifting the human thought and standard morally, spiritually, and physically.
She taught that all is infinite Mind infinitely manifested, for God is
All-in-all. This uncovered error, good's opposite, as unreal.
Anna: She also taught that the
worship of personality is but another form of heathen idolatry. The character
of God is the essence of good. Its nature and tendency is all that should be
worshipped or loved in man or God. Worshipping thus, we assimilate the
qualities of good in ourselves and the quantity is increased within us. We then
impart involuntarily this quality, even as a flower gives off its fragrance
involuntarily.
Moderator: As Bill said, the
Revelator or messenger had to hear and understand it or she couldn't have
written it down and given it to others. To carry out her mission as God's
messenger, Mrs. Eddy had to be oblivious of human self. Any materiality or
self-will would have demoralized her motives, her Christlikeness, and dethroned
her power as the Christ-messenger to our age.
Kathleen: Mrs. Eddy never thought of
herself, but only of the revelation she had received, and of needy humanity to
whom she would bring it. It is our privilege to love and honor the one who
brought us the Christ message.
Humanly, Mrs. Eddy paid a fearful price to
bring mankind this saving Science. As the pioneer of Christian Science she
stood alone, smiting error with the sword of Truth. “The rare bequests of
Christian Science are costly, and they have won fields of battle from which the
dainty borrower would have fled. Ceaseless toil, self-renunciation, and love,
have cleared its pathway” (Ret. 30:1). Mrs. Eddy could not have
accomplished what she did had she not prayed scientifically. It was her
scientific understanding that enabled her to experience the ever-operative
Christ-power. In every detail of her life she turned to the divine Principle
for guidance, and trusted completely in the divine Principle, always acting in
accordance with the dictates of that divine Principle. She listened, and heard,
and hastened to act on what Principle told her. Because of Mrs. Eddy's total
spiritual honesty she was a clear windowpane through which more and more light
could flood in, and thus her spiritual understanding was continually increased.
It is much the same in arithmetic. The more
we adhere strictly to the principle of arithmetic, the more mathematical
understanding we gain. We never doubt that the principle of arithmetic is
working for us and will solve our mathematical problems if we yield completely
to the principle of mathematics and don't interject our own opinions. This is
the way Mrs. Eddy sought protection from persecution. Like David, she never
left her dwelling “in the secret place of the most High.”
Margie: Considering the hatred and
persecution this new doctrine stirred up against Mrs. Eddy, one marvels at the
way she unfailingly obeyed her own counsel to overcome evil with good at all
times and under all circumstances. We must know ourselves—that we are
incorporeal divine, supreme infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life,
Truth, and Love, that God is not separate from the wisdom He bestows—then
God will supply both the occasion and the wisdom for a victory over evil. This
was her sublime instruction. Hers was indeed a religion of Love, an all
encompassing Love.
Because Mrs. Eddy always started every
thought from God, she always ended with God, Love. She knew the foundation
stone is at the top with Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love.
Starting right, she ended right—from “the kingdom of God within
you”—thus she could unfailingly feel love for her enemies and never
cease in her efforts to return good for evil and bless all upon whom her
thoughts rested. Her great power lay in the fact that she could demonstrate
what she taught.
Newspaperman
Healed
Florence: Margie spoke of Mrs. Eddy's
strict obedience to her own rule to overcome evil with good at all times and
under all circumstances. On countless occasions Mrs. Eddy proved the usefulness
of this rule and the blessing it carries. An illustration might be her handling
of some newsmen who came to Concord to slander and malign her.
One of these newsmen later admitted that if
anyone ever had just cause to hate these newsmen, Mrs. Eddy did. They had come
to dig up scandal, to vilify, defame, and crucify her in the press if they
possibly could. “We came,” he said, “to expose and denounce her,
to hold her up to scorn and ridicule. This would be 'news.' “
The man who headed the group represented a
large New York newspaper. He was a callous, unfeeling rascal. This man had for
years been afflicted with a painful cancerous growth of the throat, which at
times seemed more than he could endure.
Mrs. Eddy knew at which hotel they were
staying and asked one of her loyal students to phone these newsmen and ask to
speak to the head man. When the student called and asked for the chief, the
young reporter who answered the phone said, “He's lost his voice but I'll
give him any message you want to leave.” The student, obedient to Mrs.
Eddy's instruction, said, “Tell the chief to come to the phone and just
listen to what I have to say. He doesn't have to talk.” Annoyed and angry,
the chief took the receiver and listened for a few minutes. Then he hung up and
turned to his fellow newsmen. Not only could he speak, but he was completely
healed.
The newsmen were deeply moved. They had
heard that Mrs. Eddy could heal, but they hadn't believed it. Now they had
absolute proof. They packed their bags and went home. Mrs. Eddy had conquered
through love, proving that Love is the liberator and we must love our enemies
or we will never lose them. (Irving C. Tomlinson, Twelve Years With Mary
Baker Eddy. See Appendix).
Spiritual Origin of Man
Rejected
Moderator: Today the weapon used most
often against Christian Science is to discredit it as old-fashioned
philosophical idealism. But in Mrs. Eddy's day this was not the case; the
weapons then were fierce and deadly, The war was to the death. As already
indicated, much of the enmity and hostility from certain sections of the
ministry and the medical world, in which the press joined, was aroused by the
implications of Mrs. Eddy's central theme, namely, the spiritual origin of man.
Mrs. Eddy rejected mortal mind's concept that man is made up of “brain,
blood, bones, and other material elements.” She also rejected the theory
that mortal mind's sensations can reproduce man, can form blood, flesh, and
bones. Cause, she said, does not exist in physical forms (475 and 262:27)
anymore than cause exists in an image or in a shadow. Cause exists in Mind,
God; and Mind is Father (586:9) where everything originates spiritually. But
remember, everything that originates in Mind, God, is already fulfilled, is
already a fact (Truth), and facts or Truth know nothing about being created and
then developing and maturing toward fulfilment. A fact in any science is
without beginning and ending. Two times two has always been four, as a
fulfilled fact.
This is why Mrs. Eddy uses the symbolism
“ Father—Mother” so frequently in connection with God. Her
Glossary in Science and Health defines Father as Mind [cause], and Mother as
Love Fulfilment]. It means that every right desire (cause, Mind, or Father) is
already fulfilled (Love or Mother)—the Principle and its idea or
reflection is one. In mathematics, the answer to every problem already exists
in the principle of mathematics. It is the same in the Principle of man's
being. “Before they call, I will answer” (Isa. 65:24). Every
contingency is provided for in things inherencies. Understanding alone is
needed. From time immemorial man believed that life and sensation,
intelligence, and substance were in the material form, just as man believed
that the earth was flat, and that the sun rose in the east and set in the west.
Natural science proved the latter to be misconceptions, and Christian Science
has proved that soul is not in body; life, truth, intelligence, and substance
are not in body as mortals think and have been taught to believe. Life, truth,
intelligence, and substance are in God, Mind.
What looks like “matter” is merely shadow, and the
shadow has no life, truth, intelligence, or substance abiding in it. A shadow
cannot think; it has no substance, no intelligence. Your image in the mirror
cannot think. It has no substance, no intelligence, no life abiding in it. It
is only imaging forth what stands in front of the mirror. This is why Jesus
said: Call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your Father (your
source—the source of your life, substance, intelligence, truth) which is
in heaven. To think of matter or matter's sensations as being the creator of
man is usurping the prerogative of the divine Mind, and breaking the First
Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” God, Mind, is
the only creator. The divine Mind creates mentally, spiritually, not
physically, or materially.
Because this teaching totally reversed the
human mind's conceptions, it was considered blasphemous. But just as
astronomical science has destroyed the false theory concerning the relations of
the celestial bodies, Christian Science will destroy the greater error as to
our terrestrial bodies. (122:32)
To accomplish this we need “the new
tongue” which Mrs. Eddy says is the spiritual meaning as opposed to the
material. It is the language of the Soul Instead of the senses; it translates
matter into its original language, which is Mind, and gives the spiritual
instead of the material signification. (Hea. 7:6-10)
Florence: Mrs. Eddy did try to veil
her statements and tiptoe into the more startling departures from Old Theology.
Her message, however, got through to the medical profession, and even more to
the ministers of the Gospel. They were quick to discern that Mrs. Eddy was
challenging the established conviction that man is wombed and tombed in matter.
Mrs. Eddy was hailed as a race annihilist, just as Jesus had been looked upon
as a race annihilist by the high priests and doctors of ecclesiastical law when
he pronounced his curse on motherhood, with his saying, “blessed are the
wombs that never bear,” along with his specific denunciation of marriage:
Matt. 22:30; Mark 12:25; 13:17; Luke 20:34, 35; Matt. 24:19, etc.
Because Mrs. Eddy taught the spiritual origin of man, she was looked upon as a
tool of Satan and the representative of evil.
Tommy: The Christian
Science Journal of March, 1885, carried a quote from the sermon of the
Reverend A. J. Gordon, illustrating how determined the clergy were to steer
“innocent” people away from such a dangerous doctrine as Christian
Science: “One has only to open the published volumes of its lady apostle
in this city to find such a creed of pantheism and blasphemy as has rarely been
compounded.”
Bill: That Mrs. Eddy was seen as a
deadly threat to the power structure of the religious establishment is obvious
from the alarm sounded by the London Times (May 26, 1885): “ .. .
Clergymen of all denominations are seriously considering how to deal with what
they regard as the most dangerous innovation that has threatened the Christian
Church in this region for many years ......”
Anna: They didn't see that Mrs. Eddy
had not come to destroy anything. She only came to show us that the Mind which
is God is the only Mind and therefore it is our Mind. She showed man,
reflecting the Mind of God, is an infinite spiritual calculus forever unfolding
divine ideas, so that every need is taken care of. And she ended Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures by giving her interpretation of the
twenty-third Psalm: “[Divine Love] is my shepherd; I shall not want”
(578:5). Man, reflecting God, cannot “want” for home, companionship,
or anything that makes for pure happiness.
(Note to the Reader., That bracketed
expression [Divine Love] (578:5) is in the original. Usually bracketed
expressions are interpolated editorial comment and not part of the quote.)
Francie: Mrs. Eddy had cherished the
hope that Christian Science would meet with immediate and universal acceptance,
but coming face to face with “the fixedness of mortal illusions and the
human hatred of truth” (330:4) caused her to revise her thinking and to
estimate that centuries would intervene before the truths in Science and Health
would be understood sufficiently to be fully demonstrated. (Ret. 84:1)
Moderator: Man's hatred of Truth,
Christ, stems from the ancient struggle of self-will against the will of God,
divine Love. The flesh warreth against Spirit. The suppositional opposites of
divine, infinite Spirit are the five physical senses which must yield to the
infinite Spirit, Love.
Why?
Because Christian Science is
“determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him
glorified.” We should know ourselves and each other only as God knows
us—as glorified.
Billy: Why should we know ourselves and each other as
glorified?
Moderator: Because all consciousness
is Mind, God. The shadow or the image can't think, can it, Billy?
Everything that comes to us has to come as
consciousness, and since consciousness is Mind, what is appearing is actually
Mind's presence, God's presence, and it can only bless us. Knowing this casts
out all fear. Understanding this, makes “Truth and right our sole
reliance,” and inspires us to “labor on” until we reach that
point of understanding where we see all good is present and always has been
present as “a gift,” something we don't have to labor for.
SESSION III: IMPERSONAL
NATURE OF
MRS. EDDY'S DISCOVERY
Moderator: Today we will go on
discussing how Mrs. Eddy fulfilled all the scriptural prophecies made
concerning her. We will see that she always made it crystal clear that it was
the truth revealed to her by divine Mind—the truth that found expression
through her—that was the Leader of the Christian Science movement, It was
never a corporeal personality that was leading. She always directed everyone to
her writings and insisted that there alone she could be found.
TRUTH ALONE TO BE
CONTEMPLATED
Bill: Many student
“Memoirs” record that Mrs. Eddy constantly turned the thoughts of her
followers away from herself as a human personality: “Do not think of me;
keep your mind fixed on God” (DCC. p. 127:7-8). The only thing to be
contemplated was the divine revelation—the system and Science that had
come to the world from God through her. Mrs. Eddy knew that her Science was the
Comforter Jesus had promised, that would teach humanity all things spiritual.
Johnny: She made it clear she was
aware of her divine mission. In Retrospection, page 70:15 she first states that
no one can ever take the place of Jesus. Then she states that no person can
take the place of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, and that
this second appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the spiritual advent of the
advancing idea of God.
Mrs. Eddy exhibited the Christ-spirit with
such unmatched excellence and perfection that her place as Revelator,
Discoverer, and Founder will be assured until the end of time. The second
appearing of Jesus is a wholly spiritual appearing.
All That Has Gone
Before Embraced in Her Teaching
Bill: In Science, or in the progress
of mankind, that which comes last always embraces that which has gone before.
We know that the teachings of Jesus embraced and fulfilled the teachings of the
entire Bible. In the same way, the first appearing of Jesus—as
“Master,” as showing forth the manhood character of God—was
embraced in the Womanhood of his “second appearing,” as Mrs. Eddy
says in Retrospection, page 70:20. This second coming “is the Lord
from heaven” (I Cor. 15:45, 47). It ushers in world salvation and stands
for the complete spiritualization of the whole human consciousness, finding man
to be a spiritual calculus of infinite divine ideas. A Science of ideas is all
embracing.
Grace: It seems perfectly natural to
me that the teachings of Jesus in his first coming—of denying, cross
bearing, forsaking all materiality, etc.—should be embraced in the
teachings of his second coming as revealed by Mary Baker Eddy. His second
coming, as a Science, is the “advancing idea of God” because
affirmations of God's infinite goodness and Allness would include the
cross-bearing incident to denying error and forsaking all materiality, just as
affirming 2 x 2 = 4 would include the answer, the answer to any lie about that
fact.
Elsie: I don't understand the logic in that.
Grace: It simply means that when you
make a positive statement such as God, good, is All, it includes the negative
that evil then is nothing. When you have a fact such as 2 x 2 =4, it includes
the answer to all the denials, such as 2 x 2 = 5, or 2x 2 =6, etc. You can
exchange 2 x 2 = 5 for 2 x 2 = 4, but once you know that 2 x 2 = 4 you can't
exchange it for 2 x 2 = 5. The false always surrenders to the true because the
false is only a suppositional opposite.
The ascending, manhood, or Jesus-steps are
always the laying down of the mortal. The affirmation of God's infinite
goodness includes the concept of laying down of the mortal.
Marie: In a way, this is what the
tenth picture in Mrs. Eddy's illustrated poem, Christ and Christmas,
shows: Jesus in his first coming has been encompassed in his “second
coming.”
Bill: That would fulfill Jeremiah's
prophecy (31:22): “A woman shall compass a man.” Compass means to
understand. The matrix of Life and Love always compasses, understands, the
calculus of Truth—the calculus of Spirit and Truth.
Moderator: As long as the manhood and
womanhood of God are two—His two witnesses—they can only reveal the
whole Truth “in a degree.”
The “Two
Witnesses”
Rookie: Since our Moderator brought
up the subject of the two witnesses, could we have a fuller explanation of
their spiritual significance?
Bill: The two witnesses are Christ
Jesus and Christian Science. As we have seen, they could not remain standing as
two. The denials, the cross bearing, the forsaking of all materiality,
all that constituted the upward “ascending manhood steps of Jesus in his
first coming, could not continue forever. There had to be an end to the
struggle for perfection; and the second coming presented
the answer, namely: the scientific ultimate of this God-idea that will be the
individual, forever incorporeal, and infinite complete reflection—by all
humanity—of all that Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love
is.
Elsie: To reveal this truth that man now
is God's image and likeness, and to reveal the way to reach and accept
this truth, was really Mrs. Eddy's God-ordained mission, then. She actually
ushered in a completely new structure of consciousness.
Science Baptizing the
Universe in Love
Moderator: Yes, that is right, Elsie.
The final result of Mrs. Eddy's work on earth will be to baptize the universe
in Love, so that only Love's presence will be seen and felt. Mrs. Eddy gives us
a glimpse of her vision when she tells us she saw the love of God encircling
the universe and man, filling all space. This divine Love, she said, so
permeated her consciousness that she loved with Christ-like compassion
everything she saw. This divine reflection brought into expression the beauty
of holiness, the perfection of being, which healed and saved and regenerated
everyone who turned to her for help. This is an instance of the “two
witnesses” becoming one. There was no longer anything to deny or cast out.
Love was All-in-all.
Margie: Mrs. Eddy was often in
communion with divine Love where she saw that all things are put under our
feet. This Love was so manifest it exceeded anything she could describe. It was
a Love in which there was no sense of evil or antagonism. All error was
dissolved in this Love and nothing remained but the sea of God's immeasurable
Love. Such revelations of Love can only come to a consciousness in which the
“two witnesses” have become one.
A Mother's Account of
Mrs. Eddy's Love
Sally: That Mrs. Eddy was also able
to lift the thoughts of others to see this same all-pervading Love, is seen in
the experience of a mother with two small children who attended the 1897
“visitor's day” at Pleasant View. The mother relates that her
seven-year old daughter had a very painful swelling on the top of her little
head. After the speeches, Mrs. Eddy received the guests. The two children were
ahead of the mother, who relates:
I wish I could make the world know what I
saw when Mrs. Eddy looked at those children. It was a revelation to me. I saw
for the first time the real Mother-Love, and I knew that I did not have it. It
is impossible to put in to words what the uncovering of my own lack of real
Mother-Love meant to me.
As I turned in the procession and walked
toward the line of trees in the front of the yard, there was a bird sitting on
a limb of a tree, and I saw the same Love poured out on that bird that I had
seen flow from Mrs. Eddy to my children. I looked down at the grass and the
flowers, and there was the same Love resting on them. It is difficult for me to
put into words what I saw. This Love was everywhere, like the light; but it was
divine, not mere human affection.
I looked at the people milling around on the
lawn and I saw it poured out on them. I thought of the various discords in this
field, and I saw, for the first time, the absolute unreality of everything but
this infinite Love. It was not only everywhere present, like the light, but it
was an intelligent presence that spoke to me, and I found myself weeping as I
walked back and forth under the trees and saying out loud, “Why did I
never know you before? Why have I not known you always?”I don't know how
long it was until my boy came to me and said, “Come, mother, they are
going home.” As I got into the carriage and drove back to the hotel that
same conscious intelligence and Love were still everywhere. It rested upon
everything I was aware of.When we got back to the hotel, there was no swelling
on my child's head.For weeks this experience had a strange effect on me. I
could not bear to hear anyone speak in a cross, ill-tempered tone, or do
anything that would cause pain or mental anguish.Each time I saw Mrs. Eddy I
had a wonderful revelation of God. I know she is no ordinary woman. God has
anointed her with the oil of gladness above her fellows, for she “loved
righteousness, and hated iniquity.” (From a letter preserved in the Orgain
Library.)
Anna: It is obvious that this mother
with the two children did not go to the Pleasant View gathering to
“get” something from Mrs. Eddy. She went with a heart full of love
and gratitude and a divine giving-sense. This made her receptive to the love
that flowed out freely from Mrs. Eddy's thought. Had she gone with the thought
of “getting”—even getting a healing for the little girl—she
would not have been receptive enough for the revelation she experienced. Like
produces like. Love speaks to Love, or as Mrs. Eddy once said, “God
demands God.” In her interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, Mrs. Eddy says,
“And Love is reflected in love.” This is obviously what the mother
experienced.
Florence: Also, what Sally just read
shows how the two witnesses became one, namely, Love was wedded to its own
spiritual idea where Love never loses sight of loveliness. When we accept the
one Mind as our Mind, we can only see and express the divine Principle, Love,
“for Love is with me.” When we are clad in the panoply of Love we
too, like Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, can demonstrate the Science of Love, our
divine Principle. Then there is no further need for the crossbearing of
denials, forsaking, and overcoming materiality. The struggle is over, and we
reflect our Father-Mother God as the adorable One. The fight with the
dragon ends when each one, individually, reflects both the manhood and
womanhood qualities of God. Then we are “the Lamb's wife” meaning the
unity of male and female ... as two individual natures in one; and in
this compounded spiritual individuality—this divinely united spiritual
consciousness—there is no impediment to eternal bliss (577:9); the
“two witnesses” are one.
Tina: This would end the conflict
between the flesh and the Spirit, wouldn't it?
Anna: Yes, the real senses of man are
spiritual and rise above the evidence of the physical senses, rebuking their
testimony. The spiritual senses show the Ego-man to be the image and likeness
of perfect Mind, Spirit, divine Principle. This one Ego or Mind “is
infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which
reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things”
(281:14).
Moderator: Yes, Anna, the real
senses of man abide in Spirit; and the senses of Spirit abide in Love; so man
would no longer be aware of what the material senses now seem to be aware of,
because to infinite ever-present Love, all is Love, and there isn't any error.
(567:7) When there is nothing to war against, manhood has yielded to womanhood.
They have become one.
But before this yielding of manhood to
womanhood takes place, there is a long night of warfare. “There
remaineth, it is true, a rest for the people of God; but we must first
have done our work” (Mis. 216:3). Mrs. Eddy was no exception; she had the
same battles to fight that the students had.
The Carpenters' Visit
to Mrs. Eddy
Myfirst visit with the Carpenters was in
1945. Mr. Carpenter, Sr. had at one time been Mrs. Eddy's secretary and was a
member of her household for a year. He told me that when he and his wife first
visited Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View she told them of the terrible experience
when Dr. Eddy was arrested for murder and how she had remained on her knees in
prayer most of the night preceding the trial. In the morning she felt an urge
to go to the library. Here she found a parallel case on record, and it proved
to be of vital interest in the trial.
Billy: Why was Dr. Eddy arrested for murder? What had
he done?
Moderator He was falsely accused. It
was a diabolical plot to throw discredit on the blameless life of Dr. Eddy and,
by implication, on Mrs. Eddy. It was a strange and sinister conspiracy so
cleverly contrived as at first to deceive the grand jury of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, but the indictment against Dr. Eddy was quashed by the District
Attorney upon receiving confessions from the guilty parties.
Billy: Was anyone hurt or murdered?
Moderator: No. It was just an
atrocious and wicked hoax—an unsuccessful attempt to injure Dr. Eddy and
cause grief to Mrs. Eddy.
Mr. Carpenter said that in pondering why she
talked about this horrendous experience (and the evil motives of Dr. Eddy's
accusers) he concluded it was to point out what it really meant to be a
Revelator to this age. The path to such spiritual dominion and divine
revelation had been suffering, struggles, prayer.
No doubt Mrs. Eddy discerned that young
students—such as the Carpenters were at the turn of the century—had a
glorified concept of her life as the Revelator. She made them aware it meant
being attacked and persecuted, that her mission involved uncovering the most
sinister motives. Because Mrs. Eddy exalted God, the evil was uncovered to her.
Like Jesus, Mrs. Eddy was “despised and rejected of men,” and like
Jesus she returned blessing for cursing. From this she never swerved, because
she knew it “saves retracing and traversing anew the path from sin to
holiness.”
Sally: In that experience Mrs. Eddy
related to the Carpenters we see an illustration of how Mrs. Eddy fulfilled the
prophesied role of the God-crowned woman and wilderness-Mother. The wilderness
Mother had to uncover error and show it to be pure illusion before it could be
obliterated.
Tommy: Mrs. Eddy voluntarily came
down from her vision of flawless perfection (symbolized by the God-crowned
woman) to fulfil this motherhood role of teaching and lifting humanity to her
vision. She had to begin where the students were in their thinking, in
order to found her discovery in human consciousness. In no other way could she
fulfil the prophesied role of “wilderness woman” or
wiIderness-Mother. No one on earth understood the divine Science she brought,
so it was up to her to make it understood, to teach it.
Wilderness—Mother's Flight From Dragon
Marie: Why does the Revelation of St.
John indicate that the wilderness-Mother twice fled before the face of the
dragon?
Moderator: Teaching and mothering are
human activities, Marie, a suffer-it-to-be-so-now course that stirs up the
dragon or the “drag on” of Old Theology because of its admission that
there is error abroad instead of the omnipresence of present perfection. The
admission that there are students who need teaching and healing is an admission
of duality, which cannot efface the dragon; it only leads towards the dragon's
obliteration.
The “man child” (Rev. 12:5, see S
& H 565:6) which the woman brought forth was Truth or Science and
Health—the “little book” in the hand of the angel. The
“angel” is just another name for Mary Baker Eddy or the Christ-Mind
she manifested in bringing the “little book.” Through the teaching of
Science and Health we learn life in and of Spirit.
The truth which the “man child” or
Science and Health launched exposed materiality as nothingness, as without
life, truth, intelligence, or substance. This exposure aroused the forces of
entrenched materialism—the dragon, Old Theology—which didn't want to
surrender its crown, its ability to “hold Spirit in the grasp of
matter.” It fiercely resisted this new influx of spiritual light which
threatened its ancient realm of darkness.
Through all this cruel persecution, however,
Mrs. Eddy clung to the promise of ultimate victory, implied in the prophecy
Jesus dictated to St. John on the Isle of Patmos. When she saw her trials and
tribulations within St. John's great impersonal framework in the Book of
Revelation she gained comfort and confidence to persevere.
Kathleen: Mrs. Eddy constantly went
to the Bible for comfort, didn't she?
Florence: Yes, she has been recorded
as saying that the Bible was her source of comfort for forty years. She knew
that the fifty-fourth chapter of Isaiah was one of the prophecies of her
coming, and she often read its promise: “No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgement
thou shalt condemn.” Isaiah gave her the comforting message that temporary
opposition and worldly hate only augured future success.
World-wide
Recognition of Mrs. Eddy
Bill: And we know that before she
left in 1910 Mrs. Eddy received world-wide recognition. Her cause was
considered an unprecedented success. After the lapse of over seventy years it
is difficult today to realize the immense interest the world took in Mrs.
Eddy's final years. Mrs. Eddy, her household, and the whole Christian Science
movement, as it revolved around her, were registered in every U.S. newspaper
office and in those of other lands too as first-class copy. Mark Twain's
scurrilous book and articles condemning Mrs. Eddy had focused great attention
on her because of Twain's enormous popularity.
However, when the New York World
brought its “Petition of 'Next Friends' “ suit, and sank to an
all-time low in its efforts to discredit Mrs. Eddy and her works, a tremendous
rallying to her defense took place on the part of almost every newspaper in the
United States and many in other lands. This interest, once aroused, in the
spirit of fair play, continued. The country's most prominent journalists all
sought interviews with Mrs. Eddy, and all came away with good report. These
happenings bore out once more Mrs. Eddy's quote from Shakespeare: “Sweet
are the uses of adversity; which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a
precious jewel in his head” (66:3).
Even Mark Twain had a change of heart.
Whether it was this magnificent rising to Mrs. Eddy's defense on the part of
almost every newspaper in the United States and many in far-off lands, or
Twain's own receptiveness to the love Mrs. Eddy poured out on the world in her
daily prayers; or whether it was seeing a dear relative healed through
Christian Science, I don't know. But Mark Twain's biographer leaves the
impression that Twain deeply regretted his cruel assault on Mrs. Eddy and
Christian Science.
Moderator: It was the healing of his
much beloved daughter that brought about his change of heart.
Bill: Thank you. The biographer says,
“I was at that period interested a good deal in mental healing and had
been treated for neurasthenia with gratifying results. Like most of the world,
I had assumed from his published articles that he condemned Christian
Science.... When I confessed rather reluctantly one day the benefit I had
received, he surprised me by answering: 'Of course you have been benefited.
Christian Science is humanity's boon. Mother Eddy deserves a place in the
Trinity as much as any member of it. She has organized and made available a
healing principle that for two thousand years has never been employed, except
as the merest guesswork. She is the benefactor of the age... (Mark Twain,
A Biography, by Albert Bigelow Paine, Vol. III, page 1271).
By 1910 Mrs. Eddy's fame reached an all-time
high, but evil forces, both inside and outside the movement have continued
their efforts to erase all traces of the honor, praise, and gratitude due her
as God's messenger commissioned to complete the works of Christ Jesus on earth.
With every passing century the true greatness of Jesus has more and more come
to light. Centuries may intervene before Mrs. Eddy's true mission and message
is fully grasped and her colossal stature as the world's greatest
Scientist is generally recognized.
No attack can touch a truly great figure. It
couldn't touch Jesus. It can't touch Mary Baker Eddy. As the Persians say, the
dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
Francie: Because these same forces of
evil tried and failed to eradicate the name and place of Jesus and his teaching
from human history and memory, they will likewise fail in their attempt to
erase Mrs. Eddy's name and place as “the greater light.” She brought
the Science that makes it possible for each one of us to receive revelation
direct from God, and for this we owe her endless homage, reverence, love, and
gratitude. She revealed that our own true Mind is God, is infinite good.
To love and honor the Revelator is loving
and honoring God. This love and appreciation is not personal worship. Mrs. Eddy
says that the Scriptures and Christian Science reveal “the way,” and
personal revelators will take their proper place in history, but will not be
deified. (Mis. 308:8) We show our love for God when we love the individual
through whom God has worked to bring light to mankind. It is her purity of
thought that we love and reverence—that purity of thought that was able to
hear God's message and then give it to suffering humanity. It is to that
purity of thought that we owe endless loyalty and
devotion.
Moderator: Can anyone else think of a
reason why Mrs. Eddy and Jesus were cruelly maligned and vilified while
carrying out their holy, God-ordained missions on earth?
Jesus and Mary Baker
Eddy A State of “Natural Good”
Anna: There is perhaps a deep and
solemn reason. In reality Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy were, subjectively, that
state of “natural good” that is God's pure reflection.
In her book, Angelic Overtures, p. 975,
Alice Orgain explains that Jesus represented the seven days as numerals of
infinity, since he embraced the full seven in one consciousness. His
mission, like Mary Baker Eddy's, was to propel human consciousness to Love, to
union with divine Principle, Love.
“Natural good” (119:21) represents
subjective rather than objective consciousness but until subjective
consciousness is objectively reached by others, one who has received an initial
revelation, such as Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy did, is set apart from every
other consciousness and every other man's “hand” is against him. This
explains the persecution of Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy.
Johnny: Both Jesus and Mrs. Eddy
experienced this antagonism from others in spite of the fact that they both
received the ultimate vision of man's oneness with God. Jesus subjectively, as
Anna just said, fully reflected the Mind of God, the full seven synonymous
terms for God as numerals of infinity. The cross that he bore was self-made or
accepted in order to be the WAYSHOWER (494:5). Mrs. Eddy also received
the subjective revelation of Science as “the numerals of infinity,”
or the objective “seven days,” as one nightless day. But of course
others didn't see what she was seeing, so their objective necessity compelled
her to fulfil retroactively what Jesus prophesied concerning the seven
churches. She was therefore forced to present the one nightless day as seven
days, or seven ascending footsteps. The seven ascending steps must be made in
order to purify and clarify our conceptions on the basis of specific
principles, otherwise we would just be building a Babel tower of human
opinions. The foothold must be in heaven. We must lay heavenly foundations in
order to build the city (consciousness) foursquare—four- square meaning
built on the Word, Christ, Christianity, and Science. (See Alice Orgain,
Angelic Overtures to Christ and Christmas, p. 975.)
Margie: Before we continue I would
like to add to what Johnny just said in regard to others not seeing what Mrs.
Eddy was seeing. In talking with James Gilman who did the pictures in Christ
and Christmas, Mrs. Eddy said to him: “Oh, if others could only see
what I see, how they would work and strive to express nothing but the
spirit of Truth. Because I see these things and press them upon students
greatly—this [being the] necessity of practise in obedience to
Truth—they often turn upon me with their darkness, thus making my burden
greater and greater, for I must consequently labor and watch lest this mark my
thought and I reflect it upon them again” (Recollections of Mary Baker
Eddy, p. 88). Mrs. Eddy endeavored at all times to keep her mind filled
with Truth and Love, but when active open hatred and antagonism was expressed
toward her, she had to work to keep it from affecting her thinking. It became a
burden.
Bride As God
Moderator: Anna drew our attention to
Mrs. Eddy's reference to “natural good” (119:21). Mrs. Orgain makes
this interesting comment on God as “natural good” in her little book,
Distinguishing Characteristics, p. 47:
Mother is called “God” for the
first time in the “Glossary” of this fiftieth edition, while Father
is only “commonly called God.”... While Mother is God, it is
completed Mother, which is Bride, for Bride is “Love God
wedded to its own spiritual idea [man]” (575:3). Revelation, 21st
chapter, speaks of the Bride in the third verse in the following language:
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with
men, and he will dwell with them,” and Mrs. Eddy correlates “the Lord
God Almighty” (576:10) with the “Lamb's wife” (577:4). For the
Word is God (John 1:1). Mother as God is but the Trinity of
forces, “Life, Truth and Love,” while the full definition of God is
given as “Good” in the Glossary; and good adds to the
Trinity of forces (expressed as “omnipotent, omniscience, and
omnipresence”), “omniaction,” corresponding to man.
Thus God plus man is the full God, or
Word, Bride. Until man, or expression, is added to God, God is merely a
compound of heavenly hopes and aspirations of man, typed by the Woman crowned
with twelve stars, distant heavenly light, which comes down to earth only as
man weds this heavenly light. Thus the Bride, or city foursquare, is “the
Word and the wedding of this Word to all human thought and action” (My.
153:28). The fiftieth edition presented two new statements which describe
its import: “God is natural good” (119:21) and “the natural
order of heaven comes down to earth” (118:31).”
Juliann: Jesus said, “I came
forth from the Father and am come into the world: Again, I leave the world, and
go to the Father” (John 16:28).
Our ultimate goal is “the Son of man
which is in heaven” (John 3:13)—the ascending and descending being
one, God is realized to be “natural good” (119:21). In Science
itself there is no ascending or descending, no transfiguration or translation.
The gates of Science are open to God only, as “natural good.” Our
true being is natural good.
Father-Mother
Explained
Moderator: I have been asked why Mrs.
Eddy used the term “Father-Mother God” so often, and we can see that
one reason was to impress upon the mind of the student God's feminine nature as
well as God's masculine nature. Humanity has generally considered God only as
masculine, but in divine Science, Mrs. Eddy says, we have more authority for
considering God feminine than for considering Him masculine, since Love, the
feminine, imparts the clearest idea of Deity. (517:10) Therefore we can see
that her frequent use of “Father-Mother” was also a concession to the
spiritual benightedness of the age. As thought ascends the scale of being to
diviner consciousness, God becomes to us the divine Principle, Love. (See Mis.
96:12.)
Francie: Those acquainted with the “system”
in the pure Science of Christian Science, as we brought out previously, are
aware that Father is defined in her Glossary as Mind [cause] and Mother is
defined as Love Ifulfilment] and they are one—one Principle, Love. God, as
Mind, conceives all, which God, as Love, simultaneously fulfils. We see this
principle at work in even such a tiny thing as a seed; whether it be a rose or
an oak tree, into that seed is already programmed the fulfilment. This fact of
fulfilment coinciding with desire or cause (Mind) Mrs. Eddy symbolizes as
“Father-Mother.” This is why we need never doubt the fulfilment of a
right desire. The one Mind, God, is the only Mind. It is therefore our Mind,
man's Mind; and what Mind conceives, Love fulfils. In Science we learn that in
all God's kingdom there is no such thing as an unfulfilled desire.
THE PROBLEM OF
EVIL
Tina: What then is evil? Why does evil seem so real?
Florence: In Divinity Course and
General Collectanea the following statements on evil, by Mrs. Eddy,
have been preserved:Animal magnetism evil, is powerless—but you must
declare against it as though it had all power [p. 198]. If human belief
handles A.M. there is a fight, but divine Love knows there is nothing to fight.
God is all that will handle A.M. When error appears, it only appears to
disappear ... Error in the individual is the result of a long line of mortal
relationships with its prejudices, doubts, fears, etc. This is all there is to
a mortal personality.... Selfishness is sin. Sensuality is disease and
sickness. Sexuality is death. Selfishness is the father of the lie. Sensuality
is the mother of the lie. Sexuality is the child of the lie. Selfishness is the
predisposing cause. Sensuality is the remote cause. Sexuality is the exciting
cause [Every sexual emotion is a conspiracy against Science.] ... OVERCOME
selfishness and you bring out unity. OVERCOME sensuality and you bring out
purity. OVERCOME sexuality and you bring out the God idea. These are the laws
of sickness, sin, and death which war against spiritual laws of Life, Truth,
and Love.
Science lays the axe at the root of the
tree. You must go back to overcome the root cause. Selfishness is the cause of
sensuality.
What is God? God is Life, Truth, Love. What
is man? God's idea, perfect, made in His image and likeness. How many men are
there? One, the perfect man. How many bodies are there? One. How many ideas can
there be of this man and body? Just one. Does this idea admit of disease? No.
Can that body have a diseased eye? No. Is that eye diseased? No. Then what is
the matter? You believe it is diseased. Do you believe this? No. Why? Because
you are God's perfect man, and believe only what is true about man.
Then what is this that talks belief and
disease? Error. Can error make disease? Did it ever do anything? No. Can it
ever do anything? No. Has it any power? No.
Why has it no power? Because God is
all-power. Is there any other power than God? No. Then is error anything? Error
is nothing because God created all things and is All-in-all.
With this silent argument you have
silenced—entirely destroyed—the false type of man, and put man in his
own true inheritance, and what was belief has become truth, and he is
transformed by the renewing of his mind. And his body, which is not apart from
him, but part of him, takes on its true likeness, and the Christ is made
manifest in the flesh (Ibid, 210, 211).We must rise in the consciousness of
God, infinite good, as the only Mind, the only reality, the only Ego, the
Principle of all existence, the only Life, the only Truth, and the only Love;
then evil, animal magnetism, will disappear. Why? Because there never was any
evil or error. We only seem to encounter evil when we are not looking from
God's standpoint. Evil is hypnotic suggestion only.
Handling of Evil in
Textbook
Anna: I once did an in-depth study on
how Mrs. Eddy handled evil in the textbook, and found that evil is handled
differently according to which level of consciousness one is talking about. On
the divine Science level, evil is precluded, since “in divine Science
the material man is shut out from the presence of God. The five
corporeal senses cannot take cognizance of Spirit” (543:8).
In absolute Christian Science, where
all is light, latent error is handled. Truth destroys mortality and brings
immortality to light. In arithmetic, in solving a problem, we know the
principle alone holds the answer, so we divest ourselves of personal views
regarding the calculation, and turn unrestrictedly to the principle. In
absolute Christian Science we do the same. The doctrine of absolute Christian
Science is that evil has neither intelligence nor power, and this is the great
truth which strips all disguise from error. (454:11)
In Christian Science, concrete and visible
error is handled. Here Truth handles error. Christian Science rises above the
testimony of the physical sense (448:12); it teaches when and how to probe the
self-inflicted wounds of selfishness, malice, envy, and hate. (462:25).
“Christian Science relates especially to Science as applied to
humanity” (127:15). Mrs. Eddy discovered divine Science, but, for
humanity's sake, she reduced it to Christian Science. On the highest level,
Science itself, evil, of course, is unknown.
To the uninitiated it might look like Mrs.
Eddy is always saying more or less the same thing about the handling of evil
throughout the textbook. But here, again, an in-depth study shows each chapter
in the textbook takes up different phases of evil and handles them in the
manner scientifically indicated by the subject matter. There is no repetition
whatsoever. Her handling of evil in the textbook is a fascinating study.
Moderator: Would anyone like to add
anything to what Anna has said regarding Mrs. Eddy's teaching on the subject of
evil?
Grace: Mrs. Eddy consistently showed
that the one evil is mortal mind operating through hypnotic suggestion, animal
magnetism. Then she asked: Is animal magnetism anything? No! she said, it is
just a lie about God, about what is really present. Mrs. Eddy unmasked
this lie that evil is a reality, and so opened the way for humanity universally
to make itself one with God, to “ratify a union predestined from all
eternity” (Un. 17:8). Man ratifies his union with God through
understanding his present perfection, as idea—the spiritual idea, or
Christ—in which there is no matter, and consciousness is only aware of
itself as the infinite concept of the infinite Mind—the Mind that is Love.
This spiritual idea is the link in the chain of being that unites all mankind
with Christ, its spiritual original.
Ages may pass, but this leaven of Truth is
ever at work. (118:10) It is destroying the Adam-dream and obliterating the
human sense of the divine that veils our present perfection. All that is ever
going to be true in the “future” is true now just as all that will
ever be true of mathematics is true now. Man's identity or consciousness
reflects only Spirit, good. Christian Science will awaken man to the fact that
he now lives in the flawless universe of Mind.
Tommy: This means the complete
overcoming of the belief in matter. This we do by learning to start every
thought from God, our true Mind and Priciple, knowing that we live, move, and
have our being only in God. If we hold to God, the rest will take care of
itself. When we are one with the divine Principle, God is the only
“I.” As we rise spiritually we lose our sense of an “I” in
matter.
Life, Truth, Love
Unaffected by Lies
Margie: It is only animal
magnetism—being fooled into believing that evil is real and has
power—that keeps us from being the omnipresence of present perfection. If
we fail to see the nowness of our God-being and divine perfection we are
crucifying the ever-present Christ. Lida Fitzpatrick's Notes (p. 50), April
5,1907, recorded the following conversation with Mrs. Eddy:
'I am the way.' What is the way? Infinite
Principle. What is infinite Principle? Truth, Life, Love. Can a lie affect
Truth, Life, Love? No. Then hold your thought in Truth, Life, Love; while doing
so, can you be touched? No. Then hold there. This will destroy all evil.
This is the period in which it must be done. (See also DCC 28.)
Bill: Yes, this—today—is
the period in which it must be done. Today, not tomorrow, we should accept the
teaching of divine Science that matter is an error of statement. It is totally
unreal and is rapidly being so seen on a world basis, and not only by Christian
Scientists. Not one single seeming fact in all the whole fabric and buildup of
mortal mind's universe is true or real. It is all merely aggressive
mental suggestion coming to us for us to adopt as our own thought when it is
only hypnotic suggestion. “Error,” Mrs. Eddy said, “comes to you
for life, and you give it all the life it has. If you could but see the
sublimity of your hope, the grandeur of your outlook, the infinite capacity of
your being, you would just let error kill itself” (DCC 215). We must
feel Love's presence now.
Moderator: Yes, Bill, that's right.
Christian Science teaches that man is in the kingdom now; but because his
material senses are inadequate to comprehend this fact, his spiritual sense
must be resurrected. To receive the evidence that I am in the kingdom of heaven
now, my spiritual sense must be resurrected. With spiritual sense I can discern
the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses—the lying
senses—are seeing. As spiritual sense is developed through assimilating
the teaching of our textbook, matter concepts are obliterated and finally we
lose all consciousness of the matter dream-world, just as we have lost
consciousness of the flat earth which used to seem very real.
Rocky: The textbook is turning the
world away from matter and personalities to the idea. When this complete
turning from matter is accomplished, the matter concept will be obsolete, and
we will see that all there is to personality is the fear of it or the love of
it. We should not be engaged in patching up the body, trying to make a better
eye, a better limb, etc., because then we are not putting on the new. We must
start with God, and see that a perfect God must have a perfect
reflection—man.
Tina: What should we be doing?
Kathleen: Lida Fitzpatrick, an early
student, remembers Mrs. Eddy saying that in Science we say, “Eye, you
cannot talk to me. I have put you off. This is putting off the old man.
Rookie: What does Mrs. Eddy mean by “putting off
the old man”?
Anna: Mrs. Eddy's first sentence on
page one of the textbook gives the answer. That sentence also gives us the clue
for understanding the entire message of Science and Health. She states there
that the prayer that reforms and heals is “a spiritual understanding of
Him, an unselfed love.” This unselfed love means we are to
recognize no selfhood of our own, we are to recognize God as the only Self, and
the Self of all.
Only with an “unselfed” love can
we realize that the divine Mind is our Mind. As Jesus said, “the kingdom
of God is within you.” We have no mind of our own. Only with an
“unselfed” love can we realize that we have no substance but the
substance of Spirit, we have no identity but the identity that is God.
“Unselfed” means without a human personal sense of self.
“Putting off the old man” means getting myself out of the way,
getting Anna out of the way, and letting the divine Ego work unobstructed by a
human personal sense. That sense of a little personal ego of my own must yield
to the only Ego, the divine Ego that is the Ego of each one of us. No one has a
self of his own. The belief that he has a selfhood of his own is “the old
man” that must be put off.
To put off “the old man” we must
start every thought from God. Ask: How does Mind see this? How does Spirit see
this? etc., and watch to see that no human mortal conceptions enter. Everything
that is not of the divine nature must be silenced. Our only need is to discover
our divinity; in that divinity, every need is met.
We discovered our divinity and put off
“the old man” through the true prayer of “a spiritual
understanding of Him, an unselfed love.” (1:3) The true
“I” or Ego is “absent from the body” and “present with
the Lord.”
Kathleen: The Lida Fitzpatrick quote
continues: “Rise to the spiritual sense, then your body will respond; then
take no thought what you eat, your clothes, etc., for your heavenly Father
knoweth ye have need of these things. Why? because if we see we have no
selfhood of our own, no selfhood apart from God, then God, Mind, the one
Self—the Self of all—knows our need and answers it before we call
(see Isa. 65:24). This is the resurrection. The resurrection is not to be
resurrected from matter-dust. There never was any life in matter to be
resurrected.] The resurrection is seeing the real man that was never in matter.
He never was sick to be made well. That is the way I did the healing. I never
saw the material man before me, but saw the real man, perfect; and this healed
instantaneously, and no relapse” (Lida Fitzpatrick Notes, p. 49 or DCC.
27). Mrs. Eddy beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to her where
sinning mortal man appears to mortals. (476:32)
Seeing the Patient as
Well
Moderator: In We Knew Mary Baker
Eddy (Second Series) Frank Walter Gale reports that in the class he
attended, Mrs. Eddy stressed that in order to heal quickly we must not
recognize any disease in a patient, even as a belief, because when we do we
make more or less a reality of it. We should go to the patient with the feeling
that he is well and we want to show him that he is well. Mrs. Eddy told us,
says Mr. Gale, that her instantaneous healings resulted when she lost sight of
the personality and realized only the presence of the spiritual and perfect.
When her thought was lost in the eminence of Mind the healing took place, she
said.
The healing will grow more easy and more
immediate, she told the class, as you realize that God, good, is all, and good
is Love. “You must gain Love, and lose the false sense called love. You
must feel the Love that never faileth—that perfect sense of divine power
that makes healing no longer power but grace. Then you will have the Love that
casts out fear, and when fear is gone doubt is gone and your work is done. Why?
Because it was never undone.”
Mrs. Eddy was showing them that if they had
the right inward attitude, if their consciousness conformed to divine
Principle, the healing would result. She was showing that a right
attitude—a consciousness filled with love that reflected divine
Love—demonstrates itself. When our consciousness is filled with Life,
Truth, and Love, the healing is natural and spontaneous because Life, Truth,
and Love demonstrate themselves. All we need to do is get self out of the way,
and when self is put behind us, Love is out in front, and it does the
healing—sees there is nothing to heal. Our whole work is to be one with
the divine Principle. When the musician studies music he studies to become one
with the principle of music. The mathematician studies to become one with the
principle of mathematics. The Scientist studies to become one with his divine
Principle, and when one understands the divine Principle and is one with that
Principle, one has the right attitude, the right consciousness, and healing is
natural, just as an understanding of math makes the solving of mathematical
problems easy and natural.
Unselfed Love the Great
Need
Francie: At this point, Mrs. Eddy
says that “the neighbor is one with the Father. So are we. We are all one
in Spirit. The 'I' is one, infinite. The one who sees this and abides in it
becomes unselfed and is then ready to see his neighbor as God, Principle, Love,
sees him, and is a Christian Scientist. There is but one way through, and only
one way through; and that is to unself” (Lida Fitzpatrick Notes,
DCC 22).
It was Mrs. Eddy's unselfed love that made a
success of the Cause for the world. She demonstrated every step. She took the
side with God and put all of the balance there. When we put all the balance on
God's side it brings us to the baptism of Spirit, the third appearing, where
mortality is finally swallowed up in immortality, where the curtain is dropped
on material man, and the human consciousness is immersed in the infinite ocean
of Love. Then man's identity or consciousness reflects only Spirit, good. All
sense of matter and a material universe has been erased, expunged from the
record.
Rocky: Jesus showed that dying didn't
kill us, and Mrs. Eddy showed that being born doesn't cause us to live.
The Third
Baptism
Johnny: Accepting the teachings of
Divine Science (the Comforter) causes us to live. God, Mind, is All, and the
infinite and eternal Mind is the only Mind, and it is our Mind. It is the only
“I or Us” (591:16). The truth in the Scientific Statement of Being
(468:8) is man, for man is the understanding of God. Man is God's consciousness
of Himself. God, Mind, Principle, conscious of Himself, is man. Edward E.
Norwood wrote: “Knowing God is being man. We find God only as we find our
real selfhood, and Mary Baker Eddy showed us how to do it. She came that we
might have Life, Truth, and Love, and joy and purity, and humility, and honesty
and substance and peace, and have them more abundantly.
“The Christ, the spiritual idea, comes
to the moral, to that which believes in matter and is held by it, and cuts it
off from the physical. The moral, thus freed, unfolds to the spiritual and is
saved” (Miscellaneous Documents, P. 133).
The moral is the “Abel” thought
that Cain could slay because Abel didn't realize that all is spiritual. The
moral is that transitional stage involving such qualities as “humanity,
honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance”
(115:26). Unless these qualities are combined with “wisdom, purity,
spiritual understanding, love, health, holiness,” all of which are
spiritual (116:2), they can be crushed by the physical, the “Cain”
qualities. (See 541:14. Also Genesis 4:8) Conformity with the moral, however,
cannot be evaded, avoided, escaped, shunned, or eschewed.
Juliann: We should be totally engaged
in dissolving the ghosts of matter and materiality by putting all our weight
into the scale with God, until matter and materiality is obliterated from the
scene. Then perfection appears and reality is reached. Mrs. Eddy calls this the
third baptism, or third appearing, which means the disappearing of all but the
harmonious omni-action of Principle and its idea as one. This would be the
third advent.
Moderator: I am sure we all agree,
Juliann, that laying off the mortal, the big lie about ourselves and God, is
all that is needed to see ourselves as God sees us and as we already are and
always have been. The Science Mrs. Eddy brought enables us to do this. But
during the sensual ages, Mrs. Eddy says, absolute Christian Science may not be
achieved prior to the change called death (254:16). She doesn't say it cannot
be achieved. She herself lived in the atmosphere of divine Science much of the
time, or she could not have accomplished the stupendous task of completing the
work of Christ Jesus on earth. Mr. Carpenter, Sr. once remarked, “We go up
occasionally; she came down occasionally.”
Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets
caught glorious glimpses of the Christ which, Mrs. Eddy says, baptized these
seers in the divine nature, the essence of Love. (333:23) Paul speaks of being
“caught up to the third heaven [what Mrs. Eddy would call the third
baptism, third advent, or third appearing, which is just the disappearing of
all but God and his reflection], paradise, and heard unspeakable words . . .
“ Too bad he considered them “unlawful to utter” (II Cor.
12:2-4). No doubt he saw the absolute oneness of God and man.
Would anyone like to add anything to what
has been said on this subject of the third baptism?
Jackie: Wasn't St. John on our plane
of existence when he experienced this “third baptism”?
Bill: Yes, Mrs. Eddy says that this
heavenly city [consciousness] lighted by the Sun of Righteousness, this
infinite All, reached St. John's vision while he was still on our plane of
existence. (576:3) To mortals the new heaven and new earth, this heavenly
consciousness, seems “hidden in the mist of remoteness,” but St. John
was able to behold what the eye cannot see—that which is invisible to
uninspired thought (572:23). Through learning the system of Christian
Science we can exchange mortal consciousness for divine consciousness.
Grace: She indicates that St. John
was looking at the same thing everyone else was looking at, but he had cultured
his spiritual sense to the point where he arrived at “that consciousness
which God bestows.” Thus heaven and earth to him were spiritual, while to
another who has not yet cultured his consciousness to that degree, the same
heaven and earth are material. Mrs. Eddy states “what the human mind terms
matter and spirit indicates states and stages of consciousness” (573:9),
but the only thing that is ever really present is the omni-action of divine
Principle, Love. (573) Mathematics, for example, is always perfect, regardless
of the state or stage the learner finds himself in.
Diane: What helps us attain that divine
consciousness?
Florence: I think it would help us
most if we took what is in Science and Health as though we were receiving it
from God directly. When you “take the 'little book' “ know that you
are hearing the voice of your divine Principle; read it as though it were a
love-letter; read it over and over; read between the lines; pour over it;
secretly ponder it; glory in it. Carry it around with you and at every
opportunity stop to savor its precious promises.”
Anna: Illustrating another way to
develop “that consciousness which God bestows,” Mrs. Eddy relates
that a father plunged his infant babe, only hours old, into the water for
several minutes, and repeated this operation daily, until the child could
remain under water twenty minutes, moving and playing without harm. (556:31) If
we daily increased the time we are immersed in the eminence of Mind, this would
bring the conviction that God is the only Life, and that man's eternal
Principle is ever-present Life. Thus “we shall be found Love, Life, and
Truth, because we understand them” (first ed. 77:17, S. & H.).
Bessie: How do we start?
Francie: We have to use what we
already know. We are encouraged as we overcome error with our new-found
knowledge, but we are never satisfied until we see ourselve as
“incorporeal, divine, supreme infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle,
Life, Truth, and Love” that the textbook is leading us into. Every
spiritualized thought pushes us nearer to being what we have always been and
are now, in spite of what the lying testimony of the senses is telling us.
It is error to believe we have to become
something that we now are not; because in reality we already are perfect and we
must claim present perfection. Remember, an image can't think. Always ask:
“God, what are you saying?” God says: You don't have to become
something you already are, and have always been.
Sally: We need to unmask the
Adam-dream—the animal magnetism, aggressive mental suggestion, hypnotic
suggestion. What needs to be uncovered is that “dam” or obstruction,
that ignorance, which seems to separate us from oneness with God, good, and
our everpresent perfection. This “dam” Mrs. Eddy named
“false belief,” and it is only false belief that hides the
“third baptism” from us.
Tommy: If we think of the third
baptism or “third appearing” as something which is going to happen in
the future, we are crucifying the ever-present Christ. We must drop the mortal
sense of things now. At no point can the mortal belief of existence unite with
the true. The mortal must be dropped. We can only unlock Science and Health by
living it in our own life, by starting every thought from God, and becoming one
with the seven synonymous terms for God.
Margie: Although it is recorded (DCC. 234) that Mrs.
Eddy stated: “This is the second coming of Christ and it will be the
last,” she also said, though ages pass, “this leaven of Truth is ever
at work. It must destroy the entire mass of error and so be eternally glorified
in man's spiritual freedom” (118:10). Gradually the whole world will learn
the system and Science Mrs. Eddy set forth in the textbook enabling man to
exchange mortal consciousness for immortal scientific divine consciousness,
wherein we experience the “third baptism.”
SESSION IV:
MRS EDDY AS DEMONSTRATOR .
AUSTRALIA, LONDON, AND OTHER
HEALINGS
Moderator: We know that Mrs. Eddy
worked continuously under God's direction and demonstrated every step she took.
Not only did she demonstrate every step in the many and varied steps necessary
in founding her revelation in human consciousness but she also felt it
necessary whenever possible to demonstrate every statement she wrote in Science
and Health.
For instance when she wanted to write in the
textbook, “The 'still small voice' of scientific thought reaches over
continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound” (559:8), she felt she
must demonstrate this statement before putting it in the textbook.
The following testimony was given some years
ago at the Christian Science Sanitarium in San Francisco, and was related to me
by Dorothy Napkie of Newport Beach, California:
The wife of a businessman in one of our
southern states was pronounced in the terminal stages of tuberculosis. The
attending physician named a place in Australia where the climate might be of
benefit in prolonging the patient's life. The husband immediately made all
arrangements and they took up their abode at a certain hotel in Australia. Each
day the husband would carry his wife to a veranda where she could sit in the
sun. One day as he carried her he felt she had grown so emaciated and weak, he
wondered sadly if this might not be the last day he would carry his dearly
beloved to the veranda, and after seating her, he hurried away to hide his
grief.
That day, as the wife sat there, lost in
thought contemplating the beauty all around her, she suddenly felt that she was
being healed, that this sickness was not unto death, and she rose from her
chair when her husband later returned, exclaiming, “I am healed!” She
immediately began asking God to show her what had healed her. After returning
to San Francisco, she heard of Christian Science and the healing work it was
accomplishing. She began attending the Wednesday Evening testimonial meetings,
having become convinced that it was Christian Science that had somehow reached
her thought and healed her.
At one of these Wednesday Evening meetings
she met a man who was on Mrs. Eddy's household staff, and was visiting in San
Francisco. He was leaving soon to return to Pleasant View where Mrs. Eddy was
then living. The wife asked him if he would take a letter, expressing her
gratitude, to Mrs. Eddy.
When the man arrived at Pleasant View, Mrs.
Eddy herself answered the door, greeting him with: “You have a letter for
me!” “Yes, Mother,” he answered. “But how did you know
that?”
Mrs. Eddy said, “I have waited two years for that
letter.”
After receiving it, she inserted lines 8-10
on page 559 of Science and Health. She had demonstrated it—the letter was
her answer to the treatment she had given two years earlier.
On another occasion when Christian Science
was rapidly spreading in England Mrs. Eddy felt the need for another
representative there. After praying about it, she talked with a certain student
about making his home in England to help with the Christian Science healing
work in progress there.
The student readily agreed, but after
leaving Mrs. Eddy he had second thoughts. He had a wife, small children, and a
large house fully furnished, among other things, that would make it difficult
for him to leave. He was so disturbed that he decided to go right back to Mrs.
Eddy and tell her he couldn't accept after all.
Mrs. Eddy listened patiently to all the
reasons he gave for changing his mind and deciding he couldn't go.
Then she said, “But you have forgotten
one thing.”
He responded, “What is that?”
She said, “You have forgotten that God
wants you in England.”
Up to this point the student may have
thought it was just Mrs. Eddy that wanted him in England, but when both God and
Mrs. Eddy wanted him there, how could he refuse?
He left, knowing it was up to God. A feeling
of confidence warmed and cheered him, replacing the disturbance and misgivings
he had previously entertained.
A few days later a man stopped at his home
and inquired if he knew of any houses for sale in the neighborhood. The man
said, “This house is for sale, furnished.” They quickly made a deal
satisfactory to both parties, and in a very short time the student with his
family set sail for a fine, long career in England.
To Mrs. Eddy there was only the omnipresence
of present perfection, always operating fully.
Rookie: When Mrs. Eddy in 1891 wrote
in Science and Health, page 162:20: “shortened limbs have been
elongated,” she may have had in mind the healing published in the
Christian Science Sentinel, Vol. VIII, p. 216, and the Christian
Science Journal, Vol. XXIII, p. 572. About 1888, when Mrs. Eddy lived at
385 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, a man named Carter came there to do some work,
One of his legs had been injured in a fall from a building. As a result he wore
an iron shoe eight or nine inches high. He related his healing as follows:I was
called to Mrs. Eddy's home on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston to do some light
work. Mrs. Eddy came into the room where I was busy, and observing my
condition, kindly remarked, “I suppose you expect to get out of this some
time.” I answered, “No; all that can be done for me has been done,
and I can now manage to get around with a cane,” Mrs. Eddy said, “Sit
down and I will treat you.” When she finished the treatment she said,
“You go home and take off that iron shoe, and give your leg a chance to
straighten out.” I went home and did as I was told, and now I am so well
that so far as I know, one leg is as good as the other.A similar healing by
Mrs. Eddy was related in a letter to her from a crippled man's niece, and
published in the Sentinel, Vol. X, p. 912:
About 1870 Mrs. Eddy was visiting with a
friend in a Boston suburb. A cripple came to the friend's door. His arms were
so stiff and his legs so contracted that he was strapped to crutches. Mrs. Eddy
saw him and gave him something. Hobbling to the next house he was given
permission to enter and lie down. In about an hour he found his arms and legs
loosed; he could stand erect, he could walk. He was well. He attributed his
recovery to Mrs. Eddy, for whom he inquired without knowing her name. When
later Mrs. Eddy's students asked her how she had healed him, she replied,
“When I looked on that man my heart gushed with unspeakable pity and
prayer.” Mrs. Eddy loved. She yearned to do good. Mrs. Eddy knew that God
is Love and His law is always available and adequate for every need. “The
consciousness of God as Love gives man power with untold furtherance”
('02.8:30). Mrs. Eddy's comprehension of God's love was clear and
positive.
Moderator: The name Hanover P. Smith
has long been familiar to me as an important and active worker in the early
Christian Science movement. I had read his Writings and Genius of the
Founder of Christian Science, a pamphlet greatly appreciated by Mrs. Eddy
because it helped make her known to the public when the pamphlet was issued in
1886. But only recently did I read that Hanover P. Smith had been deaf
and dumb from birth. He had tried medical means for relief and had been in an
institution for the deaf and dumb. When he was nineteen his mother heard of
Christian Science and took Hanover to see Mrs. Eddy who healed him quickly.
In the early days, healings of this nature
were everyday affairs.
Mrs. Eddy's God was her Life. She wanted us
to understand that our God is our Life. Mrs. Eddy's self-effacement was
complete. She was like a transparency for God to shine through. She knew
“man shines by borrowed light. He reflects God as his Mind, and this
reflection is substance—the substance of good.” (Ret. 57:15)
Mrs. Eddy's constant prayer was:
Oh, Lord, give me higher, purer, hollier
desires.
Oh, Lord, give me more self-abnegating
desires. Oh, Lord, give me a desire for more Love.
She realized that without the unction of
Love there is no vision.
Unassable evidence of Mrs. Eddy's position
as the revelator of Christ, Truth, to our age is found, as before mentioned, in
the healing work of Christian Science. It is also attested to by the fact that
she conquered all opposition. She was often opposed by those calling themselves
ministers of the gospel, as well as other Christians who attacked her with a
malignity and fury that would have graced the age of Mary and Elizabeth when
Catholics and Protestants put each other to death for the sake of him who
commanded mankind to love one another.
Tommy: Mrs. Eddy was motivated by a
single thought: the establishment of a scientific Christianity adapted to the
needs of mankind. The variations of that singleness of purpose brought forth
steps in their order, and the future will prove the successful outcome of that
for which she hoped: namely, the total freedom from bondage to sin, sickness,
and death which can only come about through the banishment of the last enemy,
human birth.
Sally: What do you think Mrs. Eddy
knew that enabled her to heal these cases?
Moderator Let's analyze each case
separately. Anna, what do you think Mrs. Eddy was knowing or calculating when
she saw that “the 'still small voice' of scientific thought reaches over
continent and ocean, etc.”?
Anna: I think she was knowing that
mortal consciousness is not personal. She was knowing that there was no
sinner anywhere in all God's universe. If there was no sinner then there
could be no claim of a sick individual. She saw that, as in arithmetic, anyone
can falsely calculate that 2 + 2 are 5, but this in no way affects the
principle of arithmetic that remains perfect. It is the same with man. Man
remains perfect as God's image and likeness, regardless of any and all false
beliefs about himself that he might accept. “Sin existed as a false
claim,” Mrs. Eddy says, “before the human concept of sin was
formed.” Mrs. Eddy looked out and “beheld in Science the perfect
man” everywhere. The false claims mankind was accepting and believing to
be a part of its real being were pure illusion. Those false claims were never
part of the real man.
Before Jesus brought Lazarus forth from the
tomb he was using this Principle that Mrs. Eddy nineteen centuries later
discovered and made available to humanity.
When Mrs. Eddy was doing her spiritual
calculations she also knew that the truth she was knowing would rest on some
receptive thought and fulfill her specific need for proof so she could
confidently write in Science and Health “the 'still small voice' of
scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean, etc.”
Moderator: Thank you, Anna. What
about her need to have another representative in England?
Johnny: I think there, again, Mrs.
Eddy saw the law of supply and demand. She saw it was just a false claim,
impersonal evil, trying to suggest that there was a need and no supply. She put
that false claim into the same category that a mathematician would put 2 x 6 is
13. She instantly replaced the false suggestion with the truth as God knows the
truth. Since her thought always started with the divine Mind and with what the
divine Mind knows, her thought naturally moved in “God's grooves of
Science.”
Moderator: Very good, Johnny. When
Mrs. Eddy said to the workman with the eight or nine inch iron shoe, “Sit
down and I will treat you,” how do you think she was reasoning on that
occasion?
Grace: That man was believing he had
been in an accident. Mrs. Eddy knew that the belief in accidents is just one of
mortal mind's age-old mythological conceptions, another case of sin
constituting the human or physical concept. That there had ever been an
accident in God's universe, which is peopled with nothing but spiritual ideas,
was just preposterous! It never happened. This dear man had just accepted a
suggestion put out by mythology which was the suppositional opposite of what
divine Mind knows to be the correct image. Mrs. Eddy beheld the perfect man,
the man Mind has as its image and likeness. That healed the error just as the
mathematician heals 2 x 6 = 13 by seeing it is a lie about 2 x 6 = 12.
Moderator: Yes, Grace, Mrs. Eddy rose
above corporeality and looked with God's eyes.
What about the cripple who came to a
friend's door, and was healed by Mrs. Eddy?
Tommy: In that case, you remember,
Mrs. Eddy said, “When I looked on that man my heart gushed with
unspeakable pity and prayer.” Desire is prayer. Mrs. Eddy's heart went to
God in fervent prayer to be enabled to behold the man of God's creating. Her
heart revolted against the suggestion that sin could pin itself to God's
perfect image and likeness. She knew that what was binding the limbs of this
innocent man was nothing but the same old “sin that constitutes the human
or physical concept.” He was suffering, needlessly, because he had allowed
some mythological beliefs to bind him—he failed to challenge mythological
concepts with the truth that man is always naturally, inherently perfect since
he is an image in the divine Mind. Mrs. Eddy's ability to make a quick
spiritual computation set the man free; she saw that Mind made all its
creations, free and perfect.
Sin, sickness, discord, has no power to pin
itself on us if we challenge it and see it as merely a false claim. We must
look at sin and sickness in the same way we look at 2 x 2 = 5, or at the
assertion that the world is flat.
Moderator: Yes, Tommy, that healing
shows how necessary divine Love is in the healing process. Mrs. Eddy washed out
the error with flood tides of Love.
What about Hanover P. Smith?
Margie: He had allowed himself to be
chained to the belief that he was born deaf and dumb. Mrs. Eddy would not
accept the belief that there was deafness and dumbness in the Mind of God which
was changeless good. Since there was no deafness and dumbness in God's Mind
there could be none in His image and likeness. Sin, sickness, deafness,
dumbness, blindness, discords of any nature, are not in the perfect Mind, God.
The universal law is that the greater must control the lesser. Then perfection
must rule over imperfection.
Mrs. Eddy knew that body and mind are one in
action. Body was the visible manifestation of an invisible power. The
“I” and body are one. In order to change the body the “I”
must change. When Mrs. Eddy's “I” looked at Hanover P. Smith she saw
God's image and likeness. If she had looked with the same “I” that
Hanover was looking at himself with, she could not have healed him. Mrs. Eddy
beheld in Science the perfect man. She laid down the mortal point of view and
looked through God's eyes alone. And “greater love hath no man than this,
that he lay down his false viewpoint of his brother man and see him as God sees
him,” to paraphrase Jesus.
Our brother man is always perfect regardless
of the myths that seemingly have attached themselves to him, or the false
suggestions to which he has yielded his mentality.
Moderator: That's correct, Margie.
All day long we are bombarded with false suggestions. Mrs. Eddy, on Martha
Wilcox's first day at Chestnut Hill, warned Martha that the real danger was
never anything from outside her thought. Mrs. Eddy told her that
“sometimes a sense of personality arises before your thought [like Hanover
P. Smith, the cripple on crutches or the workman with the iron shoe, etc.] and
leads you to believe that a personality is something outside and separate from
your thought [that needs to be healed or] that can harm you.” Mrs. Eddy
showed her that the real danger was never this threatened attack from outside
her thought where the personality seemed to be, but that the real danger was
always her own thought.
Mrs. Wilcox states: “She made it clear
that my sense of personality was mental—a mental image, formed in my
so-called mortal mind, and was never external or separate from my mind. This
supposititious mortal mind outlines itself as a belief of a material
personality, with form and conditions and laws and circumstances—in fact,
with all of the phenomena embraced in what is called material life and
personality. Then she showed me that not one solitary fact in this whole fabric
of suppositious evil was true. [Mrs. Eddy's ability to heal sin and sickness
and raise the dead resulted from her total conviction that error, including all
sense of personality, was a lie. She saw error as merely mental illusion coming
up from the deep hidden subconscious realm of mythology, the realm of
illusion—of hypnotic suggestion.
“She showed me that I must detect that
all this mental phenomena was only aggressive mental suggestion coming to me
for me to adopt it as my own thought.
“She showed me that, because mental
practise is mental, the only place that I could meet [error] was within what
seemed to be my own mentality, and the only way I could meet the error was to
give up the belief in a power and presence other than God, or Truth. She showed
me that this seeming within enemy could never harm me if I were awake to
the Truth and active in the Truth.” (Notes given to the author by Mrs.
Wilcox's student, Fannie Abbot Andrews).
True treatment involves knowing the divine
ever-presence of infinite perfection.
Anna: In all these healings no one
lost his or her substance or identity on account of the fact that Mrs. Eddy saw
them as an image in the divine Mind. Mrs. Eddy's correct
Mind-calculations gave substance (Spirit), and identity (Soul), to the divine
Mind-image. She saw these “patients” from a higher state of
consciousness. And because Mrs. Eddy had a higher state or structure of
consciousness, the phenomena was a higher phenomena, a well (whole) man or
situation instead of a sick or crippled individual, or a situation that lacked
in some respects, as in the case of the need for a representative in London.
When we change our structure of
consciousness or our scale of observation, what we are looking at changes too.
In Science of Man, her earliest
published teaching, Mrs. Eddy asked: “When teaching this truth, is the
learner first to understand he is a principle and not a person, and secondly
that life, the principle outside the body, is himself?
Her answer is: “Certainly, and this
will commence to take him into intelligence and away from the error of his
belief that life is in matter and is that error which holds him from the
understanding of this principle of Science, and that error which holds man from
understanding God in truth, and which has hitherto explained him as a belief, a
person, and error.”
Mrs. Eddy saw that “the one Ego, the
one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality” (281:14). She
taught that we are all, each one of us, this infinite individuality, we are all
the one identity, the one Ego, infinitely individualized, of course, but always
remaining the one Ego. There is nothing else. It was this infinite
individualization that enabled Mrs. Eddy to meet the need of each of the cases
of healing that we have cited.
Recess
The Way: Love For One's
Fellowman
Moderator: Looking into Mrs. Eddy's
place in scriptural prophecy, we can see that she fulfilled the symbol of the
angel standing in the sun (Rev. 19:17). Her teachings are light itself in which
there is no darkness. As Jesus manifested the fatherhood of God, so Mrs. Eddy
in her writings manifested the motherhood of God, manifested God's nature as
Love.
We have seen she repeatedly emphasized that
Christian Science is not Science unless it be Christian to the highest degree,
unless it illustrates and demonstrates the Christianity of the Christ beyond
all religions. In the language of Scripture this Science, said Mrs. Eddy,
“is God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen as angels,
believed on in the world, received up into glory.” It is God disciplining
and destroying evil, physically, morally, spiritually. Salvation by
proclamation was a forlorn and misleading hope. Evil, she taught, had to be
recognized as evil, and it must be seen as having no legitimacy, no ultimate
reality, Then, on that basis, it had to be repudiated. The only error was
mortality itself since “existence separate from divinity, Science explains
as impossible” (522:10). This can only mean that we must find all
happiness in divine Love, Life in and of Spirit—spiritual life here and
now. But this cannot be done without first speaking the truth to every form
of error and rejecting it. To accept human life as defined by the physical
senses was itself the primal slavery. The real enemy was the concept of life as
finite and self-devouring.
Bill: The most dangerous error for
students is not seeing error, not being aware of it, not being sensible to its
presence. It must be detected but always seen as unreal, and then, with what we
know to be true about God and man, it must be destroyed. This result will only
come about through spiritual realization. Mrs. Eddy never let her followers
forget that the purpose of Christian Science was Christian healing and
regeneration. That was “the way.” The way is love for one's
fellowman, a love that heals; all is won through it. Christian Science is the
light of Love. “The error of the ages is preaching without practise”
(241:17).
With regard to our brother man, she taught
that the most loving thing we can do is to see him as God, Principle, Love,
sees him. We must unsee the picture of a corporeal mortal, and see man as that
which reflects every quality and attribute of God. This must be a steadily
maintained attitude—an impersonalizing of our fellowman, and a supplanting
of the mortal viewpoint with the immortal viewpoint.
The passing years showed Mrs. Eddy's
ever-deepening conviction that the letter of Christian Science could be
understood only through the spirit of Christ. Her letters, counsel, admonition
and Journal articles also showed an ever-increasing commitment to the
Christian ethic of love. Is the enemy you should love something outside your
own creation? Isn't your enemy something you first formulate? Then you look
upon the object of your own conception. (Mis. 8:9) “Animal magnetism,
hypnotism, etc.,” she declares (My. 364:9) “are disarmed by the
practitioner who excludes from his own consciousness, and that of his patients,
all sense of the realism of any other cause or effect save that which cometh
from God.” For her students, Mrs. Eddy opened a door in heaven and let
them look at the very heart of existence, the heart of divinity, where they
discerned a divine Love that was the true Principle of their being. As Mrs.
Eddy explained their real being, the students glimpsed a flawless
universe—a universe that knew no pain, no finity, no materiality, no
sickness, sin, or death.
But how was this universe of flawless being to be obtained
and retained so that it permanently supplanted all sense of a material
universe?
Margie: Mrs. Eddy says that the human
self must be evangelized. There is no other way. Here she is using
“Must” just as we might say two times two must be four. This
is the “stone” that the builders (meaning all mortals) tend to
reject. But in the end, mortal mind or error, will have to give itself up and
yield to the total evangelization of the human self.
Rocky: How do we go about this
“evangelizing” of the human self—how do we become selfless?
Margie: The entire textbook shows us
how this is done. Mrs. Eddy did not declare that it must be done and then leave
students of the textbook without a guide. There is also much on this subject in
her Prose Works, in the Manual, and in Christ and
Christmas that helps in this evangelizing process.
Florence: On page 115 of Science and
Health Mrs. Eddy lists what she calls “First Degree: Depravity”
traits and tendencies in mortals. These she saw as “sirens and rocks in
our course, on and by which so many wrecks are made” (Mis. 280:29).
Honesty compelled her to rebuke the carnal mind wherever it surfaced.
“The danger to the student is popularity and power, self-seeking instead
of self abasement. I have washed their feet and continue to do thus, and they
must wash one another's feet instead of elbowing each other; or they can never
follow the example of our Exemplar” (Lyman Powell, Mary Baker Eddy, p.
243).
Mrs. Eddy taught them by fervor in speaking
the Word, by tenderness in searching into their needs, and especially by
herself feeling the spirit of Christian Science, as she uttered the
spirit of it together with the letter. “When she spoke of Christ Jesus it
seemed as if time and space, the barrier of two millenniums and two
hemispheres, were swept away” (Emma Easton Newman, The Primary Class of
1889 and Other Memories).
“Her commendation produced the effect
of causing one to see one's shortcomings and at the same time determining to
overcome them” (ibid). She made the two great Commandments practical. She
showed them that to love the Lord (the Word, the Bride) thy God, with all thy
heart, and to love thy neighbor as thyself (which is being Lamb-like—being
the Lamb of God) was practicing the divine Principle, Love, and was the
Principle itself in operation. Mrs. Eddy showed that obeying the two great
Commandments (Matt. 22:37-40) was practicing “the Word and the wedding of
this Word to all human thought and action” (My. 153:28).
In the class of 1898 Mrs. Eddy urged the
students to be Love itself. Human love and compassion, the second-degree
qualities, weren't high enough, she said. We can't stay with just human love
(although it is an indispensable step towards divine Love), we must go on to be
Love itself. Only then are we safe. Divine Love alone is Life. Our world must
become the world Mary Baker Eddy beheld in Science—our world must be seen
as Christian Science.
Sally: What would you say the law of Love was?
Anna: It is Love never losing sight
of loveliness (248:3); it is Love wedded to its own spiritual idea (575:3); it
is that which tells us there is only one reality, and which knows no existence
separate from divinity. The law of Love is symbolized by the wedding of the
Lamb of Love (who has laid down all materiality) to his Bride, Science. This is
true marriage, the opposite of the human sense of marriage that is
“synonymous with legalized lust” (My. 5:4). The law of love is
“the Word and the wedding of this Word to all human thought and
action.”
When we find we have no existence separate
from divinity, then the love we express is not man's love, but is the Love that
is Principle. Love is all encompassing; this is why Mrs. Eddy could say that
man is as big as God; this is also why manhood and womanhood are one. They are
one because there is only one God, Principle, and one infinite God, Principle,
can have only one infinite reflection.
What Manner of
Men?
Francie: We spoke about Mrs. Eddy
insisting upon making Science practical by practicing the Principle of
brotherly love. One of the countless instances when Jesus practised Love is
recounted by Luke (9:51-56): At eventide Jesus and his weary disciples were
traveling toward Jerusalem. Hot, dusty, hungry, they all looked forward to rest
and food, so Jesus sent messengers ahead to make hotel reservations in the
Samaritan town they were approaching. But the Samaritans, disliking the
Jerusalemites, and seeing that “his face was as though he would go to
Jerusalem,” refused them.
This didn't sit too well with James and
John, and feeling punishment was indicated, they asked Jesus: “Lord, wilt
thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as
Elias did?”
But Jesus turned and rebuked them, saying,
“Ye know not what manner of men ye are!” [You are Principle's men
(ideas); you are Love itself, in expression. We aren't here to destroy lives
but to save them.] And they simply went to another village. It wasn't worth
having a fuss about. Jesus habitually “crossed over to the other
side,” to God's side, and looked out from God's point of view. He loved
the Samaritans and wasn't about to pick a quarrel with them, or take sides in a
quarrel they were having with the Jerusalemites. We should never pick up other
people's quarrels. If two of your good friends are having a quarrel, best stay
out of it, and do what you can to bring about harmony.
Sally: Mrs. Eddy says Christian
Science, being the soul of divine philosophy, reproduces the philosophy of Paul
and Jesus, and that Christian Science refutes everything that is not a
postulate of the divine Principle, God. The philosophy of Science and Health
alone will bear the strain of time. (See Mis. 364.)
HUMAN
PHILOSOPHY
Moderator: Yes, Sally, what was sent
forth in the little book was indeed “severe and glorious” in its
proof, as it clashed head on with the flood of scientific materialism that was
engulfing past religious suppositions. Orthodoxy had not been afraid of the
challenges to the reality of matter put forth by Descartes, Fichte, Hegel,
Spinoza, or Bishop Berkeley, all of whom, Mrs. Eddy said, were once clothed
with brief authority. Orthodoxy did not fear the circumlocution and cold
categories of Kant which failed to improve the conditions of mortals, morally,
spiritually, or physically. (No. 22:4) “But the trenchant truth
that cuts its way through iron and sod” (My. 160:14), a proposition with
radical practical consequences, was a different matter. It called for active
defiance on the part of the establishment which was rapidly plunging into total
materialism. Mrs. Eddy saw that the real villain was the human mind's
resistance to the impersonal demands of Truth.
Tommy: Materialistic so-called
“reformers” have decried the slave-morality that “pours a sickly
Christian sympathy on weakness and mediocrity,” but their proposed cures
amounted to nothing more than a rearrangement of this slavery. Mrs. Eddy held
that it was our belief in the testimony of the physical senses that insured the
continuance of this primal slavery until Christian Science educated us out of
false beliefs.
The following article by Mrs. Eddy is
preserved in the December, 1885 Christian Science Journal:
Woman's Industrial Union [signed “PROF. M.B.G.
EDDY']:
When reading the annual address of the
President before the Women's Educational and Industrial Union of this city, I
[Mary Baker Eddy] said, if this platform is rendered practical, it is the thing
for the period, and the woman and the hour have met. We know little of the
inside or outside of this organization, its motives, methods or aims, but Mrs.
Diaz has presented a fitting model whence to enlighten, uplift and adorn
society.
From her address we quote the following:
“Will there never be an uprising of slaves, a declaration of independence?
Never while woman thinks her part is chiefly to please. Never, until she stands
on equal ground with man; equally free to decide questions of duty, equally
bound to develop all the powers of her being.
“Fraud, drunkenness, sensuality, vice,
crime, are simply character manifest in life, the seen coming forth from the
unseen, coming from unconsidered forces.”
The above made practical, which it can and
should be, Massachusetts will have the best system of social reform which takes
in the secret of home life, of all her sister states. She has already the best
therapeutics and pathology, namely, our system of metaphysical
healing—Christian Science.
Advice From Mrs.
Eddy
Kathleen: In one of Mrs. Eddy's 1889
classes a student said she had tried in vain to bring back someone who had
strayed and was no longer loyal to the teachings of Christian Science. Mrs.
Eddy advised:
“Do not try any more. The love that is
going out to the world through Christian Science is the greatest power there
is, and the only thing that will change that thought.” She added: “ I
have often felt these hard unloving thoughts of others come about me like dark
clouds, and seem to surround me, but they never touched me, and why? Because my
thoughts were going out to them all the time in love and with a desire to help
them” (From the reminiscences of Alice Dayton).
Of another student, weighed down with the
imponderable burden of fear, Mrs. Eddy asked: What would you do if you knew
someone was trying to kill you through mental argument? “With me,”
recalls the student, “this question created a great sense of fear, and I
believe it was the same with other members of the class.” After waiting a
few moments for an answer Mrs. Eddy said, 'Cast it in the waste basket.' This
light remark concerning the error, and her realization of the powerlessness and
nothingnesss of the highest form of error, destroyed my sense of fear and left
me with a great sense of peace and fearlessness of the claim of error to
harm” (Sarah A. Farlow).
Ancient and Modern
Philosophies No Help
Moderator: Could any ancient or
modern philosophies be of help to Mrs. Eddy in fulfilling her role as
Revelator, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science?
Anna: No. Ancient and modern
philosophies never realized that Spirit, God (the only creator your true mind),
cannot create a material universe. They have always assumed that the phenomenon
of Spirit, God, the All-in-all, was the antipode of Spirit. In other words,
they have always assumed that Spirit, God, created his opposite, matter. They
assumed that a God who was infinite Love created evil.
As philosophy, metaphysics was a subject
that interested such great minds as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and many
others, but always as an ivory tower intellectualism. Both ancient and modern
philosophy misstate mental Science, its Principle and practise. They see
nothing but a law of matter. They all leave the grand point untouched—they
don't crown the power of Mind as the liberator or the eradicator of physical
enemies: the belief in matter, evil, disease and death. They don't see that
matter is nothing but an image in mortal mind. (116:13) This was not the case
when Mary Baker Eddy responded to Jesus' prophecy regarding the Comforter:
“The Comforter ... shall teach you all things, and bring all things to
your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). She
fulfilled that prophecy and brought the Comforter, Divine Science—the
“spirit of Truth” that will abide with us forever. Her metaphysics
wasn't just academic but a way of mastering experience; it marked the first
appearance on earth of practical metaphysics.
In the middle of the nineteenth century
science and theology were locked in a furious battle on the question of origin.
Darwin's Origen of Species caused churchmen to rise in angry defense of
their literal interpretation of the two accounts of creation.
In his Descent of Man, Darwin
postulated the origin of man in the blind stirring of primeval slime. Mrs. Eddy
maintained that spiritual evolution alone was worthy the exercise of divine
power, and she could not accept this blundering and ruthless process of
evolution as being the work of an all-intelligent and loving God, that was
Principle. Knowing that all error proceeds from the evidence before the
material senses, she asked, “May not Darwin be right in thinking apehood
preceded MORTAL manhood?” if man is material and originates in an
egg, who shall say that he is not primarily dust? Did man, whom God created
with a word, originate in an egg? When Spirit made all, did it leave aught for
matter to create? Man springs solely from Mind. The belief that matter supports
life would make Life, or God, mortal. (See 543:17-20) To Mrs. Eddy, mortal man
had nothing to do with the man God made in His own image and likeness. He was
what Mrs. Eddy defines in her Glossary (591:25) under “Mortal Mind.”
When she used such words as germ, germinate, species, seed, progenitors,
evolve, propagate, etc., they were used to denote the gradual appearing in
human experience of the image, the true idea, of God. The caricature presented
by the senses must be supplanted by the true man—the man in God's image
and likeness. What looks like the steady step-by-step gain of man is simply
attaining higher and higher views of God, which, in turn, cause us to lay down
the mortal viewpoint. As we “through suffering or through Science”
lay down the mortal viewpoint, God's universe is revealed intact as the only
and ever-present reality. Spiritual evolution is caused by spiritual education
recognizing matter as less and less real, and accepting good alone as real.
(See 267:19.)
Starting Every Thought
From God
Margie: Mrs. Eddy took a radical
departure from both the scientific and religious thinking of the world in her
day. In everything she did she started with God. Never before had a
metaphysician started with God, in divine logic, and proceeded without
deviating from God's point of view.
Today, standing on the threshold of the
seventh thousand-year period, we see signs on every hand and in every
scientific subject that the practical metaphysics stated in Mrs. Eddy's
writings are gaining ground, and supplanting the ignorance of God and man's
relation to God that prevailed in the nineteenth century, Mrs. Eddy showed
humanity how to start right by starting with God, and that to start right is to
end right. This “leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of
meal, till the whole was leavened,” is ever at work. During the past
century this leaven has wrought great changes in the world's thinking, and in
the ages to come it will continue its work until the entire mass of error has
been destroyed, and Truth is glorified in man's spiritual freedom. (117:31)
Marie: On page 118 of the textbook
Mrs. Eddy speaks of the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ,
Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visible world, as foretold by Jesus'
parable. What is this second appearing in the flesh—what is the meaning of
the “Word made flesh”? Did Mrs. Eddy also provide a “link”
in the chain of being?
Moderator: Yes, Marie. As Revelator,
Discoverer, and Founder of Christian Science she certainly provided a link in
the chain of being. Demonstration is the life-link through which Truth destroys
error. Mrs. Eddy's life was a continual demonstration of her teaching. It is
this demonstrating power—this demonstrating of the Truth—that is the
life-link. Her life was the language of Spirit; it was through spiritual sense
alone that she carried out her mission. The Word is made flesh in our lives as
we demonstrate the teaching of Mary Baker Eddy, because Christian Science is
the Word made flesh. It shows scientifically how to escape from the belief of
living in a matter body,
As we have already brought out, when we
study mathematics or any scientific subject we go out from the principle of
that subject. In mathematics, for instance, we go out from the principle and
stay with the principle; we don't interject human opinions or substitute our
false notions for what 25 x 25 should be. Mrs. Eddy was the first divine
philosopher to start all her reasoning from God. We too must learn to start
every thought from God.
Rocky: When you say, “start
every thought from God,” what do you mean, and how can we do it?
Mind
Johnny: You start with Mind by
going to Science and Health for ideas of Mind. The one Mind that is God is
the only Mind and that Mind is your Mind too, since it is the only Mind. That
Mind gives you all the intelligence and power you need since it is the only
basis, the only law. It is the all-seeing and all-knowing Mind which, when you
stay with it, gives you the ideas you need. Mind gives you the vision.
Spirit
In Spirit, since the Mind that gave us the
ideas is the only real Mind, we keep these ideas pure. We don't mix them with
beliefs of matter because we know that these ideas alone are substance and
reality. As we dedicate ourselves to keeping pure the vision we received when
we went to Mind in prayer, this vision grows and develops. Discerning the
difference between material beliefs and spiritual ideas brings understanding
and unfoldment. As we worship what Mind presents, our thought is more and more
purified. Purity, Mrs. Eddy says, is the path to perfection (Marginal heading,
p. 337). “In proportion to his purity is man perfect” (ibid).
Soul
In Soul we persevere in this direction until
we become the image and likeness of the vision we had in Mind.
“Mind,” Mrs. Eddy says, “is the Soul of all.” Mind is the
identity of all we are aware of, We learn that what we saw in Mind, and which
we found to be good, and the only, in Spirit, now becomes changeless good in
Soul, and all else is forsaken. Soul becomes our only Ego.
Principle
As we wed Mind, Spirit, and Soul into one
system it becomes our Principle. There is no other way to arrive at our
Principle than to go the way of Mind, Spirit, and Soul and see them as
one system which then constitutes the Principle from which Life, Truth, and
Love f low.
Life
Life is always that circle
where (1) thought goes back to Mind for fresh vision; (2) we keep that vision
pure and worship it, in Spirit; (3) in Soul we persevere in the direction of
becoming the image and likeness of the vision Mind gave us; here we find our
true identity; (4) then in Principle, our fourth step, we wed the first three
steps we took in Mind, Spirit, and Soul, into one system as our Principle, (5)
out of that, once again flows the newness of Life and the laying down of the
mortal viewpoint because we can't hold two opposite viewpoints at the same
time,
What we just did is the method for providing ourselves with
perpetual inspiration, regeneration, multiplication, and mutation to higher and
higher possibilities of isness or being.
Truth
In Truth we find that if we have gone this way of
Life, and have arrived at the isness of Life, we have gained dominion, and have
the true divine consciousness that is health and wholeness. We have arrived at
the Christ-consciousness that automatically destroys error. Truth is the ideal,
the standard that is the result of having gone the way of Life.
Love
In Love there is no error to be destroyed. Love is
the all-embracing allness from which all error has been excluded. It is the
fulfilment of God's plan for every idea. Love meets every human need by knowing
that man, as God's perfect reflection, has never had a need.
Moderator: Thank you, Johnny. When we
spiritually understand these seven synonymous terms they begin,
automatically, to become numerals of infinity which can be used in any order.
Just so, when we are familiar with the value of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, we can use
these numerals in any order. But before we understand the seven synonymous
terms we cannot use them in any order, anymore than we could use 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
etc., in just any order before we knew the value of each of these numbers. Once
we do understand the value of the numbers we can use them infinitely, in
infinitely diverse calculations. When we know our seven synonymous terms and
stay with them alone, all error is excluded, and we can use the seven synonyms
for God in a spiritual calculus of infinity. This is the Bride-consciousness
that comes down from God. This is Love wedded to its own spiritual idea. The
spiritual meaning of the seven synonymous terms for God appears to us only as
mortality disappears. The synonyms, understood spiritually, reveal eternity,
newness of Life.
As this purification and spiritualization of
our thought goes on, we leave false consciousness behind and rise to the true
sense of Love, the city foursquare where Love is wedded to its own spiritual
idea. “Then cometh the marriage feast, for this revelation will destroy
forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense” (575:3).
Tommy: In this city foursquare or
bridal consciousness (spiritual divinely scientific consciousness) there are no
matter bodies, no corporeal structures. It is a city of the Spirit in which we
calculate or reckon only with spiritual ideas; and the carnal beliefs involved
in human procreation resulting in sin, sickness, and death are forever
precluded.
Elsie: When do you think we will
reach this purely spiritual and divinely scientific consciousness?
Bill: Mrs. Eddy says it is a present possibility
(574:2).
Billy: What keeps us from making more
progress toward reality? What keeps us from exchanging our material
consciousness for the spiritual scientific consciousness?
Moderator: Mrs.Eddy says that
“it is their materiality that clogs the progress of students...it is
materialism through which the animal magnetizer preys and in turn becomes a
prey” (Mis.156:19). It is the belief that life, substance, and
intelligence are in the body, and that mortal mind's sensations can reproduce
man, can form blood, flesh, and bones; in other words, that matter is the
medium of man. (372:6) The footsteps of thought, rising above material
standpoints and these deep-rooted carnal beliefs, are slow and portend a long
night to the traveler in the journey from sense to Soul. (174:9)
Anna: This is born out by the
tenacity with which people cling to all the “suffer-it-to-be-so-now”
statements that Mrs. Eddy makes. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy wrote for all
mankind—for the confirmed materialist, who is in no way prepared for her
more advanced teaching, as well as for the spiritually-minded. For instance,
quite often students interpret her statement under the marginal heading of
“Scientific obstetrics” as referring to human birth, the birth of a
mortal (463:6). Also many statements in her chapter Marriage, written in the
spirit of Lewis Stern's, “The Lord tempereth the wind to the shorn
lamb,” are belabored and given great priority. The real spiritual essence
of that chapter, however, is her equating of corporeal creation with the great
red dragon of the Apocalypse as she does on page 56:10- 12, under the marginal
heading “Marriage temporal.” We also see her grand and lofty
spiritual instruction on the last two pages of the chapter “Marriage”
(68:27 to 69:30) where she gives us the child of the regeneration. (See Mis.
167.) This trenchant incisive spiritual truth is quietly swept under the carpet
in the spirit of “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient
season, I will call for thee (Acts 24:25); at the moment I am not ready to
partake of the living waters of practical operative Christian Science.”
Material sense never has a “convenient season for the Christ.”
As Christian Scientists we shouldn't shrink
from teaching Mrs. Eddy's most spiritually advanced statements where they
pertain to subjects of vital importance in daily living. We should ever be
consistent in going out from the standpoint of Spirit. We know there can be no
consciousness of matter or of human procreation and physical bodies when we
take the standpoint of Spirit.
Mrs. Eddy's fearless and uncompromising
stand on marriage and progeny in her early teaching aroused great hatred and
resentment. She was burned in effigy in the Boston Square. In effigy,
resembling a wild witch, she was carried about in a cage, in a show of
resentment and hostility as people vented their frustration against a teaching
they did not understand.
It was this total lack of comprehension of
the great spiritual message she brought that caused Mrs. Eddy to add the
chapter “Marriage” to her first edition of Science and Health.
Bill: In his Diary, Recollections of
Mary Baker Eddy, p. 33, Gilman records:
She [Mrs. Eddy) related that previous to the
time when the chapter on “Marriage” was written she found that people
were beginning to say of her doctrines that they were against marriage; that
she was undermining the institution of the family; that her teaching led to the
separation of husbands and wives and the breaking up of family relations, etc.
This grew until it appeared such an obstacle
that it appeared to be a solid wall to her further progress. In this extremity
[and] through its attendant suffering, she was impelled to the writing of the
chapter on “Marriage,” and when it came out it was declared to be the
best thing on “Marriage” ever written. [Mortal mind was satisfied.]
“it had its birth in the travail of soul that keenly sensed the need of
the hour,” she said.On the subject of marriage and progeny Mary Baker Eddy
met with the same adamant and inexorable resistance that Jesus had met with
nearly two thousand years before.
In the face of this manifested inflexible
and obdurate philistine materialism Mrs. Eddy patiently bowed, and meekly
awaited the spiritual growth that would vindicate her views. In an essay on the
subject of “Marriage and Offspring” she wrote:The wise man saith,
“When I was a child I thought as a child, etc.” The wisdom of this
and of every period is temperance, to wait on the divine energy's development
of moral strength and human possibilities. To push a fact to its ultimate
sometimes so injures the predicate as to lose instead of gain time in the
unfolding of God's plan.
The absolute in divine Science is an infinite fact
approachable in time by degrees; its ultimate is eternity, its footsteps are
time. Marriage and offspring are mortal conditions which take their origin in
the human, and not in the divine Mind. It is a great and solemn question how
far to press the divine facts of being, and their manifestations, into present
human experience and practise (Fragments, p. 109. See Appendix).(The
past century and a quarter with its growth in spirituality have made the world
more receptive to Mrs. Eddy's views on marriage and progeny.)
Mortal Life a
Dream
Moderator: Yes, Bill, Mrs. Eddy was always wise and
discreet, knowing that more spiritual education would show material creation to
be a mirage. In the following instruction this point is brought out clearly.
She asks:
Is mortal life a dream? Yes? Then you admit the necessity of
dreams so long as you entertain the belief of mortal life. Suppose you reverse
this statement, and begin your logic logically, so that one wrong statement
will not include another one; and you must abandon the first to avoid the last.
Admitting that mortal life is a dream is admitting that it is something
[giving us duality], when the fact remains that it is nothing, since
there is no mortal life. God, Truth, is the only Life and a dream is not Truth.
The dream and the dreamer are one, even the supposition that nothing is
something. Eschew that statement of life unscientific; state it scientifically
and commence your solution of the problem called life, on fact and not fable.
Then you begin with Truth, not error; with God, not man; with Principle, not
idea; and solve Life as having no beginning and no ending, the eternal now and
forever. Then the mistakes of a false sense of life, sensation, and
intelligence cease, and you are in and of an eternal Principle that has neither
beginning nor end; and all paraphrase to the contrary is a fable and not the
fact of existence, of God or of man. (DCC. 161. Sept. 20, 1909)
Sally: What is the earnest Christian Scientist
working for?
Moderator: The dedicated student of
Christian Science is working to understand the revelations of divine Science
and to demonstrate the infallibility of divine metaphysics. He is working to
become aware of the omnipresence of present perfection in which there is only
the absolute supremacy of good.
Bessie: How will this absolute supremacy of good show
itself?
Moderator: It will show itself in an
understanding of the matrix of infinity where every synonym for God—and
God conscious of Himself is man—fully reflects every other synonym. When a
synonym is seen to reflect fully every other synonym it is called a numeral of
infinity. When our consciousness operates as a divine infinite calculus it is
conscious only of these numerals of infinity which are timeless and free of all
error. In this divine infinite calculus (520:14) everything is at the focal
point of the reflection of Spirit, which is the Bride-consciousness or the city
foursquare. Hourly the Christian Scientist weds himself to God, ratifying a
union predestined from all eternity. (Un. 17:8) Thus the supremacy of good will
show itself.
A James Gilman
Recollection
Florence: This is a state of
consciousness that probably only Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy reached in this
world. In James F. Gilman's Recollections of Mary Baker Eddy, p.
64, he relates the following conversation which he opened with:“You
look like an entirely new personage today,” It seemed a droll remark to
make, but it was a spontaneous expression.
She thought so, for an instant, perhaps, and
then she began to say that last night she had come to revelations that had
exceeded anything she had had before, in which she saw plainly that all things
were put under her feet and the love of God was so manifest, it exceeded
anything she could describe. “All things were dissolved in it; all sense
of evil, all antagonism; nothing was left but the sea of God's immeasurable
Love.”
I felt awed and as if a word in response
from me would be a sacrilege ...In this experience it seems Mrs. Eddy's thought
was at the focal point of the reflection of Spirit where only the numerals of
infinity are operating and thought accepts the divine infinite calculus.
Receiving Revelation
Direct From God
Marie: Mrs. Eddy, as the Revelator
and Discoverer of divine Science, received revelation direct from God—from
Principle, Love—and her writings are concerned with teaching us how we
also can receive revelation in the same way. How do we start?
Kathleen: We start by studying every
chapter in the textbook—“by studying thoroughly the letter and
imbibing the spirit,” always remembering that “the human self must be
evangelized.” Purity, Mrs. Eddy says, is the cornerstone of all spiritual
building. Righteousness, peace, purity are the landmarks of Science. Purity is
the path to perfection, and in proportion to his purity man is perfect
(337:16), because only purity can reflect Truth and Love. For this reason Love
insists that we shall be tried and purified.
Jesus was hated because his purity was an
ever-present rebuke to the impurity and carnality of his persecutors. If we
want to receive revelation we must follow the example set by Jesus and Mary
Baker Eddy. We must not resist the fiery baptism that burns up the chaff of
error with the fervent heat of Truth and Love, melting and purifying even
the gold of human character. (565:20) Only through this purifying process can
we find our true identity in our divine Principle, Love, where
“white-robed purity [unites] in one person masculine wisdom and feminine
love (64:23).
So, if we want to receive revelation direct
from God, as did Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, we must work for purity, symbolized
by Life and Love. In no other way can we realize and demonstrate the
coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea. (561:22)
Moderator: Yes, Kathleen, we can't
remind ourselves often enough that purity is an idea or characteristic of
Spirit. By taking the standpoint of Spirit and not diverging from that
standpoint, problems will melt and be lost sight of because we can't hold two
opposite viewpoints at the same time. What we put into the scale of Spirit we
take away from the scale of matter. Ask: “How does God, Spirit, see this
situation?” Mind, God, imparts purity. As we discern Mind's impartation as
the only impartation, the only substance, the only reality, and persevere in
that effort—always as a three-in-one or Mind-Spirit-Soul effort—it
becomes our Principle, our Life Principle, which reveals Truth that is of the
nature of Love and perfection.
Mary Baker Eddy's teachings introduce a
completely new standpoint that, sooner or later, we all must take. Either
suffering or Science will cause us to take this standpoint of Spirit which her
textbook sets forth. Mrs. Eddy's logic is divine, and is the solution for every
ill to which man has fallen heir. Faithfully following her divine logic leads
us to the Bride-consciousness where the infallibility of divine metaphysics is
unfailingly demonstrated.
Her divine logic is set forth in a Science
that must be learned. Fortunately much has come out in the past forty years
that explains in detail the letter of the system of Christian Science, and when
“the letter and the spirit bear witness, the infallibility of divine
metaphysics will be demonstrated” (330:8). We unlock Science and Health as
the understanding of its message is made practical in our lives; then the
letter and the spirit become one.
SESSION V: SOME HIGHLIGHTS
IN THE EARLY HISTORY
EARLY CLASSES
Moderator: Today we want to look into
a little of the early history of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy took seriously
the Genesis statement that God had created man in His own image and likeness.
She never evaded what was implied by that statement or tried to sweep it under
the rug. The very basis of her teaching was that matter must be translated into
its original language, Mind, and must be given its spiritual instead of
material signification. This translation of matter into Mind left no room for
“man that is born of a woman”—human birth, sin, sickness, death,
or anything else that is not in accord with God's image and likeness.
Grace: She saw that the first account
of creation in Genesis had nothing to do with a material universe being
created; just the opposite: it was a step by step appearing, through
revelation, of the perfection of God and man that has always existed. But
humanity had been blind to it in the same way that mankind was blind to the
fact that the earth was round until Columbus and other brave navigators proved
the earth's flatness to be in the minds of mortals. Similarly Mrs. Eddy saw
that man's imperfection existed only in mortal mentality, in ignorance of
spiritual facts. This radical discovery by Mary Baker Eddy called for a total
restructuring of human consciousness—a mutation out of mortality into the
spiritual freedom of man as God's our true Mind’s, image and likeness.
Mrs. Eddy said, “Oh, if others could only
see what I see, how they would work and strive to express nothing but the
spirit of Truth.... We need to practise this Science in whatever we are doing;
this gives us the wisdom to explain it to others.”Mrs. Eddy’s First
Pupil
Hiram S.
Crafts
Tina: How did Mrs. Eddy begin teaching her revelation
to others?
Grace: Providence provided. In the
summer of 1866 Mrs. Eddy was boarding with Mr. and Mrs. George Clark in Lynn.
Among the thirteen other boarders was a shoe-factory worker named Hiram S.
Crafts, and his wife. Crafts had no intellectual antagonism to overcome.
Heart-hungry for religion, he was the type that would be most easily reached by
Christian Science during its first twenty-five-year promulgation and
development. He sat next to Mrs. Eddy at the Clark table and often lingered
after supper to question and listen. He became Mrs. Eddy's first pupil. She had
wondered how her Science could be taught, and had thought it might take
centuries of spiritual growth. But when young Crafts evinced a great desire to
learn the healing art, Mrs. Eddy was quick to see God's hand in providentially
providing a pupil, and was impelled to begin at once the stupendous work of
teaching her Science to another. Her success in teaching Hiram Crafts the
healing art, and his success in practicing it, was a revelation to Mrs. Eddy,
and showed her this teaching could be done. Soon others applied for
instruction.
Margie: Sibyl Wilbur has left a
heart-warming picture of the first group-class in The Life of Mary Baker
Eddy, p. 198. The students who were drawn together, she says, were
shoe-factory workers: “their hands were stained with the leather and tools
of the day's occupation; their narrow lives had been cramped mentally and
physically. Their thoughts were often no more elevated than their bodies were
beautiful. They could not come to Mrs. Glover in the daytime, for their days
were full of toil. At night, then, this first class met, and it was in the heat
of July and August. In the barely furnished upper chamber a lamp was burning
which added to the heat and threw weird shadows over the faces gathered round a
plain deal table. Insects buzzed at the windows, and from the common over the
way the hum of the careless and free, loosed from the shops into the park,
invaded the quiet of the room. Yet that quiet was permeated by the voice of a
teacher at whose words the hearts of those workmen burned within them.”
Jackie: Is there any record of what Mrs. Eddy taught
them?
Margie: Yes, what she taught at that
time was later put into a pamphlet called “The Science of Man.” I
understand Mrs. Eddy wrote it in longhand, and each student had a copy which he
was supposed to study. It consisted of questions and answers.
The first question was: What is God?
Her answer was: God is Principle, wisdom,
love, and truth. (Science of Man, 1870. See Appendix.)
Today we are all familiar with Mrs. Eddy's
explanations of God; in fact, her writings have revolutionized the entire
Western world's thinking about God. But in 1866 people in general
thought of God as a man with a long beard who lived up in the sky and could be
either wrathful or benign. Few people now think of God seriously in that way.
Marie: From the very beginning there
was unequivacal evidence that Mrs. Eddy was a uniquely inspired and remarkably
gifted teacher. In a few short lessons she was able not only to show these
humble factory workers her concept of God, but to give them sufficient
practical grasp of it so they could go out and heal all manner of diseases with
what they had learned from her. It was healing that mattered, and she
taught her students the healing art.
Moderator: From what you have read in
your research work, can anyone give a further description of Mrs. Eddy's early
classes and how she taught?
Anna: Usually she would start by
asking each pupil his or her idea of God. This didn't take very long, as a
rule. But after the answers were all in, she began to open up to them a view of
God, of divinity, that shook the very foundations of their world as they had
known it up to then. She took away their material sense of a God that was busy
attending to a strife-ridden universe or that answered prayers for a better
job, a better boss, or a better farm. In place of this manlike God, she showed
them—not with human logic but with divine logic—a divine Principle
which was as oblivious of error as is the principle of mathematics or the
principle of music. It was a Principle that knew no sorrow, no tears, no pain,
no evil of any kind. It knew no materiality. Mrs. Eddy showed them “the
heart of divinity,” a divine Love that was the Principle of man's being.
She taught them that all is infinite Mind, infinitely manifested in light and
loveliness, needing only to be recognized.
She encouraged them to know they had the
supremacy of thought and that error cannot defy the Truth. They were to realize
that evil had no power over them or over their patient, and that evil could not
make them conscious of fear. A salient point that she brought out again and
again in many different ways was that to be born into the belief of matter
(human birth) was the last enemy to be overcome. The enemy was physical life,
which is really death. “The divine must overcome the human at every
point.”
She instructed them to put their patients in
the care of Principle—to hold them in thought as conditions of
Mind—and to know that they reflect and express only the qualities and
attributes of God, of Love. Their “patient” existed only in Mind,
God. Know that God, your own real Mind, is the only thinker. “Mortal mind
cannot transcend itself and find your patient if you hold him in thought as a
condition of Mind.” God, the only Mind, is the Mind of man. The thoughts
coming from this Mind can transmit only what comes from God. Jesus recognized
nothing between himself and God: “I and the Father [spiritual
understanding] are one thing.” When we understand the Principle we are one
with the Principle.
Georgine
Milmine
Francie: McClure's Magazine
printed a series of derogatory articles on Christian Science and Mary Baker
Eddy, but Georgine Milmine, their reporter who prepared the articles and made
exhaustive enquiries about the early days of Christian Science, did seem in the
following, to give a factual account. She questioned a number of people then
alive in Lynn who could remember the early days, and she stresses the growing
sense of wonder these people recalled over the devotion of “Mary
Patterson's” followers, and the reports of healing work. (Mrs. Eddy's
second husband was Dr. Patterson.) Mrs. Eddy seems to have had much trouble
with individual students who caused her great disappointment, “But for
every deserter there were several new adherents.” And their number
constantly increased.
What Georgine Milmine seemed to find most
remarkable was the vivid recollection of those she interviewed—even of
those who afterwards were alienated from Mrs. Eddy—of the power of her
teaching. All said that what they got from Mrs. Eddy “was beyond
equivalent in gold and silver.” She writes: “they speak of a certain
spiritual or emotional exaltation which Mrs. Eddy was able to impart in her
class-room; a feeling so strong, that it was like the birth of a new
understanding, and seemed to open to them a new heaven and a new earth....They
came out of her classroom to find that for them the world had changed. They
lived in a new set of values....One of the students who was closest to her at
that time says that to him the world outside her little circle seemed like a
mad house where each inmate was given over to his delusion of love, or gain, or
ambition, and the problem which confronted him was how to awaken them from the
absurdity of their pursuits.” (McClure's Magazine, Vol. xix, p. 109)
Bill: They came to her classes to
learn the Principle of healing, just as one would go to a class to learn the
principle of mathematics.
Bancroft
There were those who confused Christian
Science with “suggestion.” But they soon learned that the Science of
Christ is something that must be learned. It can't be suggested. You don't
suggest mathematics. Mrs. Eddy patiently persisted in teaching her pupils the
fundamentals. Bancroft, an early student of Mrs. Eddy's, says she was always
ready to respond to the call of the students; her work with them was never
finished. His book, Mrs. Eddy as I knew Her in 1870, states that every meeting
with her and every letter received from her was a lesson. This continued for
years. Regarding moral virtue and the argument that it had nothing to do with
salvation, Mrs. Eddy stoutly disagreed: “Moral Science,” she said,
“is a preliminary to Christian Science.” He who is resolved to give
his all, even his life, for God, cannot be vanquished. Moral resistance, moral
regeneration, Mrs. Eddy felt, knows no chances, no risks; it is linked to an
immortal Principle, and destined for certain triumph. No immorality of any kind
could ever attach itself to Mrs. Eddy's teachings.
Her healings in those early days, writes
Bancroft, were a wonderful example. She was absolutely fearless in the face of
sickness. He tells of the authority with which she commanded and acted in the
face of dire emergencies. Mrs. Eddy knew that man's likeness to God is never a
physical likeness; God doesn't know anything about sick bodies or well bodies.
God is spiritual and His likeness is spiritual and is harmony's selfhood.
Sickness was just aggressive mental suggestion. The tragedy of human life, Mrs.
Eddy knew, was that humanity clings to its self-deceived sense of evil when all
the while the truth is at hand that can free it. The terrible force of a lie
can only have power over us if we accept its claim to place and power as a
reality. “Outside the material sense of things all is harmony.”
Calvin C.
Hill
To Calvin C. Hill, she wrote, “it seems
to the material senses that pain, etc., are in the lungs or elsewhere in
matter, but the fact is that pain or suffering of any sort is no more in the
body or matter in our waking state than it is in our night dream, for
both states are dreams and not the reality of being” (We Knew Mary
Baker Eddy, Third Series, p. 44).
A great point of Mrs. Eddy's teaching was
that God did not know evil. She told the class that if they stood in front of a
mirror with a hole in their clothes the hole would be in the reflection. The
class all agreed. Then she asked, Would it be possible to get it out of the
reflection so long as it was in the original?
“No,” replied the class.
Then she explained: God never changes. He is
eternally the same, isn't He?
“Yes.”
Now, she said, if God were conscious of
sickness, sin, and death, we could never expect to overcome them, for the
divine consciousness doesn't change, and we could never remove from the
reflection what is in the original. If God knew evil we could never overcome
it.
Mrs. Eddy always directed the thoughts of her
students to Principle—to the demands of Principle. Her class teaching
transcended the medium of words. (From We Knew Mary Baker Eddy
series)
Bringing Forth the Word
Itself Being What She Says
Moderator: In her teaching we are
told there were “no extra words to veil thought or to cover vacancy. She
achieved the great thing: her thinking stands forth in its naked sincerity as
if she had done away with the medium of speech and had brought forth the Word
itself which is one with thought and deed.... She is herself what she says. She
has lived it out, and so it is that her words kindle life in others” (From
The Christian Science Monitor, March 3, 1911, International
Edition).
Anna: The secret of Mrs. Eddy's great
achievements can be explained on no other basis than her at-one-ment with God
and her boundless spirit of universal love for all mankind. She knew that to
live Love, to manifest the very presence of Love, would heal anything. Mrs.
Eddy lived the truth she spoke; she lived it so simply, humbly, and completely
that she proved what the Master meant when he said, “I and my Father are
one” (John 10:30). Her exaltation of God uncovered evil and its methods to
her. The more a mathematician or musician understands his subject, practically,
the more errors in those subjects stand out to him.
As she told Frank Gale, a healer must never
recognize disease in a patient, not even as a belief. The healer must go to the
patient feeling that the patient is well, and the healer is going to show him
that he is well and in full possession of his health and all his faculties. The
healer must lose sight of the personality and realize only the presence of
God—of the spiritual and perfect. He must feel the Love that doesn't
fail.
Effect of Mrs. Eddy's
Teaching
Moderator: What effect did Mrs.
Eddy's teaching have on her students?
Juliann: From the memoirs of some of
these early students there were a variety of responses. Not one left the class
feeling the same about God as he had upon entering. Here and there a student
felt Mrs. Eddy had taken away his old familiar God and he was lost. Others
stood in awe before what had been opened up to them and felt centuries of
spiritual growth would be required before they could make practical what they
had learned. After three or four lessons, however, Mrs. Eddy would require each
one to do some healing work. One student—believe it was Ira
Knapp—records he left the class with gravest doubts that he could heal
anyone, but arriving at his lodging place his landlady stopped to greet him,
and asked him what he had learned. He told her of the assignment and said he
didn't know of anyone who needed healing. She immediately replied, “I am
deaf in one ear. I would like you to heal me.” He went to his room and
gave her a treatment as he had been taught in Mrs. Eddy's class, and the woman
received a perfect healing. When the class resumed, says this student, each one
was able to report a healing. Some stood in mute adoration and profound
reverence before the healings they had been able to perform at Mrs. Eddy's
command.
Lulu Blackman
Francie: In her memoirs, Lulu
Blackman of Nebraska recounts:
Mrs. Eddy awakened us to the realization
that she taught no mere theory but the practical living Truth when she closed
the third lesson with these words: “Now go home and take your first
patient.” In my own estimation I was not ready to take a patient. She had
taken away my Lord, and as yet I knew not the God she had revealed. It was a
great relief to remember that I was a complete stranger in Boston and so could
not possibly be called upon to give a treatment.... The relief was short-lived,
for when I opened the door to my rooming place a member of the family was found
to be very ill with erysipelas. When he saw that I was making haste to escape
to my room he called to me: “if you can do anything for me, why don't you
do it?” The swift healing that followed my obedience to Mrs. Eddy's demand
that I take my first patient gave me a keen insight Into her characteristic
faith in the power of the Word of God when applied through the Science she was
giving to the world. She had arranged no details, provided no patients. She
gave the command and knew God could “supply the wisdom and occasion for a
victory over evil” (571:16).
The experience connected with this case of
healing revealed to me something of the immensity of the work Mrs. Eddy had
accomplished in her three days in the classroom. She had not taken up the
question of animal magnetism but she had established for us her concept of God,
and this true concept of God rescued and defended me from the devil and his
assistants in a time of such temptation as I had never before known.
Suggestions taking form in words declared that I did not know enough of the
Christian Science method to use it and declared that there was a power in my
own mind that I could use instead. Error pleaded with me to substitute mortal
mind for immortal Mind, arguing that mortal mind was my natural habitat, and
that immortal Mind was too transcendental to avail.
I had been precipitated into a seeming
mental realm where the supposititious forces of evil sought to establish the
claim to equal or transcend the power of God. I realized that there was a
greater question here than that of mere physical healing. The decision to rely
upon divine Mind alone was made, and I answered the tempter, “I will not
resort to will power, even if the young man dies.” Then, as a ministering
angel, this scriptural verse came to me: “Put off thy shoes from off thy
feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5). 1 had
forgotten the patient, but as I turned to leave the room I saw he was sleeping
peacefully and that complete healing had taken place.
Thus Mrs. Eddy revealed herself to us
through the power of the Word. She effaced the sense of her personality so
completely that she thought, spoke, and acted from the standpoint of oneness
with Principle. In Unity of Good, p. 48, referring to God, Mrs. Eddy says:
“He sustains my individuality. Nay, more—He is my
individuality.” So many statements made in her writings are illuminated by
the fact that she was able to demonstrate what she taught.
In subsequent lessons, she took up the question of evil. I
shall never forget Mrs. Eddy as she appeared when she turned from the
contemplation of all good to the supposititious claims of evil, called devil.
It was a revelation of Truth, but it was also an unconscious revelation of the
price of learning Love which this woman had paid through vital experience,
through the things she had suffered because of the exaltation of God in her own
consciousness. The picture of this loved teacher as she shared the hemlock cup
with her half-comprehending students is word painted in Science and Health:
“Remembering the sweat of agony which tell in holy benediction on the
grass of Gethsemane, shall the humblest or mightiest disciple murmer when he
drinks from the same cup, and think, or even wish, to escape the exalting
ordeal of sin's revenge on its destroyer?” (48:10).
Kathleen: Time and again students leaving reports
said it was as though for the first time in their lives reality had broken
through to them. It broke through not as theory but as fact. The students
caught Mrs. Eddy's concept of the Christ as universally operative Truth. The
regeneration followed their understanding that life, substance, intelligence
was in Mind, the perfect Mind that knew no error.
Life, substance, intelligence was never in
matter, never in body. Matter must be held as shadow, and what it shadowed
forth was the life, substance, intelligence that was in Mind, God. This
perception and conviction was the exact opposite of the world's belief. But
just as Copernicus reversed our thinking about the sun rising and setting, Mrs.
Eddy came to reverse our thinking about the relation between God and man.
Astronomical science has destroyed the false theory as to the relations of the
celestial bodies. Christian Science, says Mrs. Eddy, will surely destroy the
greater error as to our terrestrial bodies.
Recess
Hiram Crafts
Again
Moderator: Before we continue, let's
return for a moment to Hiram Crafts, Mrs. Eddy's very first pupil.
When he showed sincerity, she helped and
encouraged him. By spring he was able to run the following ad in the Taunton
newspaper:
TO THE SICK: Would say unhesitatingly, I can cure you, and
have never failed to cure Consumption, Catarrh, Scrofula, Dyspepsia, and
Rheumatism, with many other forms of disease and weakness, in which I am
especially successful. If you give me a fair trial and are not helped, I will
refund your money.
Then followed a lengthy testimonial of
healing, written and signed by one of his patients.
That Hiram Crafts was able to run this ad
and actually fulfil the promise of healing, testifies to Mrs. Eddy's power as a
teacher, and also to her life-long trait of total self-effacement. The fact
that Hiram could each day talk over his case load with his Teacher was no doubt
the reason he could advertise and “say unhesitatingly, I can cure
you.” It was the success of God's work that Mrs. Eddy was interested in
and concerned with, not her personal achievements.
Thus she shepherded all her early pupils. As
soon as they mastered the Science of Mind-healing she would step into the
background, always letting them take full credit for their work while she
watchfully and patiently helped them over difficult places without emphasizing
her presence. She gloried in the success of her pupils because she knew that
the Christian disciple could best become a fisher of men through the healing
ministry. It was healing that would draw men to the truth, though she knew that
physical healing was the smallest part of Christian Science. It was only the
bugle call to thought and action. In Rudimental Divine Science (2:23)
she states, “The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of
sin.” But it was the healing of sickness that drew people.
Antagonism Aroused by
Basic Doctrine
Florence: The healings did bring
other students, but the actual imparting of the basis of Mrs. Eddy's healing
ability stirred up great opposition. The opposition arose because in a
practical way—not merely as something preached from the pulpit—Mrs.
Eddy's teaching made God All-in-all, and the mortal nothing. God was the
substance, Life, and intelligence of all that appeared. “Matter held as
shadow,” she said, “is the idea of God; but matter held as substance
was belief and error.” A shadow has no life, substance or intelligence of
its own. We must trace it back to its origin where we find what its substance
is, and what it is shadowing forth.
Implicit in her teaching was the nothingness
of mortal birth and death. Her teaching made practical Jesus' statement to
Salome which has been preserved in a booklet entitled, Fragments of a
Lost Gospel, published by the Oxford University Press. It records the following
sayings of Jesus that are regarded as authentic by scholars:When Salome asked
when those things about which she questioned should be made known, the Lord
said, “When ye trample upon the garment of shame, when the two become one
and the male with the female, neither male nor female.” The meaning being
that Christ's kingdom on earth would not be manifested until man had returned
to the state of innocence in which sexual ideas and relations had no place.
When Salome asked how long death would prevail, the Lord said, “So long as
ye women bear children; for I am come to destroy the works of the female.”
Logia of Jesus, Christian Science Journal, Vol. 25, Jesus was asked,
“When shall the dominion of death cease?” Jesus saith, “As long
as [material) birth continues (death will not cease, but] I am come to destroy
the works of birth.” (See Matt. 5:17; 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:34-35;
23:29; 1 Cor. 7:7-9, Mark 13:17. (From Lida Fitzpatrick Notes, page 28, See
Appendix.)
Bill: Mrs. Eddy, fulfilling Jesus'
Apocalyptic vision, came to lift the veil of mesmerism and reverse what
humanity believed since the Adam-dream overtook mankind. Mrs. Eddy taught that
the origin, substance, and mind of “man that is born of woman” was
the opposite of God or Spirit. “Will-blind, stubborn, and
headlong—cooperates with appetite and passion” (490:8). Remember, in
1908 Mrs. Eddy (56:13) withdrew permission for marriage, but said,
“Marriage will continue, “putting it into the category of
resistance to revealed Truth. “Lust” is generic error. “In the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die [die to all purity of
conception].” Mrs. Eddy correlated “garden” with
“body” in the Scripture: “But of the fruit of the tree which is
in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, lest
ye die.” So, “the garden was a term used to signify the body in the
first records of mythology; sexuality and self-abuse [were] the forbidden
knowledge. [Every sexual emotion is a conspiracy against Science. (DCC.79)] Man
was not to presume on the prerogatives of his Creator, but to recognize God the
Father and Mother of all” (Third edition of Science and Health, pp. 126-7,
Vol. 11). Matter, said Mrs. Eddy, cannot connect mortals with the true origin
and facts of being in which all must end. (491) This teaching was an
intolerable affront to men of letters and worldly affairs, as well as to the
medical and theological professions. It was this same teaching nineteen
centuries earlier that had so outraged the high priests and clergy of that day
and caused them to regard Jesus as an enemy of the people and pronounce on him
the death sentence.
Moderator: Preserved in the Alice
Orgain Collection is the following explanation given by Mrs. Eddy on this
subject. It was also confirmed to me, personally, by an elderly lady, in 1937,
who sixty years earlier, as a young woman, had been in one of Mrs. Eddy's
classes. Mrs. Eddy's words had made a profound impression on her when she
explained to the class that Jesus was put to death because of his teaching on
marriage and progeny. Such sayings as we find in Luke 20:34-35; Luke 23:29, and
his curse on human motherhood (see Mark 13:17) which appears also in Matthew
and Luke, reached the ears of the rulers of the synagogue, and they knew it was
time to take action. They reasoned, said Mrs. Eddy, that if they let him go on
healing, and teaching his dangerous doctrine, soon all men would believe him
and then what would happen to their nation?
They considered that “it is expedient
for us that one man should die...that the whole nation perish not.”
A member of the class said, “But Mrs.
Eddy, what would happen if no more children were born?”
“The sooner the whole ghastly farce
would cease!” was Mrs. Eddy's emphatic answer.
Bessie: That would call for the
“faith” we talked about during Session 1.
Florence: There can be no end to
death as long as human procreation continues. “When lust hath conceived it
bringeth forth sin; and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death”
(James 1:15) is a scriptural pronouncement which has never yet been broken. In
reality, Mrs. Eddy says, “men and women have never multiplied. There was
never a birth or death of man, since man is the idea inseparable from his
divine Principle which exists and co-exists with God. Our only Father and
Mother is God; therefore the offspring of the flesh, born of a woman, is no
more real, scientific, or eternal than a tumor which the Christian Scientist
labors to destroy and so heal the sick.... Is the connubial relation sin? Yes.
Can you be a Christian Scientist and maintain it now, for honesty is Christian
Science's first law? Can you uphold the old marriage relation which is
legalized lust, and be a Christian Scientist?” (EOF. 2 & 79).
You can see why Mrs. Eddy was burned in
effigy and hated as a race annihulist.
Mrs. Eddy counseled her students not to
close their eyes to sin, and not to excuse error, because to justify self was
to perpetuate the lie of material sense.
We must not bury our affections in matter.
We must soar above the physical, and “stoop not to the arts by which the
serpent wins his spellbound prey.” Error is belief, and belief is error,
which God never made, “but all that worketh a lie was made after the
creation of God, and fashioned after a lie, a belief of pleasure in matter.
This led to sexual intercourse, and this belief of man and woman ming-ling
brought forth another belief, and this was that man was a creator, and this
error brought sin, sickness, and death.” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science
of Man, EOF 209).
Sally: I know this teaching underlies every
sentence in Science and Health. It is basic to her Science. But did Mrs.
Eddy ever come out openly in print and say anything on marriage and progeny?
Moderator: Anna, do you have something on that?
Anna: Yes, there is an article called
“Marriage and Progeny” preserved in Essays and other
Footprints, page 14, which deals with this subject, in which Mrs. Eddy
asks:Why do the lower animals suffer less than the human species from
propagation? It must be because the sin of this false generation is less in the
lower than in the higher species.
Is not suffering from error the penalty for
error? Then is not that person farther from salvation who can sin and not
suffer than he who suffers from sin? We read in Gen. 3:16 “Unto the woman
he (God) said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow
thou shalt bring forth children.”
We learn from scripture that God, Principle,
made all that was made and He made it good. Therefore He made all that is real
and eternal. Then nothing really exists that is unlike God and is not the
reflection of positive good unmixed with evil.
Is it more impossible for good to make evil
than for Spirit to make its opposite called matter?
Does Spirit fraternize with the flesh? Is
man a creator? Is lust divine? Is life, substance, and intelligence in matter?
If regeneration signifies spiritual
resurrection from the flesh, one cannot be led to the bridal altar with the
expectation of surrendering to the flesh and sincerely pray, “lead us not
into temptation.” We read in Scripture, “Jesus answering said unto
them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they
which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from
the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Luke 20:34).
Parents who understand spiritually the law
of Truth, through disobedience thereto cannot improve the human race and
propagate a generation more exempt from error. Is not sin exceedingly sinful in
proportion to the light that is sinned against, and might not the offspring of
such mental conditions be the wickedest generation since Adam and have to pay
the heaviest debt of posterity? [And aren't we seeing this enacted in the
turmoil raging in the world today?]
Our Master taught his followers explicitly
to “call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your Father, which
is in heaven” (Matt. 23:9).
The Hebrew Psalmist, David, when awakened to
the scientific sense of being, as the Scripture declares, “did that which
was right in the eyes of the Lord” and he lamented his material origin,
saying: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother
conceive me” (Pa. 51:5). Job ... [who] feared God, and eschewed evil,
opened his lips and said, “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the
night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived” (Job 3:3).
Dear Reader: These momentous questions and
considerations I cannot answer or settle for you. God alone can and will do
this and enlighten your understanding as to the true Scriptural import. The
Bible and Science will sometime solve for each and every mortal this earthly
problem of Marriage and Progeny.
Of this I am at present certain, that if
marriage does increase a temptation to depart from Christ's teachings, it is
not the union which Jesus sanctioned when he said, “What therefore God
hath joined together, let no man put asunder” (Matt l9:6). In other words,
our Master assured us that they whom Spirit unites spiritually—for Spirit
cannot unite materially—cannot be separated. [The union of the masculine
and feminine qualities of God in each individual consciousness is that which
cannot be put asunder.]Mrs. Eddy foresaw that this question of marriage and
“legalized lust” with all its attendant hypocrisy could not forever
be covered by an ecclesiastical blessing bent on perpetuating scholastic dogma
and cold materialism. She wrote: “There will be greater mental opposition
to the spiritual, scientific, meaning of the Scriptures [that is, to her
divinely scientific interpretation of the Scriptures] than there has ever been
since the Christian era began. The serpent, material sense, will bite the heel
of the woman—will struggle to destroy the spiritual idea of Love; and the
woman, this idea, will bruise the head of lust” (534:24).
Rocky: Why did Mrs. Eddy foresee such a fierce
struggle?
Moderator: Because “the broadest
facts array the most falsities against themselves, for they bring error from
under cover. It requires courage to utter Truth [the truth that man is not born
of the lust of the flesh); for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder
will error scream,…” (97:21).
Why Discovery Was Hidden
Sally: The question is often asked:
Why did Mrs. Eddy hide her discovery of the Science of the Christ in such a way
that it would take another fifty years, as she once prophesied, to begin to
glimpse it? Also she remarked to Laura Sargent that if she hid it anymore than
she had already done, it never would be found. Why did she feel the necessity
for hiding it in this way?
Moderator: To the eyes of spiritual
discernment, of course, her discovery was not hidden. But since it was a
revelation direct from God, it was far in advance of what mortals could
understand. Even Mrs. Eddy constantly studied what she wrote; she declared that
she was learning the higher meaning of it after writing it. What Jesus said
nearly two thousand years ago is, for the most part, only today being correctly
understood. The mystery of godliness must of necessity remain hidden until
understanding arrives at the point of comprehension. Not until Mrs. Eddy
arrived at the point of understanding attained by Jesus after his ascension,
could she begin to explain the Science that lay behind his victory over death
and the grave, and his ascension.
Grace: Also, Mrs. Eddy saw what
happened to Jesus: how his divine teachings were misinterpreted; how the Christ
of “theology” became an official personality. The priests and doctors
of ecclesiastical law interpreted everything materially, while Jesus
interpreted God and man spiritually. Following in the footsteps of Judaism, the
creed of Romanism instituted a pope to forgive sins. They naturally supposed
that if Jesus, as a man, could forgive sin, then another man could pardon sin
too. It was this belief in a matter man that destroyed the understanding of the
Christ, and what Christ is, as generic man, or the full reflection of the one
infinite God, good.
Mrs. Eddy wanted to give time a chance to
mature spiritual growth into a fitness to receive divine and eternal truths, so
this divine teaching would not again be lost through material interpretation.
It was through material interpretation that life, substance, and intelligence
had been placed in matter—in flesh, blood, and bones—because of the
false belief that sex is the creator of man rather than Mind, God. This belief
that man is flesh, blood, and bones has demanded through the ages the sacrifice
of blood to sprinkle its altars. This same belief caused the high priests to
think that by crucifying the body they would be rid of troublesome Truth, just
as centuries later the cardinals thought that by silencing Galileo they could
prevent the physical fact that the earth rotated around the sun.
Mrs. Eddy hid her divine discovery in sacred
secrecy until spiritual growth readied humanity for its reception. Then Truth
is safe, and will not again be lost, as it would have been had it been put out
into wholly material mentality.
Bessie: It isn't clear to me what you
mean, Grace. Do you mean humanity was ready to receive Truth during her time,
or isn't yet ready, or what?
Grace: In Mrs. Eddy's time, her
students did not see the system and pure Science in the textbook. However, her
loyal working students did get a very practical message from Science and Health
and their understanding enabled them to perform healing work equal to that of
the disciples of Jesus.
In establishing it as a Science, it must be
learned individually. No one can learn arithmetic for you; no one can learn for
you how to play the piano. But when a student has the textbook in which the
Principle and rule are given, and the laws too are all given, it is only a
matter of learning the letter and imbibing the spirit. It is the spirit that is
super-important.
What Mrs. Eddy wanted to avoid was sinking
Science in personality, and using it merely to glorify mortals. She wanted to
avoid the crystalization of her barely understood message into a creed.
In 1947 The Honorable W. J. Brown wrote in
Spectator (London), concerning the fate that overtakes wonderful God-anointed
ideas:... In the field of religion a prophet ... will see a vision of
truth. He expresses that vision as best he may in words.... What he says is
only partly understood by those who hear him, and when they repeat what they
understood him to have meant, there will already be a considerable departure
from the original vision of the prophet. Upon what his disciples understand of
the prophet's message, an organization, a church, will be built. The
half-understood message will crystalize into a creed. Before long the principle
concern of the church will be to sustain itself as an organization. To this end
any departure from the creed must be controverted and if necessary suppressed
as heresy. In a few score or few hundred years what was conceived of as a
vehicle of a new and higher truth has become a prison for the souls of men.This
is what Mrs. Eddy wanted to avoid, and tried desperately to avoid. Only as we
consecrate existence to the Life which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal
belief destroy (428:15) are we ready for divine Truth. Then nothing is hidden.
The textbook becomes an open book, and step by step we assimilate its message.
Like understands like, in any subject. What Mrs. Eddy revealed is only hidden
to material sense, to carnal mindedness, today, just as it was in her time.
Mrs. Eddy knew that if her message was
accepted and understood it would spare humanity untold misery. Speaking from
the platform on one occasion Mrs. Eddy exhorted her followers to greater effort
in the attainment of spirituality—through studying the letter and imbibing
the spirit. She warned them of the dire consequences if Christian Science was
not understood and accepted.
“Must the earth again be deluged in
blood?” was her ringing and impassioned plea.
Fervently she implored her followers to
become real and consecrated warriors, devoting themselves wholly and
irrevocably to the great work of establishing the truth, the gospel, and the
Science, which are necessary to the salvation of the world from error, sin, and
death. (See Mis. 177:15.)
“Hitherto the records of Science have not been traced
in blood. But,” prophesies Mrs. Eddy, “the time cometh when the
material belief of man (the belief in human birth, and that sex rather than God
is the creator of man) must yield to Science, and then will his spiritual self
assert its superiority over matter, and the millennial peace will have come.
“I learn this parable of the fig tree,
or budding promise of the nineteenth century: that when the wisdom of man is
taken out of opinions and belief—and returns to the Principle of Science
for its intelligence—the error of life will have given up its ghosts, and
such a time as this hath not been from the beginning nor ever again will be.
The first perception of the woe, the sin and suffering produced by material
belief, by placing our intelligence in matter, may so ferment the passions of
that age, that the violent reaction of credulity—after looking its first
look upon the vagaries it has pursued, upon the phantom it has called
reality—may baptize this monster error in the blood of its own believing,
and the sun of its own center be forever darkened in that great and notable
day, which shall be the end of the world to opinion and belief and the ushering
in of the new happiness and new understanding of Science.
“That the approaching light of Science
may come through sweeter footprints than were these, is the desire of my soul;
yet, not my will but Thine, 0 Principle, be done” (EOF. 40). Through
suffering or through Science each one is destined to learn his God identity.
All good is present, now and forever, but
what will it take to awaken man to his present ownership of it all, and arouse
him out of the illusion, out of the false belief, that he was born of a woman,
born of the flesh, instead of born of God, of Truth, and of Love?
Moderator: It is certain that Mrs.
Eddy's spiritual interpretation of Scripture will hasten the day of humanity's
understanding of our God-being. At present, however, Old Theology seems as
determined as ever to keep the Christ-idea of man's oneness with God from
surfacing.
Kathleen, you have something to say. Please
do.
Kathleen: In Science and Health Mrs.
Eddy writes, “The determination to hold Spirit in the grasp of matter is
the persecutor of Truth and Love” (28:6).
Because of the unmatched radicalism of Mrs.
Eddy's divine doctrine, and because of the malice and opposition the students
met with on account of it, all of her early students soon fell away; but in
their brief association with her they experienced a height, an intensity of
life, they would never know again. As the years progressed, Mrs. Eddy softened
her approach, coupling Principle with Love, and using “ Father—
Mother” to appeal to the Christian thought. In her early classes, however,
the abstract radicalism with which she presented her Science was too much for
many of her students. Those who glimpsed her meaning went forth to heal all
manner of disease and discord; but the record shows that the first fourteen
years of teaching netted her no student who remained faithful and loyal to
Christian Science, or able to be of assistance to her. Julia Bartlett who
arrived in 1880 was to be the first of Mrs. Eddy's students to remain faithful
and true to the teaching.
Sally: The antagonism to the basis of
her “doctrine” was so everywhere present and awful that it was
necessary for her to move continually from boarding house to boarding house
while she was writing the textbook, Science and Health. But this antagonism and
persecution wore “a precious jewel in its [ugly] head”—it slowly
drove her to become more and more impersonal.
Juliann: Sarah Bagley's rooming house
was one of the brighter sites in which she alighted. It was there that she met
the nineteen year-old Kennedy who was working in a box factory. In his free
time Richard Kennedy would join Mrs. Eddy and her hostess. Mrs. Eddy had
converted Sarah Bagley from her belief in spiritualism to the Science she was
teaching; and Sarah gave up her dressmaking and became a Christian Science
healer.
By kerosene lamp, late at night, the three
would gather and pour over Mary Baker Eddy's manuscripts, and a universe of
unimaginable wonder and newness opened up to them.
Sally: Is this the same Richard
Kennedy who later caused Mrs. Eddy so much trouble and forced her into a
forty-year investigation of animal magnetism?
Moderator: Yes, Sally.
Actually he did for Mrs. Eddy what Judas did for Jesus. It is always the
crucifixion of the mortal that brings the crown.
Rocky: That Mrs. Eddy knew her
discovery was unique and God ordained can be seen from a passage in her first
published work called: Science of Man: “Unless the principle is
understood you cannot act in it; and as it has never been taught in science by
any written or published MSS from any known individual but me, I claim that it
cannot have been understood, except by Elijah, Jesus, his disciples and Paul;
and their writings do not teach it unless you understand their scientific
meaning, and not the interpretation which belief has given them.” Fourteen
years of teaching would pass before Mrs. Eddy found a student with sufficient
spirituality to remain loyal.
Florence: When one reads of the
heartbreaking trials, desertions, persecutions, money problems, etc., one can
see that it took miraculous vision to sustain her. Only the steadfast
conviction that she had a mission to fulfil the works of Christ Jesus on earth,
could have upheld her during those first few years after her wonderful
discovery.
Tommy: Many of Mrs. Eddy's early
students took offense, deserted, and some even became bitter enemies because
they took personally her rebukes—often sharp and incisive—when she
only intended to rebuke the error being expressed. (Later in Mrs. Eddy's
career, to her more discerning students, who resisted the personal sense of
things, it became clear that it was God who was the source of Mrs. Eddy's
spiritual rebukes.)
Mrs. Eddy's war with error and evil was to the
death. But her critics and even some of her students saw it as a conflict with
persons. Mrs. Eddy steadily grew in her ability to impersonalize error. She
knew that the basis of Science is impersonality and she had to bring her older
students along with her in this impersonalizing process. Her whole effort in
Christian Science was to lift the individual out of a personal sense of things
into the spiritual realm of the real where perfect freedom reigned as the
unhampered operation of universal and impersonal law. Building on personality
is building on sand. She often pointed to sacred history, saying that a St.
Peter's or a St. Mary's religion is far from Christian Science carried out
scientifically.
Love for Her Early
Students
Sally: Mrs. Eddy's love and compassion toward her
early students was without bounds, even though many proved faithless and even
discredited her precepts because they misunderstood her teaching. Some were
practicing contrary to her instructions. But in the end their negative response
helped to further Mrs. Eddy's conviction of the wisdom of putting her system of
Mind-healing into an incontrovertible form, a book which would speak for
itself.
This early period was a trying one for Mrs.
Eddy but she met it graciously and with good humor as seen from a letter
preserved by Samuel Putnam Bancroft in Mrs. Eddy as I knew Her in
1870, p. 19: “I may as well jest over the absurd striplings who turn to
rend me, to threaten me with disgrace and imprisonment for giving them a
discovery that money cannot pay for, but a little good breeding might have
helped at least to reward the toil, and scorn, and obscurity, by which it was
won for them.”
Moderator: She taught her students
that what they perceived mentally and spiritually they must establish humanly
in order to complete their demonstration. Having listened for the divine will
in heaven, in Mind, then they must make it their business to see that it was
carried out in effect. “You are an unfaithful voice of God if you do not
do it,” she said. In Mary Baker Eddy Her Spiritual Precepts, Mr.
Carpenter, Sr. says that Mrs. Eddy was remarkable in this direction:I doubt if
she ever failed to establish what God told her to establish in spite of the
authority that she, herself, gave the Church. Through the sharp and stern
nature of her rebukes, she built up almost a sense of fear in the minds of her
students, and she did this deliberately so that when the time came that God
told her to do something, she had the situation in hand so that she could
execute it, in spite of numbers or of powerful opposition. Many times she stood
alone against the whole membership, but she always won out. There is on record
the time she went to Chicago for a month in 1888. Upon her return she found the
church disrupted, and the books stolen by the opposition movement. Actually,
this was a violent and far-reaching upheaval with nearly all of her
highly-gifted writers and her more socially and financially-prosperous students
defecting to form “Christian Science” organizations of their own,
leaving Mrs. Eddy and her loyal students as only a small sect in a sea of other
“Christian Science” organizations. But with God's guidance Mrs. Eddy
soon had things under control again through the exercise of miraculous vision
and divine wisdom. Yet, this showed what might happen without her direction.
Whenever Mrs. Eddy felt God was urging her
to do something, she did it—she saw to it that it was accomplished. To
carry it out was just as important to her as it was to hear God's direction in
the first place. This is why she built up in the minds of those through whom
she had to work, not only a great respect for her spiritual qualities, but a
fear of disobedience, so that they would never question her ability to execute
what God told her to execute.
Some day it will be seen that her rebukes
were due to her efforts to keep the road open which would lead to the
establishment of that which God told her to establish. There has never in the
history of the world been anything like what she accomplished. She learned to
keep students in such a relation to her that they could not possibly unite to
obstruct what she put forth. When she went to Chicago, they showed what they
might do if they had a chance. There would be no repetition of that.Actually,
prior to her Chicago trip Mrs. Eddy had always treated her students as equals.
They all had easy access to her, and she freely gave them all they could take,
always. But her free unreserved mixing with them caused them to think she was
no better than they were and this is also why they took her rebukes personally
instead of being grateful for merited reproofs. She was dealing with creatures
of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices, bristling with animosities, and
motivated by pride and vanity. The question “Who shall be greatest?”
needed only her absence to rear its ugly head. After the Chicago experience,
Mrs. Eddy moved swiftly toward becoming completely impersonal. Standing alone
with God, Mrs. Eddy was always the victor over opposition in any and every
direction.
Only her at-one-ment with God and her
boundless spirit of universal love for all mankind can explain the invincible
spirit of victory that pervaded and dominated her.
Continuing in Precepts Carpenter writes:If
students of her life feel that she was unnecessarily severe [after the 1888
turmoil], that the letters she wrote to the Church and the Board of Directors
were drastic at times,” they must realize that she knew that when God
revealed to her a step to be taken, it was obligatory to have that step put
into operation. Likewise she knew that nearly every advanced step that came
from God would be fought, misunderstood, and the attempt would be made, by
animal magnetism, to prevent it from being established or put into operation.It
was an equal part of her obligation to God, Principle, to see that His
directions went into effect and operation, without fear and without favor. It
was necessary for her to keep a relation with those in authority that made them
respect and obey her. Today, when she is no longer with us [Carpenter means no
longer with us in person, for she is always with us when seen as the woman of
the Apocalypse (My. 120:2)] students should retain a sense of her that acts as
a spiritual monitor of each forward step. They can well take for their motto
what she wrote in a letter to Julia Field-King, October 9,1896, “But
remember, you must avoid the appearance of evil and do nothing that you would
not be willing and glad for me to know. This rule kept will save you”
(ibid).Mrs. Eddy's fidelity to the one Mind, her divine Principle, enabled her
to rise above the most diabolical persecution and the cruel desertion of
students whom she trusted.
The higher-caliber students who began coming
to Mrs. Eddy in the late 1880's looked to her for the intuitive leadership and
advice which was absolutely necessary for their work, and they received what
she gave them in a grateful and reverential way. This better attitude enhanced
their ever-deepening conviction that she was divinely inspired for the good of
mankind in all she said and did. Instead of taking her rebukes personally, they
were actually grateful for merited rebukes.
“What a travesty on the correct
understanding of our Leader to interpret her rebukes as a bad disposition! What
ignorance,” explains Carpenter, “to translate her efforts to keep the
road open for God into an enjoyment of strife, misinterpreting what she so
carefully established for the purpose of enabling her to execute what God told
her to!” (ibid).
Anna: In substance, Mr. Carpenter
states that time has shown us Mrs. Eddy functioned under a wisdom not her own.
She kept her demonstration of divine Mind active and alive. She never deviated
from her course except when she seemed to lose sight of it momentarily under
the pressure of animal magnetism. At such times Mrs. Eddy would call her
faithful students in the household to help her regain her spiritual standpoint
and level of thought. But Mr. Carpenter admits it was her way of helping them
to rise higher in the line of light. It encouraged the students greatly to feel
they could actually be of help; she showed them how to work. She was no doubt
helping them to regain their sense of her impersonal Leadership.
The steps Mrs. Eddy took in establishing the
Christian Science movement, says Carpenter, were beyond the ken of the
cleverest human mind. They were steps that departed from human procedure in
ways no human being could have anticipated, or that no clever human mind would
believe could possibly have ended successfully. The success of all she
undertook was due solely to the integrity and consistency of her spiritual
thought.
When Mrs. Eddy took a step on faith, her
own human wisdom may have felt that it was an experiment that might not
prove successful; yet, knowing the infallible wisdom supplied by God,
Principle, Mrs. Eddy's spiritual sense knew that when orders came from on high,
the results must prove the wisdom of these orders. This unswerving obedience to
divine directives saved her “retracing and traversing anew the path from
sin to holiness” (20:22).
Moderator: Mr. Carpenter greatly
loved and revered Mary Baker Eddy, and at times in his writing he may seem to
give the impression that Mrs. Eddy was “closer to God” than the rest
of us. Such believing or teaching would be priestcraft; but this, of course,
was never his intention. Having lived in Mrs. Eddy's home for a year, he simply
stood in awe before her ability to practise what she taught. And personally
witnessing this engendered the most profound respect and admiration, much as
the disciples must have felt when they saw Jesus call Lazarus forth from the
tomb. Mr. Carpenter witnessed how Mrs. Eddy was calling the whole world from
its tomb, from its belief of being buried in matter, and from the pain and
agony accompanying that belief.
The many sharp rebukes Mrs. Eddy
administered to Mr. Carpenter, that is, to the error he was expressing at the
moment, and to others in the home, made him well aware that Mrs. Eddy meant
business when she commanded, “Follow your Leader only so far as she
follows Christ.” Personal worship was anathema to Mrs. Eddy. She taught
that each one of us has equal access to God,
Principle—“Love—impartial and universal in its adaptation and
bestowals” (13:2).
SELF-ASSERTION
OVERRULED BY LOVE
Bill: I would say then that the
requirements for practicing this Science are not superficial, but must reach to
the depths of one's nature, and effect the final destruction of all that is not
Christian. All that is not based on divine Principle must be driven out.
The first necessity is honesty, absolute
integrity of thought. There are two ways we must know ourselves. We must be
able to recognize our faults, weaknesses, and sins. We must also comprehend in
some degree the actuality of our true being as the perfect expression of divine
Mind. This will enable us to overcome human weaknesses and replace them with
Godlike qualities. But it can't be done by “wishing” it would be.
We must gain dominion over our beliefs
through the activities of good, and the rooting out of all thoughts of
self-aggrandizement. Christian Science destroys all sense of personal animosity
in those who adhere to what it teaches. It destroys all sense of self
justification and recrimination, all sense of self-assertion that would use
intimidation to maintain a position of superiority over others. In Henry
Drummond's masterpiece, The Greatest Thing in the World, he analyzes
Love according to St. Paul's nine ingredients. He interprets “Love envieth
not,” as generosity. This applies to love in competition with others, in
regard to which he says:Whenever you attempt a good work you will find [others]
doing the same kind of work .... Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill will
to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and
detraction. How little Christian work even is a protection against un-Christian
feeling. That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a
Christian's soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless
we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing truly need the
Christian envy—the large, rich, generous soul which “envieth
not,” [for “envy is the atmosphere of hell” ('02.3:28).]
Grace: Mrs. Eddy was fully aware of
“the rocks and sirens” that lie in a student's course, and cause so
many wrecks. These rocks and sirens, she warned, were rivalry, jealousy, envy,
revenge—the self-asserting mortal will-power. (Mis.28) “ . .
Dishonesty in trusts begins with 'Who shall be greatest?' “ ('02.4:2).
Florence: It seems that one of the
worst foes to harmony is the vexing question, “Who shall be
greatest?” Everybody wants to be somebody. Many crave the
personal homage that being “the best and most sought after” gives
them. But yielding to the desire to be “the greatest,” puts them on
the crest of a billow rushing to destruction. Personal praise weighs nothing in
God's scale, and it hangs as a millstone about the neck of him who does not
receive it in the spirit of total selflessness. I think one reason why both
Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy reached the pinacle of success in their careers
could be traced to the fact that both were utterly oblivious of human self.
At this point in time we still have to work together and try to accomplish the
greatest good to the greatest number, and organization is good when it means
simply a matter of doing things by working together in a selfless manner. Paul
counsels, “ . . . if [there be] any fellowship of the Spirit ... let
nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each
esteem the other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things,
but every man also on the things of others” (Phil. 2:1-4).
In Miscellaneous Writings (138) Mrs.
Eddy counsels her students to seek, alone, the guidance of the divine Mind, the
divine Principle which we claim to demonstrate—to work out individually
and alone, for themselves and for others, the sublime ends of human life. In
order to do this they must give much time to self examination, the control of
appetite, passion, pride, envy, evil-speaking, resentment and all the
innumerable errors that infest human thinking. “Remember, “ she
admonishes, “that the first and last lesson of Christian Science is love,
perfect love, and love made perfect through the cross.”
Moderator: And if Love alone is Life, as Mrs. Eddy
says (Mis. 388:10), then we are not really living if we are not loving.
“The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as
well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to
the arms of divine Love” (322:26).
Every experience we have is nudging us
toward inescapable union and oneness with Love, and we can never turn back what
Deity knoweth, nor escape from identification with what dwelleth in the eternal
Mind [which is Love alone]” (Un. 64:17). We are all moving toward the
achievement of perfect love in thought and deed. It depends only upon the
expansion and the exaltation of our thought—“the time for thinkers
has come.” We must keep our thought reaching out and always taking on a
larger dimension, continually attaining more of Love. Let Love do it. Keep
declaring for the things you want to come to pass, and let your whole desire be
for more Love—a better understanding of divine Love.
Marie: The Christ is the true idea of
God. This idea is always as present as God. Light always has its reflections.
Where there is no reflection there is no light. When one does not express the
reflection one is not expressing God, Love. When we have an understanding of
Love, health and peace is established.
SESSION VI:
MORE HIGHLIGHTS
IN THE EARLY HISTORY
Moderator: Today let's take an hour
or two to look further at the early days when Mrs. Eddy was still searching for
students who would be loyal to Christian Science. First, let's look at Julia
Bartlett:
JULIA BARTLETT
Julia Bartlett, who had been a hopeless
invalid for seven years and endured great suffering, was healed through
Christian Science treatment in 1880. By 1882 she had the sad but glorious
distinction of being the “oldest loyal student of Christian Science in the
whole world” because every other student had fallen away or become
disloyal. When Mrs. Eddy saw this eventuality looming, she asked Julia,
“And will you leave me also?” But Julia did not. After taking class
instruction from Mrs. Eddy she became a dynamic spiritual healer and teacher of
Christian Science and remained faithful and true.
Speaking of the early days, Julia says,
“Mrs. Eddy made known to her students the needs of the hour, and the
snares and pitfalls that lay in our path in our warfare against error, and how
to avoid them. Happy was the student who obeyed her instructions, for in
obedience to her teachings and commands was his salvation, and through
disobedience many lost their way. They were not ready to recognize the error
that was blinding them and to yield up their material views—love of self
and worldly ambition—and follow the leadings of divine Mind. Instead they
followed their own selfish inclinations and became persecutors of Truth and of
their great teacher. This was her experience,” says Julia, “with many
with whom she had labored long and patiently in the early days of Christian
Science. Others were not watchful, and wandered back into their old material
thought and ways.”
Healings in New
Hampshire
Johnny: From the record we can see
Julia avoided these pitfalls:
“About March 1, 1884,” she tells
in her reminiscences, “a young woman whom physicians were not able to heal
was sent to me for treatment in Christian Science by a physician in New
Hampshire who was attending her case. In nine days she returned to him
perfectly well, and remained in his house two weeks. When this physician and
those who knew the woman saw what Christian Science had done for her, a great
interest was aroused among them. They had no understanding of the Science, but
many chronic invalids and others who needed help were desirous for the
treatment and wished me to go to that place and take their cases.”
Julia had her hands full at the College in
Boston where Mrs. Eddy conducted classes, but finally consented to go to New
Hampshire for one week. She relates:... I found these people very ready to do
what was asked of them, and the hall was well filled the two evenings I spoke
to them. [Everyone present subscribed to the newly born Christian Science
Journal, which meant quite a large number of subscriptions were taken.]
When that was finished people crowded about
making appointments for the next day until every minute of the day was spoken
for. When the time came they were there promptly, beginning early in the
morning and continuing through the day until late at night, with a room filled
with people waiting perhaps two or three hours before they could be seen.
I was staying at the home of the one who had
been my patient and was healed, and whose case it was that led the physician
above mentioned to think favorably of this method of treatment. She made
herself very useful in receiving those who came, and her time was fully taken
in this way. I was seeing and treating seventy patients a day; my work taking
me far into the night; and although I could give each one but a few minutes of
my time, most of them were healed quickly. I had much sympathy for the large
number who came from the surrounding towns begging that I take their cases,
whom I had not the time to even see. I then sent a telegram to Boston for help,
but could find no one to come. I took little time to eat or sleep. My one
desire was to do the best and all I could for those dear people during my short
stay with them, and God wonderfully blessed my efforts. [She stayed there
eleven days.] Christian Science was the one topic of conversation in town and
on the outbound trains. Much antagonism was expressed by certain clergymen and
M.D.'s when their people and patients rejoiced in the proof of the great
healing power of Truth and trusted in it for their help. On one occasion a
gentleman whose wife and daughter were being benefited by the treatment, was
met by his minister who bitterly denounced Christian Science and among other
things said it was the work of the devil. The gentleman replied, “if it is
the work of the devil, then I only wish there were more devils and fewer
ministers.” The minister took the rebuke graciously.
Many who became interested in Christian
Science at that time later were teachers and healers themselves, going out into
different cities and filling responsible positions” (Julia Bartlett,
Miscellaneous Documents, pp. 194-195).
Bill: It was this marvelous healing
work Mrs. Eddy and her students performed that launched Christian Science on
its global mission, and within a few decades there was hardly a city, village,
or hamlet in which Christian Science had not been heard of or in which there
were not to be found living witnesses and monuments to the virtue and power of
Truth, as applied through this Christian system of healing disease and discord.
Kathleen: After Julia had given this
amazing proof of the Christ Science to heal, the young woman whom she had
originally healed went to Vermont to the home of her parents, where her many
friends who had known her condition felt a miracle had been performed.Julia
reports:The result was an urgent call to go there. I wrote them I would give an
informal parlor talk in the evening.
Arriving at the time appointed, I was met by
the young woman who said there were so many who wanted to hear about Christian
Science that I was to speak in a church. She little knew what that meant to me.
I was wholly unprepared to address such a body of people from the platform,
having given no special thought as to what I should say as I expected to meet
only a comparatively small number in a private home.
When we reached the church and I saw a
well-filled house, my courage almost failed me. Then I thought, “This is
God's work and He will take of care of it,” and took my place fearlessly,
addressing the audience with no difficulty.
Many believed; and several were healed. One,
an extreme case of double curvature of the spine, heart disease, and other
troubles—whom the doctors had given but a short time to live—was
instantaneously healed and soon after had class instruction, and has been a
successful worker in Christian Science.During Julia's explanation this man had
obviously seen that “God could not make imperfect man, His model infinite;
unhallowed thought he could not plan; Love's work and Love must fit. Life,
Truth, and Love the pattern make; Christ is the perfect heir; the clouds of
sense roll back, and show the form divinely fair” (Mary Alice Dayton).
Another healing was a case of an accident
from which the man had long been a sufferer. He had come expecting to oppose
all that was said. After listening he not only believed, but was healed. A good
number of patients came for treatment in this place, and many subscriptions
were given for the Christian Science Journal.
With so little healing work being done
today, we should remember it was permanent and instantaneous healing that Mrs.
Eddy encouraged in her students. It was healing work of this caliber that was
responsible for the phenomenal growth of Christian Science during Mrs. Eddy's
sojourn on earth. The great momentum Mrs. Eddy built up continued this
phenomenal growth for several decades after her departure.
Mrs. Eddy learned many valuable lessons during
the first sixteen years of teaching when many had gone forth to do miraculous
healing work only to succumb to the pressures exerted on them by persecution,
financial difficulties, or character weaknesses.
Testing of
Julia
Error worked in subtle ways to deprive Mrs. Eddy of
promising students. We might use Julia's experience as an example of this
manipulation, remembering that her experience was also the experience of
countless others who became dedicated workers. In the early days Mrs. Eddy had
to do her work, almost exclusively, among the poor and lowly. It was many years
before she attracted the wealthy and influential.
Mrs. Eddy's students who went into the
practise had to depend upon the income from their healing work for their daily
supply. Julia relates that there were many uses for the little cash they had.
At first the greater part of her time was given to work for the Christian
Science College and other projects that brought no material remuneration. This
work, she says, she considered a privilege. She took a few patients and had
good success in healing, and that supplied her with necessary funds
... until all at once not one came to be
healed. I understood the cause of this [she knew it was aggressive mental
suggestion trying to rob Mrs. Eddy of a valuable helper] and worked assiduously
to overcome the error by realizing God's government and that He is the source
of supply ... yet with no apparent result. To be sure, I had all I could do
with work for the Cause, but my little practise which had met my daily needs
was taken from me, To reduce expenses I then began to take my meals out and to
reduce the supply as well, and for the first time I knew what it was to suffer
from hunger day after day. It was at this point—when starvation stared
them in the face—that many otherwise faithful and promising students, of
lesser metal, deserted. I did not trouble dear Mrs. Eddy or anyone with the
extreme conditions so far as I could hide them. It was my problem to solve. I
finally thought relief must come soon if I was to remain in the College, and
taking my Bible for my guidance, I opened to these words: “Thou shalt
remain in this house.” It was no longer a question with me. I must and
could work it out. Then one day patients began to come. The attempt to take me
away and deprive Mrs. Eddy of the help she needed had failed and I had no more
trouble that way, and she said I never would. (Miscellaneous Documents,
p. 187).
Mrs. Eddy in Tremont
Temple
Anna: Before we leave Julia's
reminiscences, I would like to include her first-hand account of Mrs. Eddy's
couragous answer to certain ministers. Mrs. Eddy was continually assailed from
the pulpit. In one way she almost welcomed these assaults if she were given an
opportunity to answer the slanderous charges made against Christian Science
because it gave her an opportunity to explain what Christian Science was as
well as what it was not.
When the Reverend Stacy Fowler vilified Mrs.
Eddy from his pulpit, she replied by offering free courses in the Massachusetts
Metaphysical College to all clergymen who cared to come. She explained the
purpose of the offer was “to facilitate an honest investigation of
Christian Science.”
But the Boston ministers, instead of
accepting, increased their denunciations, assailing her with teaching
“free love,” spiritualism, denying the efficacy of prayer, denying
the punishment of sin, etc. Mrs. Eddy in her little eight-page Journal, issued
every other month, did her best to answer the attacks from the pulpit and from
such biggies as the well-established Zion's Herald, the Watchman, and
the Congregationalist, all published in Boston.
On February 26, 1885, the Reverend A.J.
Gordon in league with the Reverend Joseph Cook, made a particularly vitriolic
attack upon Mrs. Eddy, denouncing Christian Science and all its works with a
thoroughness characteristic of those early days.
A number of Mrs. Eddy's students urged her
to bring suit for slander. She responded by writing for the Journal her
essay entitled “Love,” and her pamphlet entitled Defense of
Christian Science.
Mrs. Eddy did, however, immediately demand
the right to reply from the same platform. Her request was at first refused.
Later she was reluctantly granted ten
minutes on March 16th. It was stated in the Congregationalist that “the
best way of meeting the evil [Mrs. Eddy and her works] was to let it show
itself.”
It has been said of Mrs. Eddy that as a
teacher she had in a marked degree the ability to arrest attention even before
she began to speak. Many taught by her have left the record that the first
session of a class was in the nature of a revelation to those attending it.
Intuitively the members of a class rose at her entrance. Her teaching did not
leave them where it found them. It influenced their entire lives.
On the larger platform she seems to have
been even more arresting. Mrs. Eddy is described as having a remarkable poise
and lack of self-consciousness. At this time Hawthorne Hall had been outgrown
and Mrs. Eddy was preaching in the much larger Chickering Hall. Now, to answer
the villainous charges of the Reverends Cook and Gordon, Mrs. Eddy was to
appear in the prestigious Tremont Temple to explain Christian Science in the
ten minutes grudgingly alloted her. Nineteen hundred years earlier Jesus had
faced the defiant and proscriptive orthodoxy of his time. Since his time a
succession of martyrs had been burned at the stake, fed to the lions, thrown
into boiling oil, put to the rack, and otherwise tortured because they dared to
defy priestcraft and refused to give the lie to their honest convictions.
Mrs. Eddy felt deeply the burden of the
world's lack of comprehension. It took tremendous courage to appear at Tremont
Temple and face the two thousand grim Christians who awaited her and her
“heresy.” Her teaching had been damned by Reverends Cook and Gordon
as dangerous pantheistic heterodoxy. The people had been warned against her
teachings. She was looked upon as a representative of Satan and a tool for
evil.
Julia Bartlett in her reminiscences recalls:
“it was a hard ordeal for her—to encounter this hatred and antagonism
toward Truth. When the time came I rode in the carriage with her to the temple.
When we reached it, we were met by Joseph Cook who was very abusive and
insulting in his remarks to her, but she made no reply and took her place on
the platform.” His introduction was icy.
The house was filled when she rose to speak.
The time was short.
In exactly ten minutes Mrs. Eddy gave an
explanation or exposition of her teaching which has since become historic. With
rare skill she confined herself solely to questions and answers which in
themselves were remarkable in their implications. They answered the topics most
under consideration and discussion at her time.
When she came to the crux of the whole
matter: “How is the healing done in Christian Science?” She paused.
Tremont Temple was filled to overflowing. Many were standing at the back of the
great gallery which circles the hall. It is not difficult to imagine the wave
of expectancy experienced by the audience.
“This answer,” Mrs. Eddy said,
“includes too much to give you any conclusive idea in a brief explanation.
I can name some means by which it is not done . .. “ (Mis. 96:25).
As she came to her last question, “is
there a personal man?” her time was running out, but her answer was
wonderful in its comforting assurance. It inferred that while man in God's
image and likeness did not yet appear, it would appear more and more as the
perfect model was held in thought, held in mind, and man turned resolutely
“away from inharmony, sickness, and sin to that which is the image of his
Maker” (Mis. 98:4).
“Her work was completed,” says
Julia Bartlett. “She stopped at the end of the time alloted her, although
she had not consulted her watch.
“As we were leaving I heard someone
say, 'She is a wonderful woman.' “ They rode home in silence. Julia saw
she must be left to herself, and that her help came from a higher than human
source. When they reached home, Mrs. Eddy went to her room where she remained
alone.
To thinking Christian Scientists, Mrs. Eddy
is in no way more vivid in her claim to grandeur than in the way she rode the
storms. This was not the first storm, and it would by no means be the last.
Julia longed to comfort her teacher: “I
thought if I could only have shared some of the burdens how gladly I would have
done it, and if the world only understood, these trials would not have
been put upon her. No one but herself could know the burdens of that hour”
(Misc. Documents, p. 198).
Never, never will a mortal again drink the
cup Mrs. Eddy drank to the dregs in order to bless mankind. What she said of
Jesus, was true of her: Through the magnitude of her human life, she
demonstrated the divine Life. Out of the amplitude of her pure affection, she
defined Love. With the affluence of Truth she vanquished error. At that period
the world acknowledged not her righteousness but it was beginning to receive
the harmony her glorified teachings introduced. The leaven of Truth she founded
in human consciousness is ever at work; it will destroy all error and be
glorified in man's spiritual freedom.
Rocky: To hasten this happy day Mrs.
Eddy warned her students against the subtle influences that would impel them to
leave their post. She also taught them that Christ's way was the only way, that
divine Love would destroy all evil (because to Love there is no evil—Love
knows no evil).
From the human standpoint, mental
chemicalization brings sin and sickness to the surface. It often follows the
explanation of Truth, when evil seems to be aggravated before its destruction.
But in reality nothing is going on except Truth which is always encompassed in
Love. This must be so because of the Allness of God, and the nothingness of
evil. All error (evil) is hypnotic suggestion, and induces belief in what
has no substance.
SCENES FROM LYMAN
JOHNSON'S EARLY HISTORY
Moderator: Before we leave this
glimpse of the early students who remained loyal to Christian Science, we
should look at Lyman Johnson's History of the Christian Science
Movement. Lyman's History again shows how Christian Science made its entry
among the lowly and inconspicuous. As the ages pass, this leaven of Truth is at
work deep in human consciousness. It will destroy the entire mass of error,
freeing man from bondage to matter and materiality.
As time goes on, Christian Scientists will
want to know about the early workers—the varied trials and testing
experiences through which they passed, and what they accomplished under the
guidance of Mrs. Eddy. At such a time, Lyman Johnson's History of the
Christian Science Movement is destined to become ever more and more
sought after because it gives firsthand reminiscences.
Lyman, then a teenager, was an eyewitness to
much of what the movement passed through—the adversities, the poverty, the
cold and hunger, the mental suffering caused by ostracism, and by the hostility
of pulpit, press and M.D.'s, the betrayal and treachery of renegade students.
Naively, nostalgically, he evokes a feeling that “the ties which link the
happy may be dear, but those which bind the wretched are tenderness
unutterable.”
His History recalls the atmosphere of
primitive Christianity. With poignant clarity he depicts the faithful little
group that surrounded Mrs. Eddy in the eighteen eighties. He pictures the
storm, the struggle, the persecution, along with the radiant assurances of
being newly born of the Spirit and of the boundless possibilities. These
experiences of a hundred years ago were unique, never to be repeated. They
simply awalt, says Lyman Johnson, grateful and sympathetic appreciation.
Wm. B. Johnson: C. S.
Practitioner
Lyman's father and mother, the William B.
Johnsons, were both healed in Christian Science in 1882, and delivered
from so much misery that they had a great desire to become purer and holier.
Mrs. Eddy soon realized the grand quality of William B. Johnson's thought and
urged him to go into the practise: “You have but little to unlearn,”
she told him, “and your healing and study have made you ready.” Thus
encouraged, Lyman's father immediately gave up his business and put a sign in
his window:
William B. Johnson
Christian Scientist
The sign in the window struck the neighbors
as a nine days' wonder, attracting many queer glances, sarcastic remarks, and
gibes, but no patients. And with these trials, relates Lyman, came a greater
hardship, lack of funds. Lyman, age fourteen, had worked all summer and was
bringing in $2.50 a week, on which the family lived. The father's time was
fully occupied helping Mrs. Eddy, but at unremunerative Church-related
activities. A week before high school opened, Lyman's father came to him with
tears in his eyes and put the question whether or not he should give up
Christian Science practise and go back into his old line of work. Or would
Lyman be willing to give up attending high school, at least temporarily, and
keep on with his job in order to support the family?
Lyman kept his job. He says, “I do not
like to write very much about the years 1884 to 1887 because they record a
constant struggle for existence.... These were indeed heart-breaking years, for
there was no income for weeks at a time except what came through my work.”
Lyman's History at this point shows how
severely these early pioneers of the Christ Science were tested. He saw his
mother often worried and sad. He learned what it was to go to bed hungry, or to
have only a small bowl of stewed tomatoes and a few crackers for supper after a
hard day's work. Books, jewelry, engravings, even their furniture, were sold to
pay the rent. He writes that even after the lapse of many years he tries to
avoid opening the gates of memory—the adversities of his father and
mother, the quiet desperation, the silent tears. “Their troubles were
greater than mine,” he writes, “for I had the years before me, but
even now I feel that the trials and labors of those years with the pinch of
poverty, and the constant struggle against the efforts to pervert Mrs. Eddy's
teachings—which caused father untold labor—have all left their mark
in a deep-rooted sadness, which I still must make effort to escape
from.”
Lyman's Meeting with Mrs.
Eddy
Tommy: It was in 1884 that Lyman
first saw Mrs. Eddy and heard her preach in the Hawthorne Rooms. His account of
this meeting, reflecting a child's point of view and reaction, is most
interesting. His father had told him much about Mrs. Eddy: what she had done,
the wonderful things she had written, and what healing she had accomplished.
While young Lyman was willing to look at her, he shrank from going too close
because, he said, “I had a childish awe of such a wonderful person. Before
the service began the room was well filled, and I was startled out of a reverie
by hearing people whisper, 'Here is Mrs. Eddy.' I know that I got to my feet,
for I remember that my father gently pulled me back and told me not to stand up
and stare.”
At the end of the service his father, having
business to discuss with some of the members, left Lyman to look out at the
Common. After waiting some time his father came for him as he wanted Lyman to
meet Mrs. Eddy. “I know that I held back, as there were some who were
waiting to speak to her, but father gently chided me and told me that I must
meet her because she was 'the greatest person on earth.'” This was almost
too much for young Lyman as he couldn't see how she could be greater than the
President of the United States. However, his father kept urging him forward,
and he stood among a little group of about a dozen persons who were lingering
about her
....suddenly she realized that there was a
child near her, and at that moment father pushed me forward, and said,
'Teacher, this is my son.' She was very gracious to me, took my hand and held
it. At the clasp of her hand my fears vanished. She then told me that my father
had told her about my singing and said that she would like to hear me sing
sometime…She asked me what I would like to be when I grew up. I told her,
'A fine musician.’ Her answer was, ‘l hope you will be,' and looking
me in the eyes, and putting her hand on my head, she said, 'May God bless
you.’
The sweetness of her voice, the wonderful
questioning of her eyes which seemed to read my thoughts, rather frightened me
at first, then drew my tears. The remarkable manner in which she spoke to
others, and the way she stood, made a picture that I have never forgotten, and
in after years whenever I had the pleasure of seeing her, the picture of that
day at Hawthorne Rooms came back with inspiring freshness.
This first impression has always lingered
with me as one of the events of my life. When in later years I realized the
greatness of the woman, I had no desire to see her personally, though I had
many opportunities to go to Concord, for that one touch of her hand and the
blessing given seemed to have sealed up in my child's memory for future
guidance a reverence and a love so great, that through all the years I have
been relieved of all need of seeing, that I might believe” (ibid.
p. 7).
Sally: His whole History elicits a
deep sympathy and admiration for the valiant efforts of those early struggling
pioneers, their steadfastness and courage in the face of almost insurmountable
obstacles, their cheerfulness, their overriding desire to help in any way
possible. Time and energy were not considered when they were expended for the
Cause. Everyone was willing and ready to do his part no matter how humble. The
break in the church (with forty disloyal members apostatizing) had brought the
loyal workers and adherents closer together. With great love and reverence for
their Leader, Mrs. Eddy, they instinctively put more vitality into their action
and thought, and worked with more definite aspirations. Their great joy was
always in doing something helpful, and there was no thought of recompense. Mrs.
Eddy was among them, and those who through the years of trial had never wavered
in knowing that she was giving them the truth Jesus had taught, felt that every
hour near her was precious, that fulfilment of her wishes was a help both to
her and to the world.
Friday Night Suppers
at the Restaurant
Marie: The spirit and tenor of the
lives of these early workers, touched and hallowed by the fire of a great
vision, is further charmingly portrayed in Lyman's description of suppers
before the Friday night church meetings at a near-by old-fashioned restaurant
on Tremont Street. There would be a few workers in the office of the Journal,
who lived too far away to go home for the evening meal, together with
practitioners from the suburbs, who came in town especially for the evening
service. All would meet friends and relatives at this restaurant that “was
long and narrow, running through to Tamworth street; always well-lighted, and
always neat.”
... It had about it an air of comfort, and
here came Miss Bartlett, Mr. and Mrs. Munroe, Mrs. Coleman, Mrs. Williams, Mr.
and Mrs. Landy, Captain and Mrs. Eastaman, Mr. Mason, Mr. Bailey, father,
mother, and myself. Miss Bartlett and the Munroes usually made up a table with
us, and sometimes Mr. Mason would join in pleasant comradeship. Here, over a
simple meal, the work that was laid out for the coming week and the experiences
of each since they had last met would be talked over. A review of what the
Teacher had said to them at the College would follow, or the result of a
meeting held for some special purpose; then questions on the interpretation of
passages of Scripture and of Science and Health. This hour of the
evening meal was filled with wonderful sweetness. There was a free and generous
exchange of thought, a simple association which bore the fruits of faithfulness
and unity, while there was always a pervading perfume, since someone had seen
Mrs. Eddy yesterday or today, and the few words which she had spoken opened new
vistas of the truth that they must seek for and find.
“There was no idolatry among these
early Scientists. They were not sentimentalists for they had been tried in the
fires of struggle and the battles for right. They were middle-aged people who
had learned much of the world before coming into Science, and the quiet and
reverent way in which they referred to the Teacher, their gentleness, and their
ever-present love, spoke the impress which the spirit of Mrs. Eddy made, a
spirit which was ever with us at our meal. If things got too serious, Mr.
Munroe, who was a bit of a wag, was sure to bring everybody back to a cheerful
state by saying some funny thing that did not fail to make us all smile. Then
father, who was very exacting in this regard, would invariably take out his
watch and say, “Friends, it's time to be on duty and welcome friends and
strangers,” and so would end the evening meal, a prelude of serious
thought and uplifting hope for the work [week] to come.
I remember these evenings as though they
were of yesterday. They made a deep impression on me, so distinctive was the
contrast between this hour of peace and the day's labors which I had finished.
None there had large possessions in stocks, bonds, or business. Their daily
remuneration was from God, and they gave generously to the support of the
[various church activities]. Many patients were visited and treated without
charge....
With these people Christian Science was
their all in all, for there were few that had not been brought out of great
tribulation by it. They had made sacrifices, had been maligned, scorned and
laughed at; attempts had been made to undermine not only their individual work
but that of the whole Cause; and they had gone from door to door canvassing for
subscriptions for the Journal. These seven-times tried workers carried with
them an omnipresent faith in their Teacher. They were constantly inspired by
her presence and by her word. (ibid. p. 80)The Science of being was developing
latent abilities and possibilities, lifting people above their ordinary
capacities, making them instruments of a movement which within a few decades
was to girdle the globe.
Reasons for the
Phenomenal Success
Rookie: What do you think accounted
for the phenomenal success of the movement after Mrs. Eddy finally was able to
attract faithful students like Julia Bartlett and William B. Johnson and the
many other stalwarts who joined the ranks in the latter half of the eighteen
eighties?
Moderator: That is a very good
question, Rookie. Up until 1894 not a single church edifice existed. The
Scientists met in halls and in individual homes with the exception of a tiny
structure in Oconto. In spite of the fact that there were no churches, however,
the denomination grew tremendously. In 1893 Christian Science was given a
leading role when the prestigious Parliament of Religions, involving every
religion on earth, met in Chicago. Christian Science didn't grow because of
churches being built. What then was it that attracted such great numbers? It
was Mrs. Eddy's doctrine of Love—her love for all mankind, her universal
sense of love—that acted like a great magnetic force. With simplicity and
great fidelity she ministered to the spiritual needs of all who placed
themselves under her care. She continually led them forward into the divine
order through the power of her own perfect understanding, as put forth in her
written Word, as well as in her oral teaching.
In Lyman's History, page 228, he gives insight that also
helps to answer the question of why the Christian Science movement grew so
rapidly under Mary Baker Eddy's wise and God-inspired guidance:
After reasoning that it certainly wasn't
because of any church building activity, he asks:What then had been the reason
for the dignified, never fearing, and always hopeful attitude of Christian
Scientists individually and collectively?
It was the constant training and
idealization of their thought; the constant growth in mental poise and
strength; the application of Christian Science to daily problems and the
successful working out of these problems; the continuous and unquestionable
regeneration of hopeless human beings in the matter of health, strength, and
moral status; the more spiritual interpretation of the works and words of
Jesus; and lastly the manifestation of gratitude, love, and full-hearted
willingness to sacrifice for the upbuilding of the Cause of Christian Science
and the realization of the ideals and hopes of their Teacher and Leader, Mrs.
Eddy.Because of Mrs. Eddy's conviction of the oneness of God and man, namely,
of Principle and its idea, she set aside many hours each day for prayer, to
bring about world-wide understanding of this fact.
These hours spent in prayer assured the many
spectacular and instantaneous healings which attracted so much attention to
Christian Science and daily added to its ranks. The momentum built up by Mrs.
Eddy carried the movement miraculously forward for more than three decades
after her departure. One has only to compare the growth of the Christian
Science movement under Mrs. Eddy's hallowed leadership with what has developed
since she left the scene, to realize how close was her union with God, and how
faithfully she let the Mind of Christ be Mind to her.
Her holy humility, her unworldliness and self-effacement,
her unremitting toil and efforts on behalf of the students, quickened and
energized them. They felt the sublimity and power of her thought that was
always one with God. It inspired their confidence, caused the healings to
multiply, and the movement to grow and encircle the globe.
SESSION VII: SOME ENEMIES
OF OUR CAUSE
Moderator: In learning “the
system that she [Mrs. Eddy] denominated Christian Science” (viii:27)
which imparts the Golden Rule and the two great Commandments of Christ Jesus
(Matt. 22:37-39) we are learning our God-being. We are exchanging a mortal
consciousness for a spiritual divinely scientific consciousness. A mortal
material consciousness is really our only enemy.
“Christian Science,” Mrs. Eddy
said, “is my only ideal; and the individual and his ideal can never be
severed. If either is misunderstood or maligned, it eclipses the other with the
shadow cast by that error” (Mis. 105:20).
God the Mind of
Man
This means that if we look for Mary Baker
Eddy in the flesh we lose her instead of find her. Mrs. Eddy's Mind was God,
just as our Mind is God when we understand God as Mary Baker Eddy understood
God. Not understanding God is our only enemy.
Mary Baker Eddy is Christ-Mary. In Baker
Notes, Dr. Baker recorded Mrs. Eddy's statement: “The Christ-Mary is
higher than Christ Jesus because Christ-Mary had to give birth to the Christ
idea, and keep it perfect.” In Mrs. Eddy's illustrated poem, Christ and
Christmas, the ninth picture shows a woman with a scroll, marked Christian
Science, in her hand. She is holding the hand of Jesus. Circling the head of
each is a halo. The halo over the woman's head seems to be slightly larger.
This illustration caused quite an uproar
among clergymen, and sharp criticism was leveled at Mrs. Eddy. Mrs. Eddy was
prompted to respond in the Christian Science Journal, February, 1894:
“All clergymen may not understand the illustrations in Christ and
Christmas; or that these refer not to personality, but present the type and
shadow of Truth's appearing in the womanhood as well as in the manhood of God,
our divine Father and Mother.” (See also Mis. 32:31.)
To the Christian Scientists whose eyes have
been partly opened to Jesus' mission as exemplified in Christian Science today,
the pictures in Christ and Christmas must be a new revelation of the
God-anointed mission of our Leader. Mrs. Eddy has opened a door “and no
man can shut it”—she has opened the door to the eternal life of idea,
where nothing is left but the “womanhood and manhood of God” (Mis.
33:10).
In As It Is, p. 52, Alice Orgain
states: “There never was and never will be but one man, and that is Jesus'
revelation of manhood and his identity therewith; there never was and never
will be but one Woman, and that is Mary Baker Eddy's revelation of womanhood,
and her identity therewith. (My. 120:2).”
In our study we are seeing that Jesus was
not understood until Woman, appearing to mortals as Mary Baker Eddy,
scientifically brought forth his consciousness as her “man child” in
ful-filment of his prophecy to St. John in Revelation (12:5): “And she
brought forth a man child [as Truth], who was to rule all nations with a rod of
iron.” Science and Health is the consciousness, the mentality, of Christ
Jesus—“the kingdom of God within you.”
What is this “rod of iron”?
Anna: It is uncompromising and
inflexible Principle. “Science,” Mrs. Eddy says,
“makes no concessions to persons or opinions” (456:17).
Moderator: In this respect, does
Science differ from Christianity in any way?
Bill: Yes, one of the major virtues
of Christianity in Jesus' first coming was its concessionary spirit in the name
of love, particularly expressed in such language as, “Suffer it to be so
now [for the sake of others].” This is what he said at the time he was
baptized by John. He voluntarily took on the belief of being a mortal for the
sake of others. And his “suffer-it-to-be-so-now” concession directly
precipitated all his suffering: “Immediately the spirit driveth him
into the wilderness” to be tempted by Satan. (Mark 1:12, 13) Jesus
allowed the dream of mortal life to overtake him so that he could be the
wayshower for humanity and show the way out of the flesh—to show that in
reality, we are “incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit,
Soul, Principle, Life, Truth and Love.”
The Lodestar of
Christianity
Margie: Jesus never lost sight of the
fact that the whole of mortal life is a dream; he therefore knew that
crucifying his flesh would accomplish nothing for his enemies. What would lose
the vitality of the cause he championed was false theology's denial of his
relationship with God, separating him from his teaching and from his place in
Bible prophecy—in other words, moving him out of Christianity. Not seeing
Mary Baker Eddy's relationship with God, separating her from her teaching and
from her place in Bible prophecy is also the great danger facing Christian
Science.
The crucifixion of Jesus was not the great
danger to Christianity; it forced on him the resurrection, a demonstration that
became the lodestar of Christianity. It was not the crucifixion but the attempt
to kill his influence that was the real criminal act. Jesus said, “Fear
not them which kill the body.... but rather fear him which is able to kill both
soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). The only thing we need to fear is
the nagging, whispering doubt that we haven't what it takes to surmount a
problem—that we haven't the Mind of Christ that can do all things
perfectly.
Mrs. Eddy knew that the one Mind, the Mind
of Christ, was her Mind. Therefore the malpractitioners who dogged her steps
and tried to put her through a slow crucifixion, only served to spur her on to
higher attainments in the line of spiritual light, thus more clearly exposing
the nothingness of error and evil, as well as serving to unite the Cause more
closely and establish it on a higher and more spiritual plane.
A real enemy of the Cause is the human mind
that uses ambitious students within the ranks to endeavor, through conservatism
and intellectuality, or other means, to move our Leader out of her place. It
evinces a lack of love and gratitude and takes the heart and soul out of
Christian Science, making it a dead body.
Christian Science a
Science Not a Religion
Anna: One of the greatest enemies of
all has been the attempt on the part of “the rulers of the church” to
project Christian Science to the public as a religion instead of as a Science.
Animal magnetism does not war against persons, but against the development of
the idea.
The great revelation that came to Mrs. Eddy
in 1866 was a Science, the Christ Science. It was not a religion. Religion
comes from two root words, namely, re and ligeo. Re means again, and ligeo is
the root from which the word ligaments comes. So it means to bind back, or to
tie again. Mrs. Eddy's revelation was that in reality man has never left God.
She perceived that, in Science, existence separate from divinity is an
impossibility, and therefore man doesn't need religion to tie him back to God.
In reality, man never left perfection. We only need to get rid of illusions,
false beliefs, mortal mind's point of view that sees limitation everywhere
instead of seeing God's infinite perfect universe just at hand. The real enemy
is the concept of life as finite. Animal magnetism doesn't want us to find out
that we live in a universe of infinite flawless perfection.
Elsie: But didn't Mrs. Eddy form a
church?
Moderator: Yes, as a suffer it to be
so now, a necessity for the time, but her estoppel clauses in the Manual
completely dismantled The Mother Church as a central material organization when
she was no longer present. While she was here she needed the help of a Board of
Directors to promulgate her message and bear the burden of the vast amount of
work involved in implementing and executing the perpetual revelations coming to
her from God. When she was no longer here in person, the Board of five
Directors was supposed to revert to a Board of four and their duties were to
become only those specified in the “Deed of Trust,” as shown on pages
128 to 135 of the Church Manual of The First Church of Christ Scientist,
in Boston, Mass., of which she put out eighty-eight editions. The eighty-ninth
edition was not put out by her. Perhaps there will be an opportunity to go into
this Church subject more fully in a later Session.
Tina: Also, wasn't The Mother Church
regarded as a symbol for the mortal body that must gradually be put off?
Anna: Yes, it was. In Retrospection,
p. 45, Mrs. Eddy says organization is requisite only in the earliest periods in
Christian history [but totally unnecessary in Christian Science
history]. “After this material form of cohesion and fellowship has
accomplished its end, continued organization retards spiritual growth, and
should be laid off-even as the corporeal organization deemed requisite in
the first stages of mortal existence is finally laid off in order to gain
spiritual freedom and supremacy.”
Florence: Mrs. Eddy was using The
Mother Church as a symbol for the mortal body that must be laid off and
replaced with “the system she denominated Christian Science”
(viii:27). The warfare which The Mother Church symbolized was concerned with
the laying down of the mortal. The estoppel clauses are a symbol of the
estopping of the mortal viewpoint—the Adam-dream viewpoint that
encumbers us with a fleshly mortal body. Perhaps in a later Session this point
can be covered more adequately.
Billy: What will replace the mortal
body?
Florence: Divine Science will replace
the mortal body which is only an image in mortal mind. Through the Science Mrs.
Eddy brought, this image in mortal mind will be replaced with the image in the
divine Mind. That's why she says: “Take divine Science ... study it,
ponder it ... but murmur not over Truth if you find its digestion bitter [when
you find you must lay down the mortal viewpoint, give up your most cherished
beliefs or what Jesus referred to as cutting off your right hand and plucking
out your right eye].... When you approach nearer and nearer to this divine
Principle, when you eat the divine body of this Principle” you are
exchanging the mortal body for the immortal body or the “primal elements
of Truth and Love” (559:17-26). Your real body is “the structure
of Truth and Love” (583:12).
Tina: Would you say the textbook is
our divine body?
Florence: Yes, the textbook is
synonymous with divine Principle, Love. It is the divine body we put on as we
lay down the mortal body.
The mortal body is symbolized by The Mother
Church material organization. This organization was scheduled for complete
dissolution, to be effected by Mrs. Eddy's famous estoppel clauses, which
stopped all its vital functions because the real body, like the real Mother
Church, had shed all materiality and “blossomed into spiritual beauty
[whose] communion [is] universal and divine.”
Billy: Would you please repeat what
our true Mother Church is? How do we find it?
Florence: We find our true Mother
Church “by entrenching ourselves in the knowledge that our true temple is
no human fabrication, but the superstructure of Truth, reared on the foundation
of Love, and pinnacled in Life” (Pul. 2:27). Mrs. Eddy asks, in substance,
if this is the true Mother Church, isn't it always with you? Can it ever be
disturbed? Can Life die? Can Truth be uncertain? Can Love be less than
boundless? The real Mother Church is always with you, as your real being, as
“the structure of Truth and Love.”
Grace: It is beyond the ken of
mortals to comprehend what Mrs. Eddy accomplished. She was totally governed by
God. Mrs. Eddy speaks of “spiritualizing materialistic beliefs”
(316:28). It is the spiritualization of thought and the Christianization of
daily life, she says (272:19) that is important, that lets in the light and
brings the divine Mind, Life, into humanity's experience.
Spiritual education alone will meet
mankind's yearning for spirituality, and speed the day of understanding. How
little of what Jesus taught and demonstrated was comprehended even nineteen
centuries after his sojourn here, until Mrs. Eddy explained (glorified) him.
In writing Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy
stepped out of the picture completely, and wrote down what God
dictated—what divine Love dictated. With every passing year she saw more
clearly that Christian Science could only be understood through the spirit of
the Christ—that Science is not Science unless it be Christian to the
highest degree, unless it illustrates and demonstrates the Christianity of the
Christ. It is the evangelization of the human self that is resisted, the
spiritualizing of our mentality. Science, she said, is 'God manifest in the
flesh.' It is God disciplining and destroying evil, physically, morally, and
spiritually. The human will must be subordinated to the divine; God is the only
actor. The shadow, the image, can't act or think.
Human experience is the externalization of
conscious and unconscious thought. Therefore mortal mind, the human mind, must
be replaced with the divine Mind, and the utter error of supposed life in
matter with its pain, ignorance, supersitition, malice and hate must be
rejected in all its phases. The carnal mind is not eager to give itself up, and
this reluctance on the part of mortals to rise above material standpoints,
portends a long night to the traveler.
Jackie: It seems unfortunate that
since Mrs. Eddy's departure Christian Science has been officially presented to
the world as a religion rather than as a Science.
Florence: Yes, that's true.
Impersonal animal magnetism doesn't war against persons but against the
development of the idea. However, an understanding of the living light, the
Word of God as presented in Science and Health, puts an end to the darkness of
animal magnetism, and eventually it will be learned that all men have one Mind,
(340:20), the divine Priciple, Love.
Moreover it is important to see that
anything that tries to save the human ego, the little “i,” is
“religion.” Until we spiritually grasp the fact that we have no
selfhood apart from the one divine Selfhood of God, we are studying Christian
Science as a religion. This is what Mrs. Eddy is telling us in her opening
statement on page 1 of the textbook where she equates a spiritual understanding
of God with “unselfed love.” Here she is is telling me, Get Florence
out of the way, because a personal sense of self—the sense of a selfhood
apart from God—has no place in being. As long as we entertain a personal
sense of an “I” or ego studying the textbook, it will be religion.
Once the world sees that Christian
Science is a Science and not a religion, progress in the understanding of this
Science will escalate exponentially.
Sally: And fortunately, the
revelation is contained in a textbook. Any honest seeker for Truth can go to
that book without the assistance of minister, priest, practitioner, rabbi, or
any third party. Any honest seeker can study its message. He will hear the
voice of God speaking to him and find himself reborn. The healing and
regenerating effects of Christian Science follow the understanding of the
divine Principle and of the Christ-spirit. For this Principle, Mrs. Eddy says,
there is no ecclesiastical monopoly. Its only priest is the spiritualized man
(141:17) who must grow in spiritual understanding unencumbered by priestcraft.
Moderator: Think for a moment of the
stupendous challenge that faced Mrs. Eddy: one lone woman, with a glorious
message from God for mankind, charged with the grandest trust of heaven,
yearning to fulfil her God-bestowed mission to complete the works of Christ
Jesus on earth. Every conceivable obstacle was thrown in her path. She had not
a cent in her pocket. Her family was ashamed of her and disowned her. Wherever
she sought shelter she was looked upon as peculiar.
Mocked and persecuted, this lone Messenger
of God grasped courageously at every possible medium through which she might
interest people in the good news God had given her in that great revelation of
1866. Forming a church was an absolute necessity in the beginning. It
was the only way she could attract people who would listen to her message.
Mary B. Glover
Eddy's Advertisement
Marie: Irving C. Tomlinson in his
Twelve Years With Mary Baker Eddy, p. 130, says that he has in his
possession a quaintly worded card on which is printed the following notice of
lectures to be delivered by Mrs. Eddy:Invitation. Mary B. Glover Eddy, author
of “Science and Health,” will interest all who may favor her with a
call at her rooms with her Parlor Lectures on Practical Metaphysics, and the
influence that mind holds over disease and longevity.How to improve the moral
and physical condition of man, to eradicate in children hereditary traits, to
enlarge the intellect a hundred per cent, to restore and strengthen memory, to
cure consumption, rheumatism, deafness, blindness and every ill the race is
heir to. Place: College Rooms, Columbus Ave. 569. Time, Thursday 3 P.M. Price
$0.25“While recalling the story of these lectures of long ago,” says
Tomlinson, “Mrs. Eddy once said to me, as I later recorded her words:In
the early days of Christian Science, in order to interest people, I was forced
to adopt many ways and methods. I would lecture to a parlor full of people, and
at the conclusion of the address they would seem to grasp little, if anything.
One evening after speaking for a few moments, I asked all to rise who
understood what I had been saying and not one rose to his feet.
Francie: Mrs. Eddy not being able to
get her point across reminds me of Art Linkletter's experience in lecturing to
teenagers after his beloved daughter committed suicide in connection with
drugs. Expecting on this particular occasion to address high school seniors, he
was confounded upon being led into the auditorium and seeing first and second
graders! His prayer for inspiration was answered and he began to tell them
little stories each carrying the message of how dangerous it was to do certain
things, all leading up to the dangers of using drugs.
Among the letters of praise he received upon
returning home was one from a six-year-old who wrote, “Thank you very
much, Mr. Linkletter, for coming to our school and leading us into drug
abuse.”
The point Mrs. Eddy was trying to make in
relating the difficulty she had in getting people to understand her
explanation, was that healing is something that everyone can understand
and identify with. Tomlinson then relates that Mrs. Eddy said, “ 'The way
to establish the Cause through reason is through writing and preaching and
lecturing. This is temporal. But the way to establish the Cause through
revelation is by healing, and this is permanent’ “(ibid).
A Testimony
Moderator: On this I can speak from experience, as I
know most of us in this class can. It was healing that permanently brought my
family into Christian Science many years ago. It was a case of “man's
extremity is God's opportunity.”
Through an accident my mother had lost her
sight. After several excruciatingly painful operations through which the best
eye specialists endeavored vainly to restore at least partial sight, all hope
was abandoned. My father at that time was suffering from an incurable disease
and doctors gave him but a short time to live and advised him to put his
affairs in order. In this dark hour a man in whom my father confided his dire
circumstances said, “My friend, be of good cheer. You and your wife can
both be helped. I sat in a wheelchair many years, thinking there was no cure
for the rheumatism. But I heard of Christian Science and was completely
healed.” He advised my father to go and see a Mrs. Coulter, C.S., who
hadher home and office in the Lincoln Hotel, Seattle.
Greatly encouraged, my father took my mother
to see Mrs. Coulter. My father at that time did not think his own difficulty
could be healed, as he was somewhat steeped in medical lore, and had read in
his “Doctor Book” that his difficulty was fatal. When my mother's
sight was fully restored after three visits, unbelievable joy and prayerful
thanksgiving reigned in our home. It was then that my father decided perhaps
he, too, could be helped. He was perfectly healed in one treatment. My mother
then confided to the practitioner that my little brother had been wearing a
truss for what the doctor had diagnosed as hernia. Mrs. Coulter said, “You
have seen what God can do. Go home and read the textbook, and you will find
your little boy is all right.” The next morning when Mom was dressing this
little boy she found him entirely healed. Mrs. Coulter at that time was in her
ninety-first year. I was about seven years of age then, and these wonderful
healings made a profound impression on me. In heartfelt gratitude I would
sometimes climb up to the attic and in the corner where the chimney ran through
I would kneel down and ask God to help me understand this marvelous Science so
that someday I could help and heal people in the way my mother and father and
little brother had been healed.
Those healings have overshadowed everything in my life, and
my prayer, “0 God, feed my famished affections for a higher holier
understanding of what God and man is,” has been answered in
ever-increasing comprehension of the Science of Christian Science.
To Mrs. Coulter it had become solid
conviction that disease is but the image of a lie. Disease is not matter or a
part of matter. It is but the result of a falsehood. She recognized the
physical difficulties to be but the image of wrong thought. She saw it as just
that, and it was healed, much as a mathematician spots error in a calculation
and substitutes the right answer for the wrong one.
The first and crucial error held by a
patient is the false belief that he is the product of a sex-creation—that
he is born of a woman and consequently life is here in the form of mortality,
subject to disease and death. Mrs. Coulter knew that material birth, existence,
and death are pure illusion and the opposite of Truth. She put aside the claims
of the flesh and saw only the spiritual, the perfect man.
“Unless we have better healers, and
more of this work than any other, is done, our Cause will not 'stand and having
done all stand.' Demonstration is the whole of Christian Science, and nothing
else will save it and continue it with us. God has said this—and Christ
Jesus has proved it” (Christian Science Journal, June, 1936, from a letter
by Mary Baker Eddy).
In beginning with a patient you must see the
spirituality of his being and be fortified with the truth about the situation
so you can deny the beliefs with understanding.
Evil Appearing to
Exist
Billy: Through what process did Mrs.
Eddy finally learn how mythical evil could even appear to exist?
Anna: She scientifically analyzed the
terms “animal magnetism” and “mesmerism,” which were much
in vogue in her day. She saw that in the same way the sleeper is mesmerized to
believe his dream is real, so the waking day-dream of material existence is
also only a mesmeric state which comes to an end only as the day-dreamer
awakens to the spiritual fact that man is always the spiritual image and
likeness of God, Mind.
The matter we see around us in our waking
hours is no more real than the matter we see in sleep-dreams where we also meet
people who appear to have life and intelligence in their bodies. But what
happens when we wake up after having dreamed the house was on fire and active
intelligent firemen were everywhere present with their hoses and fire
extinguishers bravely endeavoring to subdue the flames?
When the change of consciousness we call
“waking up” takes place we realize the people, the firemen, as well
as the objects and circumstances in our dream, were all illusions; the sense of
life, activity, the intelligence the firemen were expressing, was all false.
These forces—life, intelligence, activity, substance—were not in the
dream people. Life, intelligence, substance, activity are not in matter anymore
than honesty, love, loyalty, or honor are in matter. These latter are
emanations of God. All life, truth, intelligence, activity, etc., is in God,
infinite good, and remains in God, and is reflected by man. When we perceive
this truth, we realize we always have perfect God and perfect man as the
reality, and any digression from perfection is pure illusion, a dream state.
When the cause is perfect, the effect is perfect since like produces like, and
nothing can be expressed in effect that is not contained in cause.
We awaken from this dream of material life
and death solely in proportion to our understanding and manifestation of the
nature of God. As our thoughts become more God-like, we shall depend less and
less on matter—which is a state of deadness—until we see we are one
with God as Principle and idea, one in spiritual being. “Existence
separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible” (522:10). Through
the teaching of the textbook we are resurrected out of the deadness of mortal
beliefs.
Mrs. Eddy totally rejected mortal mind and its false point
of view.
Florence: This total rejection of
mortal mind, the carnal mind that is enmity against God, was a doctrine too
radical for the students who came to Mrs. Eddy during the first fourteen years,
and this together with the persecution they suffered and their own character
flaws, caused them to rebel.
Julia Bartlett in her Memoirs tells of one such rebellion,
how Mrs. Eddy humbly met their lack of understanding of her God-ordained
mission, and how she courageously rallied her remaining troops and urged them
on to higher attainments.
Moderator: Sally, you have a copy of
Miscellaneous Documents. Would you please read Julia Bartlett's account
of the 1881 rebellion? It throws so much light on the fearful price Mrs. Eddy
paid to bring Christian Science to the world. Julia's account is a vivid
portrayal of Mrs. Eddy's brave struggles in the early days before Christian
Science gained world-wide recognition. We know from other sources that besides
enmasse defection and apostasy, this period was ringed with a welter of small
harassments and endless dismal trivia that would try the souls of saints. But
Mrs. Eddy was fired with a great vision. She knew but one way to go, and that
way was forward. God had called her, armed her with forces impregnable. God was
her Mind, and He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before
His judgment seat;
Oh be swift my Soul to answer Him, be
jubilant my feet.
-Julia Ward Howe.
Struggle Over Who Shall
Be Greatest
Sally: Julia Bartlett's accounts
starts:
In October, 1881, eight students who had
allowed error to enter their thought, united in writing a disloyal letter of
false accusations to their Leader and signed their names to the same. This
cruel letter was read by one of their number at a meeting of the Christian
Scientists' Association in the presence of Mrs. Eddy who was the President of
the Association. She made no reply, and when the meeting, which was held in her
house, was closed, she went to her room and all the students went to their
homes with the exception of two. These two remained with their beloved teacher
to comfort her in her sorrow and anguish for the sins of those who were
persecuting their Leader and forsaking the cause of Christian Science when they
were so much needed. [The eight were no doubt students who had been on more or
less intimate terms with Mrs. Eddy, and thought of her as just one of them; and
this familiarity was not conducive to engendering the deep respect and
reverence due Mrs. Eddy. Thus when students of the caliber of Julia Bartlett,
Mrs. Whiting, Mrs. Poor, and others of this mold entered the ranks and were
enthusiastically welcomed by Mrs. Eddy (because of their demonstrated
spirituality of thought), envy and jealousy, and “who shall be
greatest,” reared its ugly visage in those less spiritually motivated, and
erupted in this apostasy.]
I was in Salem at the time and could not
attend the meeting but the next morning on hearing what had transpired I took
the first train for Lynn, desiring to be with my dear teacher and to be of some
service in her hour of trial. Dr. Eddy admitted me to the house. I found Mrs.
Eddy seated by the table and the two students who had spent the night with her
sitting near her, I quietly took a seat near them as did Dr. Eddy also, and
listened to Mrs. Eddy who was talking with a power such as I had never heard
before. They were wonderful words she was speaking while we young students were
receiving of the great spiritual illumination which had come through her
glorious triumph over evil.
Marie: Wasn't it splendid the way
Mrs. Eddy could bounce back?—her resilience, her ability to go to God for
comfort and reassurance and wisdom for the next step, her willingness to
forgive and forget and always lie on the watch for an opportunity to bless her
enemies?
Material Body an
Illusion
Sally: Yes, that was what kept her
thought in line with the spiritual and eternal, and it individualized, in her,
infinite power. It was what made her receptive to revelations from divine Love.
Continuing, Julia Bartlett says that just
before she arrived, Mrs. Eddy had been sitting with the others,...and the
burden was still heavy upon her, when all at once she rose from her chair,
stepped out into the room, her face radiant, with a far away look as if she was
beholding things the eye cannot see. She began to talk and to prophesy of the
blessings which would reward the faithful, while the transgressor cannot escape
the punishment evil brings on itself. Her language was somewhat in the style of
the Scriptures. When she began, the three with her, seeing how it was, caught
up their pencils and took down what she said. When she was through speaking she
put down her hand and said, 'Why, I haven't any body.” And as she came
back to the thought of those about her, they were so moved by what they had
seen and heard their eyes were filled with tears, and one was kneeling by the
couch, sobbing.
It was at this point, as she sat down and
began talking to them that I arrived. When she was through, she said, 'I would
like you three to stay with me three days.' She said she did not know what
might be, but felt there would be a great deal for us.
Those three days were wonderful! It was as
if God was talking to her and she would come to us and tell us the wonderful
revelations that came. We were on the Mount! We felt that we must take the
shoes from off our feet, that we were standing on holy ground. What came to me
at that time will never leave me.”
The following month (November 9, 1881) Mrs. Eddy was
ordained paster of the Church of Christ, Scientist, at 8 Broad Street, Lynn, in
her little parlor, with about fifteen present. Mrs. Abbe K. Whiting extended
the right hand of fellowship. A table stood in the center of the room and Mrs.
Eddy, Mrs. Whiting, and I were on one side while on the other side were the few
students standing. Mrs. Eddy stood so meek, with her head bowed and a beautiful
spiritual expression on her face, while this young student (Mrs. Whiting] took
her hand and talked to her like one inspired, as she was. It was all very
impressive. Mrs. Eddy had preached five years but was not ordained until the
date given above.
Rookie: It was on December 25th, 1881, in this same
little house that Julia Bartlett united with the church.
Mrs. Eddy was soon leaving, to go to Washington, D.C. for a
time to lecture and teach and do what she could to start the Science in that
important city. For this reason she had called a special meeting of the Church
to be held in the evening to admit Julia and one other, as members, that they
might take their place in the church work during her absence.
Because Mrs. Eddy knew she would not be returning to Lynn,
but would make her home in Boston after her Washington, D.C. venture, her
household goods were nearly all packed and taken away to be stored. The floors
were bare. There were a few chairs, a small writing desk, and a packing box in
the room. The packing box stood on end and there was a lamp on it. Mrs. Eddy
sat beside it. There were about ten church members present. Mrs. Eddy read the
seventeenth chapter of John. She begged them not to allow envy or any root of
bitterness to spring up between them, but “that ye love one another, as I
have loved you.” Let no pride come up, she counseled, or vain inquiry,
“who shall be greatest?” She urged them to remember that she had made
herself the servant that she might lead others to Christ. Her parting remarks
to them on the eve of her leaving the city and her admonitions in regard to the
care of the Church sank deep into their hearts. “We were saddened at the
thought of parting with our beloved teacher, but were brave and courageous in
taking up new responsibilities, resolving to be faithful in following her
instructions, knowing that God would give us strength according to our
needs” (Miscellaneous Documents to Christian Science and Mary Baker
Eddy, p. 176-178).
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy didn't take any chances
with envy, jealousy, and “who shall be greatest” disrupting the
fledgling Church in her absence. Before she left she appointed the four women
who were to take turns conducting services. This wise selection of who should
lead in her absence forestalled any quarreling over who should occupy the place
of honor. The students had a lot of growing to do. They didn't have the same
love for humanity that Mrs. Eddy did, which made her always a warrior with
armor on, fully awake, alive, alert, aware of what was going on around her, and
always ready to challenge error's right to exist. Her troops must learn to do
the same.
Mrs. Eddy also constantly urged her
followers in the direction of better healing work. Healing is the bugle call
for the real purpose of Christian Science which is the healing of sin, and sin
is any belief that separates man from God, from his God-being which is always
at hand awaiting man's recognition and acceptance.
Call to James
Neal
Tommy: A letter written to James Neal
bears testimony of the high premium Mrs. Eddy placed on healing as the way to
start in “fulfilling each hope and aim”:Your letter is my best New
Year's gift .... Now, thank God, I have at least one student in Boston that
promises to be a Healer such as I have long waited and hoped to see. Oh may the
Love that looks on you and all, guide your every thought and act up to the
impersonal, spiritual model that is the only ideal—and constitutes the
only scientific Healer.
To this glorious end I ask you to still
press on, and have no other ambition or aim. A real scientific Healer is the
highest position attainable in this sphere of being. Its altitude is far above
a Teacher or preacher; it includes all that is divinely high and holy. Darling
James, leave all else and strive for this great achievement. Mother sighs to
see how much her students need this attainment and longs to live to see one
Christian Scientist attain it. Your aid to reach this goal is spiritualization.
To achieve this you must have one God, one affection, one way, one Mind.
Society, flattery, popularity, are temptations in your pursuit of growth
spiritual. Avoid them as much as in you lies. Pray daily, never miss praying,
no matter how often: “Lead me not into
temptation,”—scientifically rendered,—Lead me not to lose sight
of strict purity, clean pure thoughts; let all my thoughts and aims be high,
unselfish, charitable, meek,—spiritually minded. With this altitude of
thought your mind is losing materiality and gaining spirituality and this is
the state of mind that heals the sick.. .. “ (Lyman P. Powell,
Mary Baker Eddy, p. 322).
Rocky: In his Reminiscences,
James Neal relates an incident which gives a glimpse of his character and also
a glimpse of the prevailing hostility. Neal's study with Mrs. Eddy at her
College opened up a tremendous vista, giving him not only a new point of view
but a whole new set of realities, and upon his return to Kansas he immediately
began healing friends and fellow townsmen—deafness, blindness, insanity,
tuberculosis, and a broken skull among many other healings.
While visiting his family in Kearney,
Nebraska, he was requested to help a seriously ill child whom the doctors were
not able to heal. After one day's treatment to which the child did not respond,
the mother, fearful for the child, returned the case to the doctors. The child
died soon afterward, and on the basis of his one day's treatment the newspapers
announced that the coroner's inquest was expected to result in a charge of
manslaughter against Neal. The paper also announced that Neal had run out of
town on a freight train at night to escape arrest. Neal wrote the newspaper
expressing his regret that the child had died. He explained to them that she
had been treated for twelve weeks by doctors and he had only treated her one
day; that her mother had returned to medical treatment, and the child had died
under the care of physicians. He also explained to the paper that far from
leaving Kearney, he had decided—because of the situation in which he found
himself, and all the criticism—to stay for six months, and gave them the
hotel where he could be found and the hours during which he could be reached
there.
To make a long story short, at the inquest,
the coroner was unreasonably rude and rough with Neal. At the end of the
inquest, a juror who had been hand-picked for his known hostility to Christian
Science came to Neal for treatment. Many others in Kearney came to Neal for
treatment and were healed. (See Neal Reminiscences.)
Love is the secret of all healing, Mrs. Eddy said, the love
which forgets self and dwells in the secret place, in the realm of the real.
But it is not mere human love that heals, she pointed out, not a love for a
person or for anything—it is Love itself. The realization of this Love for
a moment, will heal the sick or raise the dead. (See Twelve Years With Mary
Baker Eddy, Irving C. Tomlinson, p. 91.)
Francie: But this Love that we must
be is reached through godliness or Christianity which is a human necessity; man
cannot live without it; he has no intelligence, health, hope, or happiness
without godliness. (See '01.34:26.)
Miss Clara Barton, celebrated philanthropist
and first president of the American Red Cross Society, although not a Christian
Scientist, said of Mrs. Eddy in an interview appearing in the New York American
of January 6, 1908: “Love permeates all the teachings of this great
woman—so great, I believe, that at this perspective we can scarcely
realize how great.”
Moderator: Many decades have passed
since Clara Barton made that famous statement, and many more will pass before
Mary Baker Eddy is put in proper perspective—even centuries may pass. The
vastness of Christian Science and the fixedness of mortal illusions preclude
any widespread early acceptance of the Truth she brought.
Rocky: Doesn't Mrs. Eddy also speak
of “the human hatred of Truth?”
Sally: Yes, Mrs. Eddy had hoped
Christian Science would meet with immediate and universal acceptance until
experience taught her otherwise.
Rookie: What is this Truth
that stirs “human hatred?”
Call No Man Your
Father
Florence: I believe it is the same
Truth for which Jesus was crucified, namely, the total rejection of the mortal
standpoint. Jesus said, Call no man your father upon earth, for one is your
Father which is in heaven. He knew: “man that is born of a woman is of few
days and full of trouble ... for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
Not one” (Job 14:1,4).
Lydia Hall was present when “Mrs. Eddy
received a letter from Christian Scientists in Concord asking her to
congratulate them over the birth of a Christian Science baby. She read it out
loud; then with apparent indignation uttered: 'A Christian Science Baby! A
crime! Just as much a crime as murder would be!' She paused a few moments; then
raised her hand and shaking her finger declared with great emphasis: 'No loyal
Christian Scientist will ever marry.' “(In later years, when those remarks
were repeated, they ran head-on into official opposition; and Lydia was finally
driven to recant. On her death-bed, however, she confessed that her recantation
was erroneous and that she had stated Mrs. Eddy's remarks exactly as she had
understood them to have been spoken)” (DCC. 255).
Bill: Mrs. Eddy had come to reveal
the Principle of man's being. She had come to show us how to calculate
spiritually just as Jesus calculated spiritually when he restored first Lazarus
and then himself from death. She knew man was a calculus of spiritual ideas,
and she was teaching her students this truth. Naturally, then, she was
disappointed when her students utterly failed to comprehend her teachings and
continued to think man was a material creation and must be reproduced
materially.
Bessie: But doesn't the Bible say
that “children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is
God's reward”? And isn't the Bible replete with blessings on “the
fruit of thy womb, blessed shall be the fruit of thy body,” and “the
Lord shall make thee plenteous in the fruit of thy body,”etc.?
Florence: Yes, Bessie. Christian
Scientists, however, are looking at the Bible through the eyes of Mary Baker
Eddy, because, with the Mind of Christ, she was able to penetrate the deep
spiritual meaning of what the holy men of the Bible were saying. When we look
at the Bible today in the light of Christian
Science, it is a completely new book.
“Christian Science ... breathes through the sacred pages the spiritual
sense of life, substance, and intelligence” (548:2).
Moderator: We are all pantheists believing there is
life, intelligence, and substance in matter, until we are taught by Christian
Science that actually, all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation. In
pantheism, Mrs. Eddy says, the world is bereft of its God, whose place is ill
supplied by the pretentious usurpation, by matter, of the heavenly sovereignty.
(Un. 51:10) The claims of matter (mortal man) usurp the prerogative of God,
saying, “I am a creator.” Matter says, God made me, and I make man
and the material universe. But the law is that like produces like; and God,
Spirit, could not create its unlikeness. The image and likeness of Spirit
cannot be matter that is held as substance. Hence a sinful mortal is not God's
man wandering from divinity, but a lie about man, and the lie was to be
systematically rejected as ontologically unreal. This great truth causes the
carnal mind to hate what Christian Science teaches, namely, the nothingness of
matter held as substance, which calls for an end to the world's sense of
marriage, and to childbearing.
True
Marriage
Florence: All this talk about “marriage,”
has nothing to do with the wonderful companionship and relationship that exists
between a man and a woman on a good sound moral basis.
But true marriage in Christian Science is
our wedding to divine Love, and this represents two individual natures in one;
in this compounded spiritual individuality—this divinely united spiritual
consciousness—there is no impediment to eternal bliss. (577:4-11) Nothing
can defeat this step at which we all will finally arrive, as it is Jesus'
prophecy of his second coming, beyond motherhood, making motherhood
obsolete, when he pronounced on motherhood: “Woe unto them that are with
child, and to them that give suck in those days” (Matthew, Mark, and Luke
all record this statement). Jesus saw that with his second coming the idea was
complete, and further human generation would be at the expense of one's light.
Francie: If man is the image and
likeness of God, Spirit, he would have to be incorporeal, spiritual, divine. He
couldn't be a matter proposition because like produces like, and the likeness
of Spirit could not be so unlike Spirit. God's creation is a divinely spiritual
creation.
When we talk about the end of material
procreation, meaning an end of mortals usurping God's prerogative as creator,
it is this divinely spiritual creation, this universe peopled with spiritual
ideas, that is to supplant the material creation. Man in God's image and
likeness is a wholly spiritual creation which spiritual education will usher
in. Galileo and Copernicus with their science presented the truth about the
celestial bodies. Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy have presented the greater truth
relating to Soul and body, which material beliefs have reversed. These material
beliefs springing from the evidence before the five physical senses are the
Pandora box from which all other ills spring.
Margie: It's the five physical senses
that tell us mind and matter mingle. These corporeal senses are the liars that
tell us there is life and sensation in matter, and that matter's supposed
sensations can reproduce man, can form blood, flesh, and bones. (372:7) But the
Science of being rests on the fact, the reality, that “God is Mind, and
God is infinite; hence all is Mind” (492:25). The testimony of the
physical senses must be supplanted by the testimony of spiritual sense that
tells us all is Mind and Mind's idea.
Florence: The eventual cessation of
human birth and death is the hidden message from the opening page of the Bible
until its final closing page. As we saw earlier, Jesus made the cessation of
human birth and death the central point of his mission on earth. He said,
“Call no man your father which is on earth, for one is your Father which
is in heaven.” He never called Mary his mother. When she stood at the foot
of the cross, he looked at her and at his beloved disciple, John, and said unto
her, “Woman [not mother] behold thy son [the disciple John].”
Jesus' sense of mother, son, brother, sister, etc. was universal: “All who
do God's will are my mother and sister, son, brother.” He yearned to
comfort his mother whom he never recognized as his human mother since his whole
message was that God alone is our Father-Mother. To John he said, “Behold
thy mother!” And we read that “from that hour [John] took her unto
his own home” (John 19:26,27).
God is Father and Mother, one; the Christ
reflects the male and female Principle, which is one, not two. Sexuality and
sensuality of any kind are not of God. Mrs. Eddy wanted her students to prove
this. She knew that the end of belief in male and female as two, will come when
woman stops child bearing. She said the monthly period left her when she came
into Christian Science and she never saw it again. She insisted that all her
women students make this demonstration. (DCC 14)
Twenty-three years before Mrs. Eddy received
her great revelation, she had married George Glover and within a year had given
birth to a child. In 1906 the New York World newspaper, pandering to her son's
envy and greed, caused him to sue his mother. At that time Mrs. Eddy stated:
“I am now being punished for the fruits of my first marriage.” If we
sin, we suffer. The law is inexorable. Because Mrs. Eddy was open and receptive
for God's message, God could reveal the true meaning of “sin” to her.
God showed her how it was that sin existed as a false claim before the human
concept of sin was formed and that one's concept of error is not the whole of
error. God showed Mrs. Eddy that the human thought does not constitute sin, but
vice versa, sin (belief in a mind apart from God, illusion, mythology)
constitutes the human or physical concept. (Ret. 67:1)
Mrs. Eddy's Selfless
Mission: A Summary
Juliann: Mrs. Eddy started every
thought and every reasoning from God, not from the evidence before the material
senses. This made her search “sweet, calm and buoyant with hope.” But
with the exception of the few heart-hungry souls who listened eagerly, her
message in the early days was met everywhere with malice and scorn,
vilification and rejection. Yet she loved humanity enough to endure all things
for the sake of bringing the truth that would free mankind from hopeless
slavery to false beliefs.
Diane: Don't you think Mrs. Eddy
knew, even if only subconsciously, that in spite of apparent rejection on all
sides there were “millions of unprejudiced minds” waiting and hungry
for the message she had to give?
Florence: Diane's question reminds me of a little
article by Albert J. Nock, I recently read, called “Isaiah's Job”:In
the year of Uzziah's death, the Lord commissioned the prophet Isaiah to go out
and warn the people as to what was wrong and what would happen to them if they
didn't correct their errors. But the Lord cautioned Isaiah that his warning
wouldn't do any good. The official class, the intelligentsia, and the masses
will not even listen. They will keep on their own way until they carry
everything down into destruction, and you will probably be lucky, Isaiah, if
you get out with your life.
Isaiah had been very willing to take on the job—In fact
he had asked for it—but the prospect of failure put a new face on the
situation: Why, if all that were so—if the enterprise were to be a
failure from the start—was there any sense in starting it?
“Ah,” the Lord said, “you do
not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They
are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can.
They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone
completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up the
new society; and meanwhile your preaching will reassure them and keep them
hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set
about it” (Notes from FEE, Irving on Hudson, New York, July 1962).Mrs.
Eddy had miraculous vision from the beginning of her discovery to discern the
presence of this “Remnant.”
Marie: Her life was a miracle in the
universe of mortal mind. With selfless love she inscribed on the heart of
humanity and transcribed on the page of reality the living palpable presence of
goodness. She lived for all mankind, and thus honored her creator. The light
she gave was for all time, and her love was for all humanity.
Exhorting her loyal adherents to follow her
courageous example, she asked, “Men and women of the nineteenth century,
are you called to voice a higher order of Science? Then obey this call. Go, if
you must, to the dungeon and the scaffold, but take not back the words of
Truth. How many are there ready to suffer for righteousness' sake, to stand a
long siege, take the front rank, face the foe, and be in the battle every day
and with no heed of hate's defiance]?” (Mis. 99:12-18). But, “0
friendly hand! keep back thy offering from asps and apes, from wolves in
sheep's clothing and all ravening beasts. Love such specimens of mortality just
enough to reform and transform them—if it be possible—then look out
for their stings, and laws, and claws; but thank God and take courage, that you
desire to help even such as these (Mis. 294). Like Jesus, Mrs. Eddy never
stopped loving her enemies. She yearned to help all mankind and she did, but at
a terrible cost. In Miscellaneous Writings (106) we note that if a brief
summary of early Christian Science history were written as a parody on
Tennyson's immortalization of the noble brigade at Balaklava, it would
read:Traitors to right of them,
M.D.'s to left of them
Priestcraft in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered!
Into the jaws of hate,
Out through the doors of Love,
On to the blest above
Marched the one hundred.
SESSION
VIII: SPIRITUAL CHARACTERISTICS AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
SPIRITUAL CHARACTERISTICS
Moderator: Today we will take a look
at the mental equipment which enabled Mrs. Eddy to fulfil the prophecies made
in the Scriptures concerning her. First, however, let's consider what spiritual
characteristics Mrs. Eddy hoped to develop in her students. What did she feel
was important?
Exactness and Love's
Golden Rule
Anna: I think she wanted her
students, with help from the textbook, to start overcoming the little errors in
everyday life. She wanted them to seek peace and love with childlike
simplicity, and abide in the oneness and allness of Life, Truth, and Love, so
they would become not theoretical teachers of the Word but demonstrators of its
precepts.
Grace: Before dismissing her
“March Primary Class” she warned that rivalry, jealousy, envy,
revenge could ruin their otherwise brilliant careers. It was the self-asserting
mortal will-power, she told them, they must guard against. (Mis. 281:4) It was
the mortal
I, I, I, I itself, I,
The inside and outside, the what and the why,
The when and the where, the low and the
high, All I, I, I, I itself, I.(This condemnation of mortal mind remained on
her flyleaf of Science and Health until the fifth edition in 1908 at which time
it was replaced with her paean of praise—when she felt her spiritual
discovery had reached its culmination of scientific statement.)
She had shown them that divine Science is
not a less exact Science than is mathematics, and works or lectures that try to
meet the average perception and understanding of the day cannot be scientific.
To be scientific in divine Science the message must be aflame with divine Love.
That which suits the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, is not Science
anymore than an arithmetic compiled with accommodations to popular ignorance of
numbers would be mathematics. To say, for instance, “two times two is
five” is close enough, is simply not correct. In Science, when love is
lacking, no matter how correct the letter might be, it is not divine Science.
There are many people who think Christian
Science can be acquired by rote, in the same way as worldly knowledge is. They
believe that a person, by going through a course of instruction, or by getting
certain words and formulas into the memory, can write and teach Christian
Science. This is a fatal error. To really take up Christian Science is to enter
upon the life of Love, to do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.
It is a life of demonstration in the footsteps of Jesus. We only understand as
much of Christian Science as we have lived. We must manifest the tenderness and
holiness of womanhood as well as the righteousness and strength of manhood.
Ages of misconception are finished; less and less will men believe that by
hating their brother whom they can see, they can glorify God, the unseen.
Vigilantly we must watch lest we “sleep as others do,” for in the
night of drowsiness the thief comes to kill brotherly love. Watch, therefore,
that love doesn't change to indifference. Indifference is a tool of the devil
to keep us working for him, instead of obeying the Christ: “Seeing ye have
purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love
of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently”
(I Peter 1:22).
Tommy: We stand on the threshold of
the twenty-first century. Love or suffering will mark the hour when, in
gladness, self will be exiled in oblivion; we will be content to think only the
thoughts that come to us from God, and to work only as God works; we will care
only to express in faithful detail, the beauty, goodness, wonder, and glory of
the God that is our Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love.
Sally: It is of interest to note what
Calvin C. Hill tells us Mrs. Eddy looked for in the way of qualities in those
who came to serve her in her home. She was desirous, when possible, to have
students she herself had taught. With those students she knew what God had
planted in their heart and thought, and she knew that at the proper time she
could awaken that which was planted and make use of it. She wanted helpers who
loved to work for the Cause and were willing to take up the cross for it, as
she herself was doing. The qualities Mrs. Eddy looked for in her helpers were
love, orderliness, alertness, accuracy, truthfulness, fidelity, consecration,
and humility. Mr. Hill, who for two years was assigned the task of finding
suitable workers and helpers for Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View, said he did not
try to find a pleasant personality, but a quality of thought that would reflect
the great revelation Mrs. Eddy had given to the world. In a letter to Mr. Hill
she wrote: “We never can know who is in reality a Christian Scientist
until he is tested under fire; then what is left are dregs unfit for use till
purged and purified, or they are qualities that evil cannot destroy and are
held by the power of God” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, p. 41).
Marie: In the textbook Mrs. Eddy
lists “self-denial, sincerity, Christianity, and persistence,” as
winning the prize. We also know she had a high regard for patience, promptness,
diligence, and perseverance. The beautiful and glorious traits of humanity, she
said, were toil, meekness, truthfulness, love, and they form the steppingstones
to man's divinity. We should clasp these jewels to the heart and never part
with them. If we don't have these qualities we should sell everything else and
purchase them costly as they may be. She counseled her students to pay
cheerfully the price of weary watches, privations, toll, self-denial,
cross-bearing. Then, she said, they would experience peace and power, and grasp
firmly the text of a life made glorious. (See Fragments, p. 26.)
Mrs. Eddy firmly believed that since there
is only one Mind, God, we can all exercise the unlimited power of this one
divine Mind, because we have inherited every quality and attribute of God. All
is ours by reflection. I and the divine Mind are one thing. Nevertheless,
“to one born of the flesh, divine Science must be a discovery”
(Ret. 26:22).
Courage to Call Evil
Nothing
Moderator: That was a brief resume of
the characteristics and mental equipment that Mrs. Eddy hoped to develop in her
students. Now what equipment did Mrs. Eddy possess that
enabled her to carry out and fulfil the prophecy that she would bring the
Comforter, “the Spirit of truth”? (John 14 and 16).
Sally: Mrs. Eddy had a great love for
humanity. As we have seen, her “heart gushed with unspeakable pity and
prayer” at the sight of a cripple or incapacitated person. She had an
unquenchable desire to discover the method or Science Jesus was using when he
healed the sick and sinning and raised the dead: “the lame, the deaf, the
dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the
slavery of their own beliefs and from the educational systems of the
priestcraft that holds mankind in bondage causing them to wear out years of
servitude to an unreal master in the belief that the body governed them rather
than Mind)” (226:25). It was this inextinguishable holy desire to free
mankind that constituted Mrs. Eddy's most fundamental equipment, and drove her
inexorably forward in the face of cruel vicissitudes.
This deep desire enabled her to heal the
sick and raise the dead, and establish a system destined to free mankind from
its bondage to illusions, to the Adam-dream.
Grace: Circumstances for the
evolvement and acceptance of Mrs. Eddy's new way of thinking could not have
been more adverse. Only undaunted courage could have seen her through to the
glorious goal she attained—a courage that required constant renewal
because the adversities, catastrophes, and calamities were never ceasing.
Jackie: Mrs. Eddy had the courage of
Principle which dares to do right in the face of scorn. It's the kind of
courage which is willing to risk reputation, rank, the prospects of
advancement, the sympathy of friends and relatives, the admiration of the
world, rather than transgress a conviction of what she thought was right.
Menace and suffering had no power at all over her moral energy and force of
will to do what she felt God was leading her to do. What Mrs. Eddy exhibited
was the courage of soul that reverences itself too much to indulge any fear of
what befalls the body. Her intense thirst for a pure inward life made her more
than willing to sacrifice the mortal sense of life. Moral and spiritual good
was so vivid to her that it obscured all worldly interests. Her sights were set
on immortality and she heeded little the pains and pleasures of a day. Mrs.
Eddy's love for good and for Godlike virtue was so consecrated that she even
welcomed attacks and perils in the overcoming of which her loyalty to Principle
could be tested. This total self-effacement is true courage.
Mrs. Eddy knew that what appeared as evil
was nothing more than hypnotic suggestion, induced and kept alive by false
education. With resolute courage she set to work to spiritually educate the
world to realize its true God-being.
Johnny: Mrs. Eddy's lifelong
inclination to endow others with her own good qualities—qualities they did
not possess—caused her many a heartache and some terrible struggles. Her
heart went out to all. She saw only good in her fellowman, but experience
taught her wisdom along these lines. (See Mis. 294:17.)
Immense
Labors
Grace: Mrs. Eddy's loving-kindness,
absolute purity, and truthfulness, as well as her intelligence, practical
ability, and capacity, enabled her to be both the Discoverer and Founder of
Christian Science. With every passing year she saw more, foresaw more,
perceived more. She was always progressing. She knew the importance of
attention to detail. Nothing escaped her notice; nothing passed her by without
yielding up its lesson for her. She was constantly profiting from the
experiences of the past, and building on them, even when it meant the
dismantling of her Church and College which she had struggled to build up over
many years. When she got her leading from God, she hastened to follow with a
deep heartfelt prayer: not my will but Thine be done. Often God's will was
carried out while she was “bowed in strong affection's anguish” as
when Dr. Eddy was taken from her. Her grief was overwhelming, but she rose and
carried on.
With Mrs. Eddy, order was heaven's first
law; it enabled her to accomplish an amount of work such as since the beginning
of time no one has ever before achieved or executed. Without order she could
not have managed the publication of her four hundred and thirty-two editions of
the textbook, the sixteen Prose Works writings, the eighty-eight editions of
the Manual, the “over 8,000 letters” filed in the archives of
The Mother Church (see Lyman Powell, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 23); the
establishment of the Journal, Sentinel, Monitor, and Quarterly; her many
editions of Christ and Christmas, and in addition, all her
classes, and endless other activities. These give a hint of the divine
intelligence Mrs. Eddy reflected and demonstrated in her life.
Tommy: William Dana Orcutt was a
witness to Mrs. Eddy's innate order. He knew of Mrs. Eddy's horrendous
experiences with the printers who did the work on her first and second
editions. On the first edition, as just one example, the printer had
officiously taken it upon himself to “correct” Mrs. Eddy's
capitalization, and many of the words that are part of the Christian Science
language. When Mrs, Eddy discovered this unwarranted liberty taken with her
original copy she laboriously undertook to make the changes in the plates
themselves in order to save the expense of new plates. In a letter at this
time, she wrote: “I have now the part of proofreader to take, or my book
will be spoiled ... I have to count the letters of every word I take out, or
insert, when I make corrections.”
The responsibility for the publishing and
distribution of the first forty-eight editions fell entirely upon her.
Mr. Orcutt gives an unforgettable picture of
the day Mrs. Eddy first came to the office of publisher John Wilson, at which
time Mr. Orcutt came into the picture. He witnessed Mrs. Eddy's efforts to gain
relief from business details by the appointment of her first publisher, William
G. Nixon, who failed her miserably. Orcutt was next in contact with Dr. E. J.
Foster-Eddy, and was called upon to correct omissions and commissions resulting
from “the Dr.’s” indifference and inefficiency. All this made
Mr. Orcutt's visits to Pleasant View more frequent, enabling him to record
that... even then as a young man unacquainted with the countless other
disturbing influences beyond those which aroused the indignation at the
University Press, I marveled at the calmness and serenity with which Mrs. Eddy
met every problem it was my duty to report to her, the directness with which
she settled every question, and her ever-present consideration of others. She
had no words of censure for anyone. Her regret was that Mr. Wilson had been put
to extra trouble, and she was grateful for his wholehearted cooperation. From
all these diverting disturbances, she was able to turn back to her spiritual
tasks without the slightest outward sign of interruption. It was an amazing
exhibition of inward control that the practical demands could be so completely
disassociated from her definite mission without impairing either one.
A study of the obstacles placed in [Mrs.
Eddy's] way by disloyal friends, jealous associates, and a hostile, prejudiced
public, much of which I had ample opportunity to witness personally, could not
fail to convince the most violent skeptic that the book Science and Health was
bound to be issued, and that the message the author was undertaking to convey
to the world was not to be and could not be suppressed. (Wm. Dana Orcutt,
Mary Baker Eddy and Her Books. See Appendix).As Mr. Orcutt looks
back he never ceases to marvel that she could express so much humanity and
still possess the spirituality she manifested. It made a deep impression on
him. There were so many little kindly acts and thoughtful gestures which cannot
be put into words but remain printed on the tablets of his mind and enshrined
in his heart.
He was, he says, always conscious of being
in the presence of a remarkable woman. The greatness of her qualities became
progressively more apparent. His early respect became admiration, his
friendship for her developed into affection.
That Mrs. Eddy made many helpful suggestions
that facilitated the printing of her books can be educed from his
reflections:As I stand…besides one of the great presses [today] from which
sheets of Science and Health are issuing with ease and accuracy…my mind
goes back to those early days of anxious experiment. I recall the patient
understanding with which Mrs. Eddy accepted the shortcomings, and the
encouragement she gave by her unwavering confidence that the
difficulties could be overcome. When the history of American printing is
written, she should be given high credit for her contribution to the
development of this phase of the printing art” (ibid).Mr. Orcutt infers
that Mrs. Eddy gave many useful and laborsaving suggestions that were
eventually incorporated into the printing process.
Jackie: Orcutt ends his book with
that oft-quoted statement that no matter what others might think, Mrs. Eddy
indefatigably labored on, “supremely content in the self-knowledge that
... she was delivering her message to the world.”
Regarding students, Mrs. Eddy was patient,
sometimes over many years, with the vacillating, and even with the disloyal,
but she always drew the line the minute the good of the cause demanded it. She
never tolerated insubordination.
Gratitude
Required
Anna: We know that almost from the
cradle Mrs. Eddy had exhibited an exceptional proclivity for spirituality. It
was this disposition and inclination to lean on “the sustaining
infinite” that enabled her to receive triumphant guidance, which in turn
empowered her to gain a foothold for the understanding of Christian Science.
This understanding enabled her to accomplish unfailing healing and thus reveal
the kingdom of heaven present here and now, through a Science that will unfold
endlessly, eternally.
This innate spirituality, this Mind of
Christ, with which her nature was so abundantly endowed, overshadowed her with
a divine sense of gratitude. It was a gratitude to God who had been revealed to
her as the only real Life; and this Life was Mind, the only cause and producer,
producing only that which is good and true. This, Mrs. Eddy saw, was Truth,
which was always perfect and complete, always meeting the present need. Meeting
the human need showed Mind's nature as Love. This is why she says that if we
are ungrateful for Life, Truth, and Love we should try to remember our
blessings. (3:27) Mrs. Eddy's conviction of the ever-presence and onliness of
divine Life, Truth, and Love invested her with an unswerving dedication and
imbued her with a calm strength. She would bring the truth of man's being to
all men. She was filled with an inner light that enabled her to stand face to
face with tragedy and disaster, knowing they were nothing more than Spirit
misunderstood. Evil was aggressive mental suggestion, animal magnetism, nothing
more. This had become an absolute conviction.
Sally: I have always felt that Mrs. Eddy put great
stress on gratitude. Gratitude is the soul's great need. Without it there can
be no union with the infinite Mind, no vehicle by which consciousness may rise
to the infinite One who is All-in-all. When the kingdom of heaven reigns
within, silent and deeply felt gratitude fervently reaches forward to commune
with infinite Mind. Gratitude is the pathway leading to divine goodness which
becomes a part of life, It is accompanied by faith which gives assurance of
one's unity with God. It prepares one for greater spiritual growth and leaves
no room for evil thoughts; it banishes all that does not blend with harmony.
“When I see a student grateful,” Mrs. Eddy said, “I know he is
safe” (DCC. 235).
Mrs. Eddy's
Goal
Grace: Her goal could only be reached by steadfast
adherence to the divine Principle being revealed to her in support of her great
revelation in 1866. In order to keep her thought free and receptive for the
leading of divine Mind, every trace of resentment or retaliation for the
betrayals, condemnation, and persecution she suffered must be effaced. She knew
herself, and all humanity, to be God's perfect reflection. As we look over the
events and experiences that contributed to her lifework, we see the orderly,
step-by-step unfoldment, each advance adding strength and dominion to the
growing structure until her mission to complete the works of Christ Jesus on
earth was assiduously executed. Her goal was to found in human consciousness a
Science and system that would bring to light man's God-being, man's present
perfection. The Science and system set forth in her textbook, Science and
Health, can be learned by everyone and so restore man's original and
inalienable perfection and goodness. In order to bring this about, Mrs. Eddy
had to lift Christianity into Science, through the wedding of Christianity to
Science.
Evil Translated into
Angels
For Mrs. Eddy, lifting Christianity into Science meant
taking up her cross and patiently enduring the cruel attacks upon her. She was
grateful for a chance to answer her critics, always careful to return good for
evil. Well did she know that God would furnish both the wisdom and the occasion
for a victory over evil. (571:16).
Kathleen: Mrs. Eddy met the taunt,
“Can any good thing come out of Bow, New Hampshire” with
demonstrations of healing the sick, reforming the sinner and raising the dead.
(See John 1:46.)
The events, people, and circumstances that
seemed like evil—like “the sum total of human misery”—Love
made “an angel entertained unawares” for Mrs. Eddy. It forced her to
view every problem from a higher dimension, and see it as Spirit, God's
presence, misunderstood. It forced Mrs. Eddy to lay down the mortal. It is the
same with all of us. Without the laying down of the mortal viewpoint there is
no chance of entering heaven. Heaven is a state of mind and not a
locality. For this reason Mrs. Eddy wisely almost welcomed attacks that
gave her an opportunity to elucidate and expound her doctrine. Moreover she
knew “the very message or swiftwinged thought, which poured forth hatred
and torment, brought also the experience which [would at last lift men to
behold the great city that was heaven bestowed and heaven bestowing]”
(574:19). Love for her enemies was a vital part of Mrs. Eddy's equipment. Mrs.
Eddy's most salient characteristic was total selflessness; she knew the
God-Mind was the only Ego, and was her Ego (and everyone's).
Moderator: We asked what mental and
spiritual equipment Mary Baker Eddy had that enabled her to fulfil the role the
Bible had prophesied for her. And so far we have seen that she had an all
encompassing love for her fellowman and a consuming desire to free humanity
from its ills. She constantly prayed to be shown how Jesus had accomplished his
healings. She also had heroic, unflinching, courage without which she could not
have carried on while ambushed on every side by implacable foes. We saw she was
endowed beyond measure with a spiritual sense which caused her to lean “on
the sustaining infinite” every hour of the day. This filled her with
gratitude for the reality of being, as she was able to comprehend and be one
with it.
Juliann: Mrs. Eddy knew that what
blessed the human race was our state of mind: “More effectual than the
forum are our states of mind to bless mankind” (Pul. 87:22). The power of
Love brings all things good to the surface, making good arise among all people
regardless of creed, race, or nationality, when Love is the dominating force of
their lives.
Though a tireless warrior for Truth, leaving no
point of proof undisclosed, she laid no claim to having evolved the great
enlightenment she brought, always insisting it was divinely revealed to
her.
Necessary Cessation of
Well-earned Personal Acclaim
Moderator: Miss Lulu Blackman of
Lincoln, Nebraska, who was in one of Mrs. Eddy's classes, reports that
“throughout the class Mrs. Eddy effaced the sense of personality apart
from God so plainly that she thought, spoke, and acted from the standpoint of
her oneness with the Father” (Historical Sketches, Clifford P.
Smith).
Mrs. Eddy's sole ambition was to bring Truth
to the world. No one sought personal acclaim less than Mrs. Eddy. When
concluding her address in Chicago, more than four thousand spontaneously rose
to their feet in a personal tribute of love and reverence. At a later date the
same enthusiasm and adulation was demonstrated when she spoke at Steinway Hall
in New York City. Knowing that demonstrations of personal acclaim were not what
would further the growth of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy wisely vowed they
would not be repeated. The dedication of the original Mother Church in Boston,
January 6, 1895, was attended by more than six thousand Christian Scientists
from all over the country. Everyone recognized that this great achievement was
the result of Mary Baker Eddy's many years of teaching and
healing—bringing the Christ to mankind. The building was a testimonial to
her. She, however, abstained from being present because she wished to avoid
personal acclaim and adulation. She knew that every thought must turn
instinctively to the divine Mind as its sole creator and intelligence, and
until this is done man will never be found harmonious and immortal. (Mis.
307:30) (Later we will see that Mrs. Eddy hoped her presence would be felt
wherever the truth of Christian Science was present.)
In her eschewing of all personal acclaim
Mrs. Eddy revealed her true spiritual grandeur. Her self-effacement was total.
She was fulfilling Jesus' prophecy: “Howbeit, when he the Spirit of truth
is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of
himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak” (John
16:13). Eventually even her mottoes in the Concord church were signed,
“Science and Health,” not Mary Baker Eddy, as formerly.
This self-effacement augured success for
Christian Science, placing it upon the firmest of foundations, namely, the
living God, the one Mind that is Love. Mrs. Eddy laid her foundations in
heaven; and those foundations came down from God out of heaven. They had
nothing to do with Mary Baker Eddy as a person.
She got herself out of the way so completely
that she was one with her divine Principle, Love. This is revealed in a
conversation between Mrs. Eddy and Mr. Bowers, recorded by James Gilman in his
Recollections (p. 17):At supper table Mr. Bowers said to Mrs. Eddy,
“Christian Scientists call Science and Health a kind of revelation from
God, but I think you originated that from your own superior mind and
talent.” To which Mrs. Eddy replied: “Oh dear, no, I could not
originate such a book. Why, I have to study it myself in order to understand
it. When I came to the writing each day, I did not know what I should write
until my pen was dipped in the ink and I was ready to begin….”
Mrs. Eddy began to explain Christian
Science, mainly to Mr. Bowers, beginning by explaining what God is, and then
what the real man is as God's idea, and then what the material man claims to
be, and from this (the letter of the Science) on to the more spiritual sense of
it, in which more and more was reflected the divine beauty, in which we were
enabled to realize somewhat how paltry were the purposes of material motives
and aims, when the richness of the Love of eternal goodness might be ours to
know and realize always, if we would but become completely subject to it in the
necessary self-surrender degree that this Love naturally involves….
As she talked she gradually impressed us
deeply with the sense of the divinity of God's Love, so that it became
perfectly plain to our understanding that that glorious state of mind included
all goodness, all reality, being perfectly satisfying, making lesser
possessions, aims, or desires appear paltry and poor indeed.In her final
statement in “The Apocalypse” chapter, Mrs. Eddy speaks of her
“present feeble sense of Christian Science” (577:28). It is
“feeble,” however, only in comparison with the infinite vastness of
all that is contained in the divine matrix of infinity, the system and Science
of which Mrs. Eddy has revealed in her textbook, and which will unfold
forever.
A Science To Be
Learned
Anna: Mary Baker Eddy's life was not
an accident. Her coming on earth was something that has been kept secret since
the foundation of the world (Matt. 13:35; Rom. 16:25). From early childhood
Mrs. Eddy's heart hungered for enlightenment. She was ever watchful for the
meaning of everything. She wondered about the orderliness of everything, the
regularity, the beauty: Wasn't it the same with God's plan for man? Hadn't
Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, the prophets, all come in orderly succession
before the world was ready for Jesus? And Jesus had to appear and do his work,
showing God's masculine nature, before someone could come and show God's
feminine nature.
Instinctively, Mrs. Eddy had felt there was
a Science behind the works of Jesus long before that Science was revealed to
her—the Science or Truth that would bring to light God's motherhood.
Moderator: Kathleen, would you
like to add to what has been said?
Kathleen: From earliest childhood
Mrs. Eddy was being prepared for her divine mission. We know that a divine
voice called her, and it was so real, even to the material senses, that a
visiting relative heard it, and insisted that little Mary, then eight years
old, answer her mother. Mary had previously heard the voice many times, and had
often asked her mother if she had called. After the visiting relative verified
the calling, Mary's mother read from the Bible the story of Samuel's identical
experience and instructed her little daughter to answer as Samuel had done,
“Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.” After Mary obediently
complied, she no longer heard the voice audibly, but her spiritual senses never
ceased hearing God's call to fulfil his plan of world salvation through her
work—through her mission to complete the work of Christ Jesus on earth.
Francie: Four years later when little
Mary was twelve—the same age as Jesus when he was found in the temple
questioning the religious doctrines of the elders—she, too, like Jesus,
was manifesting an unmistakable sense of Principle when no amount of pressure
could break her refusal to compromise her sense of right. Nothing could
persuade her to yield and accept the terrible doctrine of predestination as a
part of her religious creed. Her obedience to Principle at this early age
augured well for the fulfilment of God's plan of world salvation through her
mission to complete the works of the Christ Jesus on earth.
Rocky: The perpetual demand of Truth
and Love is for the “light that changes chaos into order, and discord into
the music of the spheres.” Mrs. Eddy answered that demand. She brought the
Science that teaches the harmony that changes chaos into order. It tells us we
only need to stop looking from wrong points of view. “Truth is [now]
revealed,” she said, “it needs only to be practised.” She
insisted that her students reduce her teaching to practise. Its Principle, its
laws, and its system must be learned. In the Concordance to Science and Health
more than one hundred and twenty references are listed to learn, learned,
learner, learning, learns, etc. Like mathematics and music it must be learned
in order to demonstrate it unfailingly.
Moderator: Yes, Rocky, it is
something that must be learned. Divine Love is not natural to mortal mind, it
must be learned. From earliest childhood Mrs. Eddy's thought trend was lofty,
unselfish, loving. Even what she wrote at an early age set forth ideals of
living that would improve the race and assuage grief. The whole bent of her
thought was such that it eventually brought her into communion with God and the
great revelation of 1866. From that time on she labored forty-four years to
bring her terminology in Science and Health to the highest possible point of
scientific correctness. The scientific evidence of her spiritual discovery
accumulated to prove that the divine Mind produces in man health, harmony, and
immortality. Before Mrs. Eddy left us, her message had gathered momentum and
clearness in its culmination of scientific statement of the system that will
unfold forever and bring greater and greater proofs of its divine efficacy.
In this brief review of Mrs. Eddy's mental
qualities we have glimpsed a few of the characteristics that made Mrs. Eddy
worthy and able to receive the great revelation and to found it in human
consciousness.
Recess
EARLY
RESEARCH
Moderator: We have been seeing some
of the qualities, both masculine and feminine, that made Mary Baker Eddy equal
to carrying out her God-appointed mission.
Are there any questions?
Marie: What prompted Mrs. Eddy to
write the textbook?
Sally: Almost from the cradle, Mrs.
Eddy knew that some day she was going to write a book. That her history was a
holy one is shown by the many signs and wonders vouchsafed her in childhood
when the divine Spirit seemed to overshadow her in a way that augured a divine
destiny. Signs and wonders marked her entire life.
Grace: After her great revelation in
1866, she began instructing her students in accordance with her discovery that
God is Mind, and God is infinite, hence all is Mind. At first she wrote out the
lessons for students in longhand. This was slow, tedious, time-consuming work,
These early teachings are preserved in her pamphlet, Science of Man. Most
of her teaching had to be done orally, and thus much was lost. Mrs. Eddy
knew Christian Science was destined to expand, and she earnestly pondered the
best way to present it. One day as she sought advice and reassurance from her
precious Bible, propitiously it opened to a place that told her to write it in
a book (Isa. 30:8). From that moment she seriously began the writing of Science
and Health. (See also Job 19:23, 24.)
Francie: Think of the colossal task
Mrs. Eddy undertook when she set out to write the textbook! She had nothing
human to guide her. She was beginning where Jesus left off. She could turn only
to God, infinite Mind, and listen, then write down what God dictated.
Revelation Coming in
Parts
Anna: In one of her Essays she says,
“Whatever I have discovered, understood, and taught of Truth, I have never
known beforehand its why or wherefore. It has always come into my thoughts and
gone forth in words and deeds before God's dear purpose in it and the fruits it
would bear were fully revealed to me. I have always been called in spiritual
paths to walk by faith and not by sight, to abide in the senses of Soul and not
body for sight and action” (EOF. 61).
We have seen before in these Sessions that
Mrs. Eddy was busy for forty-four years constructing that which she herself
could not possibly visualize as a whole since God revealed only part of the
great spiritual system at a time. But she wrote down each part as it was
revealed to her. Those who are familiar with the scientific structure of the
textbook stand in awe before the magnitude of her accomplishment, and know that
she must have performed every part of it as it was made plain to her. She
always waited for God's prompting, then acted faithfully and fearlessly. Only
when the many parts were all put together could she see the great spiritual
structure she had built. She was always building in accordance with God's
pattern, but God alone knew the pattern. She had to abide in the senses of
Soul, and walk by faith, or she could not have fulfilled her mission to
complete the works of Christ Jesus on earth. This meant writing the textbook,
explaining how he did his marvelous works, which made it possible for every
man, woman, and child to follow in some degree the example of the Master
because she has given the Principle, the rule, and the divinely scientific
system.
Moderator: Looking back, can we today
in any way measure the stupendous undertaking that divinely devolved on one
solitary woman? Can we in any way evaluate the prodigiousness of her venture,
while harassed on every side by seditious students, power-enshrined
priestcraft, invidious sections of the pulpit, press, and medical profession,
all fearful of loosing their entrenched power? There was no one to uphold her
cause. The battle was hers, and she fought it on this earthly field alone. But
there was divine power behind her, giving assurance that she followed the path
of Truth.
Juliann: And isn't it true that even
the few who sympathized with her, in the early days, were ill-prepared to
comprehend the full meaning of her deeply scientific theories? She was surely a
lonely traveler, treading ground with which none of her contemporaries were
familiar. Because her spiritual senses moved in God's grooves of Science, she
entertained thoughts which radically differed from the prevailing acceptable
mode. Many therefore regarded her as unorthodox, peculiar, and she was often
shunned.
Rocky: We know her spiritual
ascendancy was gained through self-abnegation and self-purification. Totally
oblivious of human self, she was powerfully moved by a passion to bring out
good in others, by a desire to understand God's law so that she could make it
known to her fellowmen. Sorely did man need a helping hand to become virtuous
and spiritually minded, and to know no hate. Man needed to know that all
individualities are ideas of the one Creator whose sun shines on all alike.
Mrs. Eddy practised Love, preached Love, and taught Love by her own example
wherever she went. In all her writings she counseled the inherent power and
advantage of Love. Her love for humanity was not the kind “that alters
when it alteration finds. No! It was an ever fixed mark,” that enabled her
to lift the veil, the strange delusion of material sense, that hides the true
form and the ever-present spiritual perfection of man.
Quimby Mind-Cure as
Translated by Mrs. Eddy
Moderator: What the world has yet to
learn, perhaps, is that along with Mrs. Eddy's great love for mankind, she was
the greatest Scientist ever to tread planet earth.
With every passing year of Mrs. Eddy's adult
life, the thought was becoming stronger that there must be a spiritual law
behind the healings Jesus performed, and that this law could be rediscovered
for the benefit of the sick. When she heard of Quimby's healings the thought
kept coming to her that perhaps Quimby had rediscovered this law and his cures
were the result of his understanding of this law. In 1862, four years before
she discovered Christian Science, she visited him with the result that she was
healed. Her gratitude to Quimby was unbounded, and she was convinced he had
rediscovered the law behind the spiritual healings in the Gospels. With great
enthusiasm she proceeded to attempt connecting his treatment with the knowledge
Jesus had. Her joy at being healed seemed, for the time, to suspend or hold in
abeyance her usual good judgement. It was not until after her discovery of
Christian Science that she began to see the deep chasm separating the divine
healing from mental cures which are not based on the divine power and nature.
This understanding then enabled her to separate the great personal kindness of
Dr. Quimby from the mesmerism he was ignorantly practicing.
Elsie: Mrs. Eddy was later faced with
charges that she got Christian Science from Quimby, wasn't she?
Moderator: Yes, Elsie, when Christian
Science became popular, and teaching and healing became money-making
professions—and particularly with Science and Health selling well because
people were healed by merely reading it—then the notes and written
explanations she had made for Quimby during their many talks were
misinterpreted by enemies.
It must be remembered too that Mrs. Eddy had
a pronounced natural proclivity for endowing others with her own saintly
character, and this often led her into serious trouble. Quimby had a higher
ideal than anyone else Mrs. Eddy had met up to that time. And when he was able
to heal her she praised him to the skies. She wrote him letters explaining her
views of how he effected his cures. These letters were later talked about by
her enemies as though they were something secret. But, of course, they weren't.
They were written in a great white heat of enthusiasm. She couldn't say too
much in praise of him. In a letter she wrote a friend many years later, she
said, “I actually loved him, I mean his high and noble character.”
She was literally unstinted in her praise of him.
The love and gratitude Mrs. Eddy poured out
on Quimby shows something exceedingly profound in Mrs. Eddy's nature—an
element that was crucial in her mission as God's representative. Without that
deep innate sense of love and gratitude she could not have fully reflected the
divine nature. It speaks volumes.
Bessie: Mrs. Eddy then started a very
active research into the healing process, didn't she?
Moderator: Yes, Bessie, she began to
diligently search the Scriptures for a clue.
Medical Investigation and
the Failing Apple
Tina: Didn't she investigate material
medicines, too?
Moderator: Florence, would you like
to give the history of that investigation?
Florence: Yes. Mrs. Eddy has herself
written of her research into various so-called scientific fields before her
great revelation in 1866. On page 24 of Retrospection, she states,
“The discovery came to pass in this way. During twenty years prior to my
discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause;
and in the latter part of 1866 1 gained the scientific certainty that all
causation was Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon.”
Before she discovered the Science of
Mind-healing, in her long search for the Truth, she had investigated medicine:
“Wandering through the dim mazes of materia medica, till I was weary of
'scientific guessing,' I sought knowledge from the different
schools—allopathy, homeopathy, hydropathy, electricity,…” She
investigated scholastic theology, spiritualism, and mesmerism. During the
twenty years prior to her great discovery she tested almost every phase of
material belief which the human mind presents. She was then trying to trace all
physical effects to a mental cause. “As long ago as 1844 1 was convinced
that mortal mind produced all disease, and that the various medical theories
were in no proper sense scientific” (June Journal, 1887).
It was the case of dropsy which Mrs. Eddy
speaks of on page 156 of Science and Health that was the falling apple.
It showed her clearly that mind was the controlling agent in the patient's
restoration to health. This case had been given up by the doctors, who had
pronounced it hopeless.
Mrs. Eddy tells in the textbook what she
prescribed. Visible improvement resulted. But because that same remedy had been
administered by the doctor who had been in charge, Mrs. Eddy feared a
too-prolonged use of the medicine might be harmful and asked the woman to give
it up. The patient was afraid to do without the medicine. Then Mrs. Glover
(Eddy) got the brilliant idea of giving the patient unmedicated pellets,
without telling the patient, and the improvement continued. Soon after this
the woman agreed to do without the pellets; but on the third day she fell ill
again, and was relieved by more of the unmedicated pellets. She continued to
take them until she was completely restored to health.
What a revelation this experience was to
Mrs. Eddy!
She often referred to it, as we have just
said, as the failing apple which began to show her that “the only logical
conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from the rolling of
worlds in the most subtle ether to a potato patch” (Mis. 26:5). It led to
her great discovery.
The Final Revelation of
What Life Is
Francie: The great ideas of God, of
Soul, of immortality were never far from her mind during this early period of
experimentation. She sensed a life pervaded by Christianity. It overshadowed
her with a quiet exaltation. The conviction of God's goodness never left her,
and it brought an inner steadfast certainty, an unquenchable inspired assurance
that she was in touch with realities that set her apart, that she had been
anointed with the oil of gladness above those around her.
Then came the great revelation! February,
1866.
In a moment of vision Mrs. Eddy saw that
God, good, is All and includes all manifestation within itself; everything may
therefore be freely honored as God's presence; she saw that all being is
divine, spiritual, immortal, and wholly good. There was no matter, nothing that
could limit, nothing that could cause pain or fear or death. It must have been
a moment of unsurpassed joy and indescribable wonder. Forty years later Laura
Sargent asked Mrs. Eddy what she saw at the time of her great revelation. Mrs.
Eddy did not answer, but her face shone with a holy light and a far-off vision
filled her eyes. She had seen that her life was God, and forty-four years later
her last written words were, “God is my life.” Only spiritual growth
will reveal how profound those last four written words were. God, indeed, was
and is her life.
Alfred Farlow, who was often a guest in Mrs. Eddy's home,
talked with her about this experience, and how she had been healed. He
writes:At that time [February, 1866] it was not clear to Mrs. Eddy by what
process she had been instantaneously healed, but she knew that her thought had
turned away from all else in contemplation of God, His omnipotence and
everpresence, His infinite Love and power. It eventually dawned upon her that
this overwhelming consciousness of the divine presence had destroyed her fear
and consciousness of disease exactly as the light dispels the darkness. She
afterwards noticed that when she had entertained similar thoughts in connection
with the ills of her neighbors they too were benefited and it was in this
manner that she discovered how to give a mental treatment. (Historical Facts
Concerning Mary Baker Eddy, by Alfred Farlow.) She found that “when
thought is lost in the eminence of Mind the healing takes place.”
Moderator: And so it was that through divine
revelation Mrs. Eddy brought about her own healing, after which she taught and
healed for six years to prove the practicality of her discovery, before
beginning to write the textbook, which then appeared three years later, in
1875. Nine years after her great revelation the “precious volume,”
the “little book,” prophesied in Revelation 10, appeared and began
its divine mission of revolutionizing world consciousness. The thousands of
authenticated cases of healing and regeneration that took place through merely
reading Science and Health attested to its divine origin.
SESSION IX:
PROGRESS GODWARD
BEGINNING TO SEE WHAT'S IN OUR TEXTBOOK
Moderator: We have been seeing Mrs.
Eddy's place in Bible prophecy and have also been trying to get a better
understanding of the mystical symbolism she resorts to in order to veil the
deep revelation she received direct from God.
Rocky: Why did Mrs. Eddy have to hide
or veil her discovery?
Francie: She said that if her
spiritual discovery was put out into matter, meaning into the prevailing gross
materialism of the times, it would be killed. (EOF. 21.) Naturally it was not
veiled to the spiritually minded. As understanding develops, and we learn the
system, her statements aren't veiled at all.
Science & Health
“Hopelessly Original”
Juliann: You often hear people say
that Mrs. Eddy “got it from the Bible.” What is the best way to show
them that this was not the case? She loved the Bible and went to it constantly
for comfort, advice, and assurance, but her revelation came direct from God.
Tommy: If you hear this from people
who are Christian Scientists you can turn them to Miscellaneous Writings,
page 371:28, where she speaks of Science and Health with Key to Scriptures
as “hopelessly original.” When it was first written it was hailed as
conflicting with the Bible, as incorrect, unscientific, unchristian, even
blasphemous.
Again, in Retrospection, page 35:4, she
speaks of Science and Health as being so new, “so hopelessly
original” in the basis it laid down for physical and moral health, and men
were so unfamiliar with the subject, that she did not at once rush into
publication. She had learned that the merits of Christian Science must be
proven before a work on this subject could be profitably published. It was
“hopelessly original” because she had to begin where Jesus left
off—she had to begin in the Ascension era.
Johnny: No one on earth knew the
meaning of the seven days of creation until Mrs. Eddy through divine revelation
gave us the spiritual meaning of them. What she revealed to humanity will
unfold infinitely. Today the “system” that she called Christian
Science is something that can be learned by anyone desiring to do so. Mrs. Eddy
presented it as a Science that operates in the same way that the science of
mathematics or the science of music operates. We are indebted to John W.
Doorly, C.S.B., and his loyal students and co-workers for their dedicated
research and study of Science and Health that resulted in discerning the
scientific system Mrs. Eddy worked into the textbook and which she said would
unfold forever. (No. 45:28)
Tina: Why does Mrs. Eddy say that for
forty years the Bible was her only comforter?
Florence: Because the Bible foretold
her mission and prophesied the success of it. Often overlooked is the fact that
Mrs. Eddy, in order to fulfil Jesus' prophecy, had to begin where Jesus left
off, as Tommy just brought out. She was sailing in uncharted seas. She
could only listen for God's revelation, and write down what came when she
picked up her pen. Remember her conversation with Mr. Bowers. (See p. 133.)
The Bible was her only comforter because, as
I just said, it prophesied her coming, and also prophesied the categorical
victory of her mission. In times of persecution, Mrs. Eddy clung
tenaciously to the promise of ultimate success implicit in the symbolic account
of “the woman and her child” (Rev. 12). Also, she found verification
for her revelations in the Bible. Her discernment of the Bible's holy nature
caused her to love and revere it and turn constantly to it for comfort and
assurance.
Bible as
Foundation
Margie: While she looked to the Bible
for comfort and assurance, in no way could Mrs. Eddy have gotten her Science
from the Bible. As Florence and Tommy have noted, she had to begin where the
Bible left off. She studied the Bible, but it was not until she laid the Bible
aside and listened only to God that she could begin to write Science and
Health. She tells us the Scriptures gave no direct interpretation of the
scientific basis for demonstrating the Principle of healing until our heavenly
Father saw fit, through the Key to the Scriptures, in Science and Health, to
unlock this “mystery of godliness.” (Ret. 37:16). But the Key to the
Scriptures did not come to her until thirteen years after she discovered
Christian Science. It first appeared in the sixth edition of Science and Health
in 1883.
“No human pen or tongue,” she
says, “taught her what is in Science and Health.” She listened and
wrote down what came to her. It was not until after God gave her the
“key” to the Scriptures that she was able to see the Science in the
Bible. Up to the fiftieth edition she headed her chapters with miscellaneous
poetry. In the fiftieth edition she for the first time uniformly used Bible
texts as the foundations upon which the chapters were based, and for the first
time in the textbook she stated: “I therefore plant myself unreservedly on
the teaching of Jesus, of his Apostles, of the Prophets, and on the testimony
of the Science of Mind” (269:22 present edition), because she had seen the
verification of her revelation in the Scriptures.
Mrs. Eddy saw that there is a spiritual line
that flows from the Old Testament to the New Testament. It is the line that
follows Mrs. Eddy's definition of God, namely, the line of Mind, Spirit, Soul,
Principle. Then as we come into the New Testament, we begin the line of Life,
Truth, and Love. Her definition of God is something that has evolved through
the history of the holy men of the Old and New Testament. Many of these
patriarchs, prophets, and apostles of God paid with their lives for voicing the
truth that God communicated to them. The heartless persecution she herself
suffered, from the same carnal-mindedness that killed prophet and apostle,
created a fervent bond of love between Mary Baker Eddy and the holy men of the
Bible, in which we see again “the ties which bind the wretched are
tenderness unutterable.” Mrs. Eddy saw the genuineness of the Scriptures
because the men who voiced the truth in them willingly faced death in order to
give humanity the truth that God put in their hearts.
It must be remembered that we today have the
writings of Mary Baker Eddy, which she did not have, but had to go to God
direct. She had to bring the Comforter, the spirit of Truth which “will
guide [us] into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he
shall hear [direct from God] that shall he speak” (John 16:14). “We
are indeed privileged in having the untranslated revelations of Christian
Science. They afford such expositions of the…Christianity of Christ as
makes even God demonstrable, the divine Love practical, and so furnishes rules
whereby man can prove God's love, healing the sick and the sinner” (My.
179:29).
Grace: If she had gotten divine
Science from the Bible she would have made void all the prophecies in the Bible
concerning her coming. For example, Jeremiah's prophesy (31:22), “the Lord
hath created a new thing [a new paradigm] in the earth, A woman shall compass a
man.” Science is the new “thing” that will include
Christianity. To Mr. Wiggin, a visitor in her class, she said emphatically:
“if there had never existed such a person as the Galilean Prophet, it
would make no difference to me. I should still know that God's spiritual ideal
is the only real man in His image and likeness”(My. 318:32). Her Science
was “hopelessly original” and depended upon nothing other than direct
revelation from God, the divine Mind.
God was Mrs. Eddy's life, and He was her
Mind. This is true of each one of us in the degree that we understand God as
she did.
Anna: Mrs. Eddy's Science
“breathes through the sacred pages [of the Bible] the spiritual sense of
life, substance, and intelligence” (548:3). If we take away the spiritual
signification of Scripture, “that compilation can do no more for mortals
than can moonbeams to melt a river of ice” (241:15). Mrs. Eddy brought
their spiritual signification, as it was revealed to her by God.
On page 46:7 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy
writes, “The divine Spirit ... has spoken through the inspired Word
and will speak through it in every age and clime.” This is under the
marginal heading of “Scriptural interpretation.” Before arriving at
this particular wording, it was necessary for her to change her wording in
several previous editions. She showed for instance, that she was not satisfied
with wording which indicated that we had had the inspired Word in all
ages. In 1901 it read “The divine Spirit ...has spoken in every age and
clime through the inspired Word.” She continued to make changes in this
statement through various editions until in the fifth edition of 1908 she
arrived at the present phraseology which, it will be noted, does not state that
the “inspired Word” has ever spoken before, but rather that the
“inspired Word” has never spoken until now. The comparison with her
former statements makes it clear that Science and Health is the “inspired
Word,” which now speaks and will continue to speak from now on. We noted
that it is the function of Science and Health to breathe “through the
sacred pages the spiritual sense,” the spiritual interpretation. The
inspired Word of Science and Health is the life of the Scriptures. Mrs. Eddy
gave the spiritual perception of Scripture. (See 547:23-5)
Many passages in Mrs. Eddy's writings show
that her revelation was entirely independent of anything written or said, or
done by Jesus or anyone else (see My. 318:32). Mrs. Eddy's whole process in her
evolution was to receive the spiritual revelation and then base it on the
Scriptures. An example of this is Christ and Christmas. The first edition
contained no Glossary. But in the second edition the Glossary appears with
Scriptural texts as the “basis” of the sentiments in the verses.
Moderator: Also, in our last session
we saw that Mrs. Eddy was for forty-four years engaged in constructing that
which she herself could not possibly visualize as a whole, since God revealed
only part of it at a time. She faithfully performed each part, undeviatingly,
as it was made clear to her. She was impelled only by God, and acted as God
prompted her to act. When the many parts were all put together, then, and only
then, could she see in its entirety the tapestry she had woven, the Bride's
vesture. Of course, as we saw, she was building according to a
“pattern,” but it was a pattern that God alone knew, and she was
acting under orders. Gradually it all gathered momentum and clearness until it
reached its culmination of scientific statement. Then the proof was given that
God's plan of salvation had been revealed to her and she had faithfully
recorded it in such a way that it would unfold to spiritual thought step by
step throughout time and eternity. God's plan, divine Science, is an infinite
subject; and being a true Science it includes within itself “trustworthy
methods for the discovery of new truths within its own domain” (Oxford
Dictionary).
Mrs. Eddy saw that, though she had not yet
reached the ultimate practical proof of absolute Christian Science, and might
never reach it while remaining visible to the personal senses, she had written
it. God had given her the ideas that enabled her discovery to gather momentum
and clearness. And when she saw it had reached the culmination of its
scientific statement (380:27) of God's plan of salvation she joyously,
gratefully, placed on the flyleaf of Science and Health her paean of
praise:
Oh! Thou hast heard my prayer; And I am
blest!
This is Thy high behest:
Thou here, and everywhere.
SCIENCE, THEOLOGY,
MEDICINE
Moderator: Andso it was that in an
age when the world was sunk in abject materialism, Mary Baker Eddy appeared on
the scene announcing: all is mental, all is spiritual. Matter, she said, is
only a subjective state of mortal mind. (108:27) But she still had to probe
this “mind” which she called “mortal mind” to show that all
it presents is pure illusion. The new language of Soul which she discovered
translates matter into its original language which is Mind, and gives the
spiritual instead of the material signification.
But in order to see the truth of everything,
namely, that all is infinite Mind infinitely manifested (468:9), we must look
out from the divine Mind and see the universe and man as Mind sees them. Mrs.
Eddy discovered the Principle and the scientific laws that enable us to
understand how Mind, God, Principle, controls the body, and overcomes the
pictures created by mortal mind. Mrs. Eddy gave us the answer to dualism. She
showed us that in reality existence separate from divinity is impossible. We
see why this is so as we study her textbook and gain an understanding of the
one Mind in its Science, its system, and its structure.
Progress in Natural
Science
Florence: In the field of natural
science the philosophizing scientists have made tremendous strides towards
seeing the unreality of matter through the outstanding achievements of such
well-known physicists as Einstein, Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Max Born,
Schrodinger, Weizacker, and others. Einstein believed in a universe of order
and harmony. To him the void between present day physical science and reality
presented a challenge. He agreed with St. Paul that the world which was created
by the Word of God is made up of things which do not appear. It did not
surprise me when a good friend of mine who is acquainted with a certain
Christian Science Reading Room attendant in New York City related to me that on
one occasion Einstein, who had visited this Reading Room, stopped at the desk
and remarked to the attendant, “I wonder if you folks know what you have
in your textbook.”
Marie: Another comment that Einstein
is reported to have made is that Mary Baker Eddy had discovered and understood
the theory of relativity long before he had discovered it. Naturally, there is
no way of checking whether he actually made this remark, but one hears it so
persistently, that there is probably some truth in it. Certainly his great
discoveries and understanding of physical-science theories seemed to bring him
much closer to an understanding of Mrs. Eddy's world of Life in and of Spirit
than any previous physicist had glimpsed. And if, indeed, he did see
confirmations of his “theory of relativity” in some spiritual
explanations given in the Christian Science textbook, it is a great tribute to
his innate spiritual sense. Mrs. Eddy held that All is infinite Mind,
infinitely manifested. There is no matter.
Bill: In a certain way, the great
philosophizing scientists of today are glimpsing the fact that if we want to
understand being and God, meaning if we want to attune ourselves to the divine
Principle that governs all in harmony, we must approach the Principle of all
being with a like consciousness, for only like produces like. Our consciousness
must become structured scientifically the same as the God- consciousness, or we
aren't a true reflection.
Diane: What does that mean?
Sally: When you study music, Diane,
you are slowly structuring your consciousness so it becomes like the principle
of music. It is the same when you study mathematics. The more you learn
mathematically the more your consciousness is structured mathematically. If you
study law or gardening, that doesn't help you structure your consciousness
mathematically, does it? Only like produces like. So, if you want to structure
your consciousness in accordance with divine Science, you study the system of
divine Science. Then, as Mrs. Eddy says (423:25), “Both Science and
consciousness are now at work in the economy of being according to the law of
Mind,” and your consciousness becomes gradually a true reflection of the
one Mind.
Tommy: Mrs. Eddy's divine Science
gives us a totally new frame of reference—a new paradigm, and makes it
mandatory that our present obsolete way of thinking, feeling, and acting
undergo a mutation from the physical and mental into the spiritual. We must
mutate into the spiritual and out of the mental realm which today is coming
more and more into focus, as witness the growth of psychiatry and the
systematic investigation into many phases of the mental spheres.
In contrast to psychiatry and psychology,
Christian Science has its origin entirely in the spiritual realm. It doesn't
start with human thinking. Christian Science necessarily and inevitably starts
with God, with Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. To start
with God means a radical change, not just an improvement. When we start with
God we are in a higher dimension where we no longer believe in, or are subject
to, the condemnation of mortals to till the ground. We no longer believe that
we have to “so improve material belief by thought tending spiritually
upward as to destroy materiality” (545:7).
There is no matter universe if matter is
thought of as substance. Matter is merely shadow, because there is no life,
truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. “Matter,” Mrs. Eddy
says, “is a misstatement of Mind” (Mis. 174:2); “Matter is an
error of statement” (277:26). There is no matter as substance, and this
makes so-called matter-substance simply a state of mind, and this erring state
of mind is a misstatement of the divine Mind. Matter must be translated back
into its original language, Spirit (Hea. 7:8), and man's identity seen as
moving in the harmony of Science, where all is infinite Mind, Love, infinitely
expressed.
Progress in
Theology
Moderator: And in theology? Has there
been progress in theology?
Grace: Yes, in theology, too, the
world is making real progress. Mary Baker Eddy, the woman whom the clergy once
ostracized and slandered, has returned and entered their pulpits. Since 1866
the clergy has gotten away from a hell of brimstone and fire. More and more
they are using Love and not fear in explaining God, and are beginning to
interpret the Bible spiritually as Mrs. Eddy did over a hundred years ago when
they hailed her interpretation as blasphemous. Today the pulpit is searching
the Scriptures for its healing truths, and emphasizing them. It augurs well for
Mrs. Eddy's prediction that if the lives of Christian Scientists attest their
fidelity to Truth, then in the twentieth century every Christian church in our
land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of
Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in His name. (Pul.22:9) Today
many Christian churches are actively practicing faith healing, and we have one
more year before the end of the 20th century and the beginning of
2001.
Broader Views in
Medicine
Moderator: We know that Christian
Science is having a profound and ever-increasing effect on medical views, too.
Who will comment on the changes that have been brought about in medicine since
Mrs. Eddy's time?
Francie: Today doctors everywhere are
admitting their dependence on God. One often sees rather prominently
displayed articles reporting, for instance: “Top Doctors Across America
Say: God Guides Our Work.” Many of these doctors say that there is never a
day they don't fervently pray for the success of their work and that they will
be kept from doing harm. In praying to understand God's love for man, they know
that this understanding of His love puts them in a better position to
understand human needs. Leading physicians, interviewed by The Enquirer, all
stated there was no question that God guided their hand in surgery, that
they communed with God before beginning their work, and were conscious of God
in everything they did.
Juliann: We have seen the mushrooming
of psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine, showing the drift there into more
mental and spiritual realms.
In the past few years, for instance, great
progress has been made in their views of the “hereafter.” It has
suddenly become respectable for doctors to admit there is life after death. For
centuries the informed have known of the many returnings to life on this plane
of those who were pronounced clinically dead, and thousands of such cases have
been testified to both orally and in magazines of an occult nature. It took
courage for young Dr. Moody to come out in print recently with the convictions
his research had led him to form.
Priestcraft would object on the grounds that
the hereafter should remain an issue of blind faith. Die-hard medics would
naturally regard Moody's research as “unscientific.”
Elsie: Since the publication of Dr.
Moody's book, Life After Life, there has been a flood of
newspaper and magazine accounts verifying what Moody says in his book, and thus
really spreading the message.
Bessie: Just this morning I read that
Dr. Ira Morris, Associate Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University,
states that he has seen dying patients undergo incredible changes. In certain
instances they become almost holy in appearance, he says, and find serenity and
peace even though they may be suffering the most ravaging of diseases. “If
you had seen as many people die as I have, and had seen the way the lives of
some of them lit up in their last few moments, you wouldn't have any doubt at
all concerning the fact that the human spirit lives on.”
Dr. Morris said the changes usually appear
only a few days before death. He cited the case of a young woman who was
bedridden, perilously thin, her general appearance terrible. But in the last
two days of her life, says Dr. Morris, she took on an entirely different
appearance. “She became serene and dramatically beautiful. It was as if
she had taken on a whole different personality. It wasn't the girl I had known
before. It was somebody entirely different. To me it was a very clear example
of the human spirit.”
In another case, Dr. Morris told of “an
elderly woman dying of cancer.” She had been cantankerous and opinionated
all her life, a very difficult personality. “But in the last two days of
her life,” he says, “she changed completely. She became serene and
was very good humored. There was no reason for her to still be alive. But her
spirit obviously lived, even though her body, for all intent and purpose, had
fulfilled its function. This case demonstrated to me, conclusively, that the
spirit extends beyond physiological life. It was her spirit that kept her alive
in the final days before her death, a spirit that could only be discerned in
the transition from one state to another. All indications are that the spirit
does exist and emerges at the end of life.”
Dr. Mary Skinner, also at Johns Hopkins,
corroborated what Dr. Morris said. “Many dying patients,” she
confirmed, “show they are imbued with some power or force that is not
normally seen in people. It is a mysterious and fascinating thing.”
Patients returning from the hereafter find
it difficult to explain in three-dimensional words what they experienced in the
four-dimensional world they briefly contacted, but they all seem to agree that
they would never again fear death.
Moderator: In the light of Christian
Science there is nothing strange in connection with these experiences; they
speak of the nowness and ever-presence of Life, and of ministering Love. This
seeming mortal life with its picture of human birth and death is pure illusion.
As Mrs. Eddy states (265:20), “The truth of being is perennial, and the
error is unreal and obsolete.” If we then look at the marginal heading
here to see what the error is that is “unreal and obsolete” we find
it is “Mortal birth and death.”
With an understanding of God we can change
mortality, but we can't change God who is Life, anymore than we can change the
principle of mathematics. There is only one Ego, one “I,” and that is
the I AM that is God. This one divine individuality, God, is infinitely
reflected in all spiritual individualities. Therefore the I of you and of me
and of everyone has to be God, which makes God the I AM that I Am. We must get
the point that the divine individuality is never in any kind of limitation, but
is simply reflected in all spiritual individuality. “Sin, sickness, and
mortality are the suppositional antipodes of Spirit, and must be contradictions
of reality” (335:29). There can be no death since “immortal man
was and is God's image or idea, even the infinite expression of infinite Mind,
and immortal man is coexistent and coeternal with that Mind” (336:9).
The instances Bessie has just related show a
slight breaking through of this eternal life that belongs to man. As in
mathematics we don't know as much about the figure 5 as the principle of
mathematics knows about it. Just so, we don't know as much about life as the
one divine Life, God, divine Principle, Love, knows about it.
HEREAFTER AS
NOW
Daisy's Story
Sally: I would like to quote from the
Journal of the American A.P.R. (1918, p. 375), concerning the case of Daisy
Driden. It is a touching episode of how ten-year-old Daisy, in the last three
days of her life was able to see and converse with a younger brother and other
spirit entities, while seeing transient visions of the beyond. (Daisy was born
September 9, 1854.)
On page 75:29 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy states that
“in the vestibule through which we pass from one dream to another dream,
or when we awake from earth's sleep to the grand verities of Life, the
departing may hear the glad welcome of those who have gone before. The one
departing may whisper this vision, name the face that smiles on them and the
hand which beckons them, as one at Niagara, with eyes open only to that wonder,
forgets all else and breathes aloud his rapture.”Daisy's story was
compiled from her mother's diary as published by Ernesto Bozzano:
What was remarkable in Daisy's case of open
vision was its unusual length and the clearness of her revelations. She seemed
to be recovering during the two weeks before her death, but she steadily
maintained that her departure was near. Four days before her death a relapse
set in and she suffered greatly. After that, the pain passed and she became
clairvoyant. This was noticed first by reason of a text from the Gospel of St.
John, read to her by her father (who was a Methodist minister), which led her
to remark that she hoped to return to console her parents. She added:
“I'll ask Allis about it.”
Allis was her brother who had died of
scarlet fever, age six, about seven months before. She waited a short time and
then said: “Allis says I may go to you sometimes; he says it is possible,
but you will not know when I am there. But I can speak to your thought.”
The mother writes: As I have said, Daisy
lingered on for three days after the first agonizing twenty-four hours had
passed. During these three days she lived in both worlds, as she expressed it.
Two days before she left us the Sunday School superintendent came to see her.
Daisy talked very freely about going, and sent a message by him to the Sunday
School. When he was about to leave, he said: “Well, Daisy, you will soon
be over the dark river.” After he had gone, she asked her father to
explain what he meant by 'the dark river.' Her father tried to explain it, but
Daisy said, “it is all a mistake; there is no river; there is no curtain;
there is not even a line that separates this life from the other life;”
she stretched out her little hands from the bed, and with a gesture she said:
“It is here and it is there. I know it is so, for I can see you all, and I
see them, there, at the same time.” We asked her to tell us something
about that other world and how it looked to her, but she said: “I cannot
describe it; it is so different, I could not make you understand . . . “
[The mother continued:] I was then sitting
by her bedside, her hand clasped in mine. Looking up so wistfully to me, she
said, “Dear Mamma, I do wish you could see Allie; he is standing beside
you.” Involuntarily I looked around, but Daisy thereupon continued:
“He says you cannot see him because your spirit eyes are closed; but I
can, because my body only holds my spirit, as it were, by a thread of
life.” I then inquired: “Does he say that now?” “Yes, just
now,” she answered.
Then, wondering how she could be conversing
with her brother, when I saw not the least sign of conversation, I said,
“Daisy, how do you speak to Allie? I do not hear you nor see your lips
moving.” She smilingly replied, “We just talk with our think . . .
“
I then asked her further: “Daisy, how
does Allie appear to you? Does he seem to wear clothes?” “Oh,
No,” she answered, “not clothes such as we wear. There seems to be
about him a white, beautiful something, so fine and thin and glistering, and
oh, so white, and yet there is not a fold, or a sign of thread in it, so it
cannot be cloth. But it makes him look so lovely.” Her father then quoted
from the Psalmist: “He is clothed with light as a garment.” “Oh,
yes, that's it!” she exclaimed.
During those last days of illness Daisy
loved to listen to her sister Lulu as she sang for her, mostly from the Sunday
School songbook, and after one of these hymns, which spoke of the angels and
their 'snowy wings' Daisy remarked, “Lulu, isn't it strange? We always
thought angels had wings! But it is a mistake; they don't have.” Lulu
replied: “But they must have wings, else how could they fly down from
heaven?” “Oh, they don't fly,” said Daisy, “they just come.
When I think of Allie he is here.”
[Once the mother inquired:] “How do you
see the angels?” Daisy replied: “I do not see them all the time; but
when I do, the walls seem to go away, and I can see ever so far, and you
couldn't begin to count the people; some are near, and I know them; others I
have never seen before . . . “
The morning of the day she died she asked me
to let her have a small mirror, the mother reports in her diary. I hesitated,
thinking the sight of her emaciated face would be a shock to her. But her
father, sitting by her, remarked: “Let her look at her poor little face if
she wants to.” So I gave it to her. Taking the glass in her two hands, she
looked at her image for a time, calmly and sadly. At length she said,
“This body of mine is about worn out. It is like that old dress of Mamma's
hanging there in the closet. She doesn't wear it any more, and I won't wear my
body any more, because I have a new spiritual body which will take its place.
Indeed, I have it now, for it is with my spiritual eyes I see the heavenly
world while my body is still here. You will lay my body in a grave because I
will not need it again. It was made for my life here, and now my life here is
at an end, and this poor body will be laid away, and I shall have a beautiful
body like Allie's. Do not cry, Mamma. It is better for me to go now. I might
have grown up to be a wicked woman, like so many do. God knew what was best for
me... “ Then she said to me, “Mamma, open the shutters and let me
look out at the world for the last time. Before another morning I shall be
gone.” As I obeyed her loving request, she said to her father: “Raise
me up, Papa.”
Then, supported by her father, she looked
through the window whose shutters I had opened, and called out: “Good-bye
sky. Good-bye trees. Good-bye flowers. Good-bye white rose. Goodbye red rose.
Good-bye beautiful world,” and added: “How I love it, but I do not
wish to stay.”
That evening when it was half-past eight,
she herself observed the time, and remarked: “it is half-past eight now;
when it is halfpast eleven Allie will come for me.” She was then for the
time being reclining on her father's breast with her head upon his shoulder.
This was a favorite position, as it rested her. She said, “Papa, I want to
die here. When the time comes I will tell you.”
Lulu had been singing to her and, as
half-past eight was Lulu's bedtime, she arose to go. Bending over Daisy, as she
always did, she kissed her and said, “Good night.” Daisy put up her
hand and tenderly stroking her sister's face, said to her, “Good
night.” When Lulu was half-way up the stairs, Daisy called out after her,
in clear, sweet, earnest tones, “Good night and good-bye my sweet, darling
Lulu.”
At about a quarter-past eleven she said,
“Now, Papa, take me up; Allis has come for me.” After her father had
taken her, she asked us to sing. Presently someone said, “Call Lulu,”
but Daisy answered promptly, “Don't disturb her, she is asleep,” and
then, just as the hands of the clock pointed to the half-hour past eleven, the
time she had predicted that Allie was to come to take her with him, she lifted
up both arms and said, “Come, Allis,” and breathed no more. Then
tenderly laying her beloved, but lifeless form, upon the pillow, her father
said, “The dear child has gone,” and added, “She will suffer no
more.”
There was a solemn stillness in the room. We
could not weep, and why should we? We could only thank our heavenly Father for
the teachings of her last days—those days rendered sacred by the glory of
heaven which illumined us. We felt that the room must be full of angels come to
comfort us, for a sweet peace fell upon our spirits, as if they had said,
“She is not here, she is risen.”This part of the mother's diary,
written in 1864, was first published in Italian, by Ernesto Bozzano, in a book
entitled Discamate Influences in Human Life. Professor Hyslop wrote to
Lulu, the sister of Daisy, who confirmed the scrupulous exactitude of the facts
described in her mother's diary, and gave permission to publish them in his
review of Bozzano's book.
Never
Alone
For thousands of years people have been
having experiences that prove, beyond cavil, that there is life after death. In
all the hundreds of books written on this subject, the story is always the
same. No matter what century, no matter from what part of the world, regardless
of the communicator's sex or degree of education, the story is the same, Those
who have come back tell of being enveloped in a feeling of serenity, peace, and
joy, and of being tenderly cared for at the moment of transition, usually by a
loved one who preceded them into the realm of higher consciousness. They are
never alone, even if they die in the most remote place or on a desert island
that has never seen another human being. But of course this is true even here
in this world; no matter how desolate or forsaken a person may feel, he can
always reach out, mentally, and ask for help, and help is at hand. This has
been proven in countless cases, and is especially true when all human help has
been exhausted, or none is available.
Mrs. Eddy's Disposal
of the Hereafter
Moderator: Yes, the world is making
real progress towards overcoming its belief in death and the fear of it. Mrs.
Eddy was asked if she had seen the “hereafter” and she answered,
“Yes, I have, and it is beautiful!” (Preserved in a lecture by Judge
Green.) When asked by her students where she would be if she should pass on,
she told them, “Why I will be right here. “To Laura Sargent she said,
“I will still work in this same chair.”
Kathleen: Mrs. Eddy not only had seen
the hereafter but she was able at times to see what her students who had passed
on were doing in the hereafter. Students reported instantaneous healings of
grief when Mrs. Eddy explained the nature of the hereafter, but usually
students could not comprehend Mrs. Eddy's explanations, nor did they understand
when Mrs. Eddy, looking beyond the veil of matter, tried to explain that the
loved one for whom the patient was grieving, was “right here.” When
patients would say they were relieved to know that there was only a wall
between themselves and their loved one, Mrs. Eddy forcibly informed them,
“There is no wall! He is right here! [or she is right here!].” It is
only ignorance or unbelief that shuts out the loved one whom we believe has
died.
Students had the same difficulty
comprehending Mrs. Eddy's explanation of reality. Julia Bartlett tells of being
with Mrs. Eddy on several occasions when Mrs. Eddy began to talk in a divinely
metaphysical way. “I listened to every word lest I should lose any;”
said Julia, on one occasion, “it was a wonderful, beautiful glimpse of
reality that she was unfolding to us. When one of the students present
questioned Mrs. Eddy, she stopped,” She realized they did not understand
the ' new tongue” in which she was speaking.
Marie: What is meant by the “new
tongue”?
Florence: I think it refers to that
absolute unity of the letter of Christianity and the spirit of Christianity,
where the letter, or what one says, is at one with the spirit of Good (God). If
one has the pure spirit of Christianity one can heal with it; but to teach that
healing power to all mankind the absolute letter is needed in conjunction with
the spirit. This leads to understanding. Spiritual understanding requires the
letter and the spirit. Mrs. Eddy had both the absolute letter and the spirit
and thus could speak in the “new tongue.”
Francie: The absolute letter would be
the absolute system then, wouldn't it?
Moderator: Yes, the absolute letter
is the absolute system of the infinite Principle.
Rookie: How does this infinite
Principle work?
Margie: It works through the divine
Mind operating in its calculus of ideas.
Bessie: And what are these ideas?
Anna: They are the “numerals of
infinity” which Mrs. Eddy speaks of on page 520 of Science and Health.
They constitute what God is, namely, Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life,
Truth, and Love. And these constituents operate through the Word, Christ,
Christianity, and Science. Mrs. Eddy was commissioned by God, to bring to
humanity the divine concurrence of the letter and the spirit—“the
light and might of infinite good, of the divine concurrence of the spirit and
the Word,” as she expresses it on page 246:20 of Miscellany.
Margie: Returning to Mrs. Eddy's
certain knowledge of the hereafter. I would like to tell of another revealing
incident that illustrates her absolute assurance of the continuity of life. It
has been reported that shortly after Edward Kimball died, one of the members of
Mrs. Eddy's household was certain she saw Mr. Kimball striding purposefully
through a downstairs hallway. Excitedly this student approached Mrs. Eddy,
exclaiming, 'I just saw Mr. Kimball in the hallway downstairs!” Without
looking up, Mrs. Eddy replied, thoughtfully, “I wonder it he found the
book he was looking for.”
Grace: Referring to Mrs. Eddy's
awareness of Mr. Kimball's activities in the hereafter, and particularly to his
search for a certain book, I found it interesting to read in Dr. Ritchie's
famous book, “Return from Tomorrow,” what seems to be a
confirmation of the fact that we go right on learning after what we call
death. Dr. Ritchie had been pronounced “clinically dead” for some
time. Upon his return to earth-life he told of having seen, among other things,
great universities, libraries, campuses, and study centers “humming with
the excitement of great discovery. Everyone we passed in the wide halls and on
the curving staircases seemed caught up in some all-engrossing activity.”
These people, said Ritchie, appeared utterly and supremely self-forgetful,
absorbed in some vast purpose beyond themselves,
Ritchie tells of seeing enormous rooms
filled with complex equipment where people were bending over intricate charts
and diagrams or were sitting at the controls of elaborate consoles flickering
with lights. These students were engaged in a selfless search for Truth. All
sense of an ego of their own had been left behind. They were searching because
they had not yet arrived at the absolute conviction of their oneness with God,
all good. “Books and teachings,” Mrs. Eddy says, “are but a
ladder let down from the heaven of Truth and Love, upon which angelic thoughts
ascend and descend, bearing on their pinions of light the Christ-spirit.”
Subconsciously Ritchie knew that every
activity on this mighty campus was impelled by God—had its source in God.
The people here were endeavoring, through study, to gain their at-one-ment with
divine reality. They realized that when the structure of their understanding
was identical with the structure of divine being (or what God infinite good is)
they would no longer need to search in books and test tubes for an
understanding of reality.
Ritchie's experience in the world beyond
convinced him of the plan of Love that lay behind the universe. He closed his
remarkable account with the statement, “As for what we will find in the
next world.... I believe that what we will discover there depends on how well
we get on with the business of loving, here and now.”
Moderator: Until recently the medical
profession has ridiculed the stories of those returning from an “out of
body” experience. But as we have seen this is now changing. Perhaps the
many predictions of global catastrophe nuclear war—and the threat of death
on a world—scale has increased and intensified interest in the hereafter.
And with the fear of ridicule receding as the scientific community withdraws
its stigma regarding these experiences, the world is being blessed by many more
testimonials concerning the nature of the hereafter, and the positive assurance
of being reunited with loved ones who had preceded them into the hereafter.
From every corner of the globe we hear
reports of those “returning” to this plane. Almost invariably they
insist there are no words to describe what they experienced. They speak of the
surpassing beauty of the realm they briefly visited—the indescribable
beauty of the flowers, grass, trees, birds and their singing, of the singularly
beautiful coloring of the birds, flowers, grass, everything. They speak of the
unutterable peace and happiness, the intense feeling of joy, and of being
loved. Invariably they contend the feelings and perceptions they experienced
defy expression in human language. They speak of the sunlight and warmth that
seems to enfold the individual in a loving way as the person's higher self
takes over. In their descriptions one can almost hear and feel Mrs. Eddy's
scientific statement of being: “All is infinite Mind,” infinitely
manifested. They assert this state is not like a dream, but is very vivid, very
real. The mind is clear and lucid.
The glimpse of the hereafter has proved
itself a profound and powerful force to change the life of the individual
experiencing it, to redirect, revitalize, and spiritualize his life for higher
service and love for mankind.
Dives and
Lazarus
Tina: In the Dives and Lazarus
parable Jesus showed himself able to look through the veil of matter and see
what was going on in the hereafter. Does this story have a deep spiritual
meaning for mankind?
Anna: Every mortal is both Dives and
Lazarus. Dives is the gross materiality in each of us that “fares
sumptuously” on the evidence before the five physical senses; Dives is
that in us which succumbs to all those conscious and subconscious universal,
collective, and individual errors of belief—old mythological beliefs that
are no part of the real man.
Lazarus, on the other hand, is the innate
spark of the spiritual within each one of us—the link that connects us
with God. The parable is pointing out that the Lazarus element, the spiritual
element, in each one of us is sadly and shamefully neglected and is begging to
be developed. The parable assures us we will all experience divine Love's plan:
namely, the Lazarus element, the spiritual element, will supplant the Dives or
material element in each one of us; the Dives will be dropped. Dives and
Lazarus cannot dwell together, since they are opposites. “Between us and
you there is a great gulf fixed” (Lu. 16:26). That is, between Lazarus
(the spiritual) and Dives (error or materiality) there is an impassable gulf
fixed.
Returning now to our subject, we can see Mrs.
Eddy saw the unreality of the claim of death.
Simultaneous
Cessation of Human Creation and Death
Moderator: Yes, Mrs. Eddy and Jesus
both attained the supreme realization or understanding in overcoming the last
enemy. In 1903 Mrs. Eddy dropped the title of “Mother” in the Manual.
Simultaneously she decapitalized creator, and added to Science and Health the
great truth that .“proportionately as human generation ceases, the
unbroken links of eternal harmonious being will be spiritually discerned”
(68:30). She had already removed the “Department of Obstetrics” in
the Metaphysical College saying,” Obstetrics is not Science, and will not
be taught” (25th Manual, p. 70).
At the same time that she added the above-mentioned
quotation about .” . . the unbroken links of eternal harmonious
being,” she also added to Science and Health: “in Science
individual good derived from God, the infinite All-in-all, may
flow from the departed to mortals; but evil is neither communicable nor
scientific” (72:23-26). The past, the present, and the future all belong
to God, and God requireth that which is past to sustain the unified
manifestation of man in the present. This is necessary in order that “the
divine idea [which] seems to fall to the level of a human or material
belief” (507:31) may be realized to be the expression of the “man,
not of the earth earthly but coexistent with God” (68:32). And this
fact is fully seen only in proportion “as human generation
ceases.” Mrs. Eddy is showing that those [meaning Jesus and Mary Baker
Eddy] who have “derived” their individual good ... from God, the
infinite All-in-all;' cannot be defeated in the unfoldment of that good to its
beneficiaries on this plane of consciousness just because they seem to have
departed from this plane.
She is saying that a revelator [such as Jesus or Mary Baker
Eddy] can perpetually say of his or her own subjective or “individual good
derived from God”: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of
the world”—to the end or complete fulfilment of that revelator's
God-appointed mission in the human consciousness.
When this great fact dawned on Mrs. Eddy,
that her individual good derived from God could continue to flow to mortals
after her departure, it must have been a great consolation and comfort to her,
in view of the inexorable prophecy of the final “half a time” (see
Dan. 12:7; Rev. 12:14; and My. 181:27) of the channel for the Motherhood phase
of Christian Science. We know that she apparently accepted this prophecy
because soon after adding the changes we have just talked about, the sentence:
“If you or I should appear to die, we should not be dead” “
(164:17) was put in the textbook.
Flow of Individual
Good
Marie: I am interested in Mrs. Eddy's
statement that in Science “individual good ... may flow from the departed
to mortals” (72:23). Does this mean we might be guided to make a right
decision or we might feel the comforting touch of Jesus or Mrs. Eddy when we
sorely need it? Wasn't Saul of Tarsus guided by the ascended Jesus?
Moderator: Yes, Marie, Saul of Tarsus
was certainly guided to make a right decision after feeling the presence of
Jesus, on the Road to Damascus. During one of my several visits with Gilbert
Carpenter, Jr. he told me of an experience he had, in a time of acute sorrow,
when he felt Mrs. Eddy's presence, and mentally heard her speak to him. The
impersonal Christ presents itself in a way that meets the human need.
Diane: Did he tell you under what
circumstances?
Moderator: Yes, it was at the
time that he and his father, Gilbert Carpenter, Sr., were called to Boston for
the purpose of being deprived of their positions in the Christian Science
movement which meant also being deprived of their means of livelihood. Gilbert,
Jr. had been collecting articles and items by and about Mary Baker Eddy that
were not available in the Christian Science Reading Rooms. Gilbert, Sr. had
been helping him. This activity greatly displeased the authorities in Boston
and the two teachers were summoned to appear before the Board. (Note:
Carpenter, Sr., though a C.S.B. and taught by Mrs. Eddy, did not hold formal
classes.)
During the day-long prosecution the two
Carpenters were treated as criminals. Gilbert, Jr. was, of course, distressed
at losing his means of livelihood, but he was even more grieved because of the
needlessly cruel treatment meted out to his gentle-mannered father who deeply
revered and loved Mary Baker Eddy and had served her faithfully in her home in
a secretarial capacity.
Finally the relentless, vindictive trial was
over, and with a heavy heart Gilbert, Jr. made his way to the Boston Common
across the street. “There, in an agony of sorrow and misery,” he
said, “I threw myself on the grass and wept uncontrollably. Suddenly I
felt a gentle, tender, touch on my shoulder; a peace and calm descended on me
and I heard a voice saying, 'Remember, when my children need me, I will be
there.' It was Mrs. Eddy's voice that I heard and her presence that I felt,
which had come to comfort and console me.” It was a subjective experience.
The eternal Christ was at hand to comfort and console Gilbert. The Christ is
ever-present.
Anna: Such an experience would show
us that Truth knows nothing about states and stages of consciousness. Truth is
spiritual light, the instantaneous ever-presence of Love, and knowing this, we
willingly give up a savior for the Immanuel. It was this same presence that St.
Paul felt on the road to Damascus, the omnipresence of the Christ. Look what
the Carpenters did after that!
Annie M. Knott in her Reminiscences tells
how the experience of Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus to persecute
the Christians was explained by a student in one of Mrs. Eddy's classes:
A student in the class claimed that Jesus
personally called to Paul, and so illumined his consciousness with truth that
Paul turned from his erring ways and began to be a follower of the Nazarene
Teacher. “Mrs. Eddy expressed some surprise at this argument, and asked if
any others in the class believed that this had been a personal
appearance.” A student in the front row said that after studying Science
and Health he had come to see “that it was a subjective experience, that
the eternal Christ [here expressed as the Christ mentality of Jesus] spoke to
Paul and wakened him from his erroneous thinking, and that while Paul probably
continued for some time to think it was the personal Jesus who had addressed
him, nevertheless Christ Jesus became to him the Wayshower to Truth and Love.
Mrs. Eddy commended the answer.. . “ (Annie M. Knott, Reminiscences, in We
Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Third Series, p. 65).
False Personal
Control
Bessie: Isn't it true that Mrs. Eddy
was very much opposed to spiritualism or the belief that those who have passed
on could in any way control the living?
Moderator: Yes. Just as the person
who is sound asleep is not controlled by another who is wide awake standing
beside him, or vice versa. Mrs. Augusta Stetson labored under the delusion that
Mrs. Eddy was leading her, personally, and would continue to do so if and when
Mrs. Eddy passed on.
Mrs. Eddy wrote her, “I read in your
mind an illusion to which you must be awakened, namely, that those who have
departed from a sense of life here, control those who have not departed, but
are still with us in the flesh.”
Mrs. Eddy told her this was a belief of
spiritualism, and that she must drop forever the belief that Mrs. Eddy was her
guiding spirit either here or hereafter “For,” she said, “I am
not; and you will sink the Principle of Christian Science in personality and
ruin your scientific progress if you continue to believe this lie [that I am
personally guiding you].”
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
LITERATURE
Moderator: We have talked about the
leavening effect Christian Science has had on natural science, theology, and
medicine. Has it had an effect on the literature of our time?
First, I think it should be clear that
Christian Science itself isn't “literature” anymore than mathematics
or music is literature, since it is an exact Science.
Margie: Yes, indeed, Christian
Science has had an effect on literature.
Of course there have been the Christian
Science periodicals starting with the Journal in 1883, which have
literally flooded the world. Without a doubt they have had an influence on the
literature of our time.
Many of Mrs. Eddy's early students broke
away and started their own movements. “Unity” is perhaps the largest
of these still in existence. It sends out millions of pieces of literature
every year.
Many students with only a very limited
understanding of Mrs. Eddy's discovery, took pen in hand and wrote of the power
of the mind. Hundreds of such books have spewed from the presses during the
seventy years since Mrs. Eddy left us, their contents all directly traceable to
the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. Dr. Maxwell Maltz in his bestseller, Psycho
Cybernetics and Self-fulfilment, catches the tone of these writers who
have done much in the direction of calming the human mind and educating it out
of itself and into broader horizons, and the greater implementation of the
Golden Rule in daily living.
Bill: Since Mrs. Eddy left us,
scientific philosophers have written many books regarding the scientific
disclosures that have come to light as the result of a vast army of research
workers. The net result of all this literature has been a more or less
complacent acceptance of, as well as a sincere and deep-heartfelt appreciation
of, much of what Mrs. Eddy was trying to teach. Today it is much easier for men
to accept Mrs. Eddy's scientific theories than it was in Mrs. Eddy's day, hence
persecution for those expressing Christianily scientific views has practically
vanished; and each year science brings to the world added confirmation of the
logic of her theories. Yearly Mrs. Eddy grows in stature with those having eyes
to discern her spiritual brilliance and the good resulting from the truth she
taught. This will ultimately result in more and more enlightening literature
from the scientific community.
Numerous biographies of Mrs. Eddy have come
forth, and this category would include the voluminous writings of that
self-effacing author, Alice Orgain, whose marvelous spiritual penetration and
extraordinary, inspired grasp of Mrs. Eddy's writings, often startles one with
sudden awe. Her books and pamphlets are a meticulous record of Mary Baker
Eddy's “footprints fadeless,” and of the sublimity and infinite range
of her God-Mindedness.
Mr. Eustace's book, Clear Correct Teaching,
has had wide circulation and done much to raise the level of spiritual
understanding.
The vast amount of material not included in
Prose Works—letters, articles, essays, visions, documents, items, etc. by
and about Mrs. Eddy—collected by Gilbert Carpenter, Jr., and edited by
Richard Oakes, are destined for an ever greater role in the spiritual education
of the future.
Finally, through the in-depth research into
the Christian Science textbook initiated by John W. Doorly of London, England,
and continually developed by dedicated students of Christian Science such as
Max Kappler and others, the world is being given an ever-deepening insight into
the divinely scientific system and structure that constitutes our textbook and
our being. This field of endeavor, as previously noted, has already produced
over a hundred books and pamphlets on the pure Science of Christian Science
such as those written by Max Kappeler and others, and is destined to constitute
an ever-expanding field of literature. Mrs. Eddy's discovery of the Christ
Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love was a full and final revelation
of the absolute Principle of scientific mental healing (107:1). The system Mrs.
Eddy presented as Divine Science or the Comforter, being a complete system,
will unfold infinitely, as any genuine science does. The system and the
structure of the textbook must be Christianly and scientifically understood;
then its Science will be seen to carry within itself trustworthy methods for
the discovery of new truth within its own domain. (See Oxford Dictionary
for definition of “science.”)
Jackie: When Mary Baker Eddy in 1866
saw that God was Mother and included Father, she ushered in a totally new era
that began a revolution in human consciousness. Gradually even the Bible will
be interpreted and rewritten to reflect Mrs. Eddy's discovery. God (infinite
good) and “His” Christ will be recognized to possess infinite
gender.
SESSION X: THE
MOVE TO CONCORD
Moderator: Today we will
penetrate a little deeper into how Mrs. Eddy fulfilled every scriptural
prophecy regarding her.
Teacher of the Future
By 1889 Mrs. Eddy had arrived at the
conclusion that the best way to usher in the new structure of consciousness
needed for man to understand his divinity—even though it might take
centuries—would be to spend the remainder of her time clarifying her
message in Science and Health until it reached its culmination of scientific
statement and proof. In the July Journal of 1889, she spoke of being a
“mother with almost 4,000 children,” and she saw more clearly than
ever, at this time, the absolute necessity of making Science and Health the
teacher of the future.
Ever since her discovery of Christian
Science, Mrs. Eddy had worked earnestly to keep her writings from being
misinterpreted, vitiated, stolen, or garbled. During the 1880's she became
increasingly aware that she had not yet perfected Science and Health. She knew
she must soon have the quiet and peace of mind to write into a new edition the
results which enlarged experience had shown her were necessary. God was daily
pouring into her receptive thought the ideas that would make a more adequate
presentation of the full and final revelation of Truth—of the divine
system of Christian Science. “Solitude and silence” were absolutely
essential if she was to fulfil “her God-appointed mission to complete the
works of Christ Jesus on earth.” (The Life of Mary Baker Eddy,
Sibyl Wilbur, p. 218:24. See Appendix.)
Mrs. Eddy was not long in putting the
experiences of the 1880's in proper perspective, especially the recent (1888)
experience Lyman Johnson recounts, when the thirty-four malcontents or would-be
usurpers tore the church apart. During the long and anxious months that
followed this most recent apostasy, Mrs. Eddy was closely assessing these
events and devoting much prayerful thought to their implications. The fact that
a rebellion of such dimensions could break out in her Boston church just at the
moment her movement was becoming national in scope and on its way to becoming
international, indicated the hour had struck for tremendous changes in her
whole approach.
With unsurpassed courage, and the conviction
that God was guiding her, she totally dismantled the machinery she had
painstakingly built up over many years with such great hopes and so many tears.
Listening faithfully to God's commands, she bowed in holy submission, breathing
Jesus' prayer, “Not my will but Thine be done.” Responding thus to
the divine Will she sacrificed even her most cherished dreams. She closed her
college (at the height of its prosperity), disorganized the Christian Science
Association, retired from active supervision of the Christian Science
Journal, and dropped other church-related activities, all in order that she
might seek “in solitude and silence a higher understanding of the absolute
scientific unity which must exist between the teaching and letter of
Christianity and the spirit of Christianity, dwelling forever in the divine
Mind or Principle of man's being and revealed through the human character”
(My. 246:13).
A completely spiritual church was to be her
next step, as it unfolded to her through 1890 and beyond. “The lost chord
of Truth” which she had caught consciously from the divine harmony and
which was to her the revelation of Truth, she must now make clearer for the
generations to come.
Rocky: What was the “lost chord
of Truth”?
Moderator: In As It Is, p. 40,
Alice Orgain throws light on this “lost chord of Truth.” It pertains,
she says, to the serpent of corporeal sense (that would make us believe our
manhood is separated from our womanhood).
The first woman, Eve, saw the serpent, lust,
as outside of herself.
The second woman, the Virgin Mary (the
mother of Jesus), rose above the serpent and conceived her child immaculately,
but had natural children by Joseph afterwards (Mark 6:3 and Matt. 12:46-50).
Mary Magdalen, the third woman, beheld at the sepulchre a risen Savior. (See
Un. 62:27.) This left the serpent of corporeal sense to the fourth woman, Mary
Baker Eddy, who was to find the “lost chord,” namely the spiritual
origin of man, wherein the male and female of God's creating are one, and to
found it in the human consciousness. Notice, the third woman, Mary Magdalen,
rose above the serpent and stayed above it, but seeing a “risen
Savior” showed the limitations of her view since the I AM was neither
buried nor resurrected. The real Jesus never disappeared to spiritual sense.
So the serpent, corporeal sense, was left,
says Mrs. Orgain, for the fourth woman, Mary Baker Eddy. She was the
first to interpret the Scriptures in their true sense which reveals the
spiritual origin of man (534:5-7). She was the first to see and found in human
consciousness that human birth, growth, maturity, and decay was a temporal
illusion. “God created all through Mind…where then is the necessity
for recreation or procreation?” (205:12) Just as 2 x 2 = 5 never merges
into scientific mathematics, the temporal illusion of human birth and death
never merges into immortal being. Because man is the reflection of the divine
Mind, he is not subject to human birth and death. Birth, decay, and death arise
from the material sense of things, not from the spiritual and real sense where
man exists because God exists.
In her new edition she wanted to make it clear
that the Virgin Mary proved God, Principle, Love, to be the only Father. She
wanted Science and Health, the “little book,” to bring out the
impersonality of God, Principle, as both Father and Mother, both Mind
and Love. And lastly, she wanted to make it clear that “the third
baptism” (Mis. 205:13), which follows the assimilation of the Christian
Science textbook, is the wholly immaculate conception, meaning the individual
understanding, through pure reason, of the truth presented in Science and
Health. In this “third baptism” thought is led directly to Mind,
thought's own source, where in communion with Mind we no longer look to a book
or a personal teacher for understanding but to our oneness with God, Principle.
This is total immaculateness. (This state is represented or symbolized in one
of the original Mother Church windows. See picture below page 163.)
 So it was that Mrs. Eddy caught the “lost
chord” of Truth, and now in the solitude and silence of Concord she must
make Science and Health the teacher for all mankind.
Many years before (in 1866) it was her
attitude of mind that had made it possible for the divine power to heal her.
Something hitherto concealed by the mists of false belief had been revealed to
her. In some unknown way she had attained that consciousness of the divine
Presence which heals the sick, even as the natural musician without scientific
knowledge touches the harmonic chords. She had come in touch with the law of
Spirit. Then, like Jacob at Peniel, she could say: “I have seen God face
to face, and my life is preserved.” There was yet, however, many a weary
mile to trudge and many a scalding tear to shed before the journey's end. But
she knew she would eventually rejoice for every grief. Her great reward for the
bitter “cup” was her knowledge that God had made her the means of
telling His power, grace, and glory to all mankind.
 Original Mother Church
Windows
“The great pyramid of Egypt, —a miracle in
stone” (Hea. 11:12)—had its capstone rejected. The Bible symbolically
refers to this rejection seven times as “the stone which the builders
rejected,” and prophesied it would eventually “become the head of the
corner.” This prophecy was fulfilled when Mary Baker Eddy lowered the
capstone, Science and Health, into place, and its teachings compassed the
Bible. See Appendix pp. 345 & 347.
The blank circle symbolizes universal Love, the full demand
of Christian Science. It stands for total immaculateness, or the “third
baptism,” when thought is led directly to Mind, thought's own source,
where in communion with Mind we no longer look to a book or personal teacher
for understanding, but look to God, Principle, Love, alone.
Universal Principle
vs. Personal Example
Elsie: Exactly how did Mrs. Eddy compare her mission
with that of Jesus?
Margie: She saw that his life would
stand for all time as the ideal. He was the exemplification of the Christ in
human experience. He was the impersonation of the spiritual idea (565:13). He,
and he alone, was the immaculate Exemplar for the human race. From birth to
ascension he showed forth the perfect man. “All Christian Scientists
deeply recognize the oneness of Jesus—that he stands alone in word and
deed, the visible discoverer, founder, demonstrator, and great Teacher of
Christianity, whose sandals none may unloose” (My. 338:23).
Mrs. Eddy's mission, in contrast, was to
discover and found in human consciousness the Divine Science that lay
behind and enabled Jesus to do the works he did. She had to discover the laws
that were implicit in his demonstrations. Knowing that there were laws
governing mathematics, gravity, etc., Mrs. Eddy early in her life felt there
were also definite laws governing the works Jesus did. She discovered these
laws and founded them in human consciousness. While Jesus was a personal
Savior, Mrs. Eddy's mission was to bring a Science that all could learn and
understand so that all could learn to do what Jesus had done. She showed us
that the Christ which Jesus demonstrated individually could be demonstrated by
all men.
 In laying her foundations in line with those laid by
Jesus she stirred up the same kind of antagonism that caused Jesus to be
persecuted and crucified. Mrs. Eddy once told a class that if Jesus had not
declared his divine origin [and the divine origin of all men] he would not have
been crucified; also had she not declared that Science is revealed Truth [the
truth that Mind and Mind's idea is all that exists—human birth, growth,
maturity and death are illusions], then mortal mind would be proud of her.
(Preserved in Martha Bogues reminiscences.) Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy were
carrying on the spiritually organized Church of the Bible that restores man's
original identity as God-idea, God's image and likeness.
Tommy: Was this actually the
“spiritually organized Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston” that
Mrs. Eddy speaks of in Retrospection, p. 44:30, that “still goes on”?
In other words, “the spiritually organized Church” is the Christ
consciousness, the omni-action of Principle?
Margie: Yes, Tommy, “this
spiritually organized Church” is the Church that Jesus demonstrated in
his life; it is Truth, the “Rock” on which Jesus said he would build
his Church. It is the structure of Truth and Love (583:12) which the writings
of Mary Baker Eddy constitute. Mrs. Eddy's spiritual interpretation of
Scripture is the “spiritually organized Church” of the Bible.
“This spiritually organized
Church” that is always going on has nothing to do with material
organization. It only concerns the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and her
spiritual interpretation of the Bible.
Moderator: So it was that in
the fall of 1889 Mrs. Eddy “retired” to Concord, but not until 1892
was she, at last, ensconced within the soft, gray-green walls of Pleasant View,
where shining order, peace, and dignity came to prevail. Here a gentle veil of
seclusion descended, securing the quiet and tranquility necessary to Mrs.
Eddy's life of contemplation and communion with God. Here she lived a
“life of brooding love, a life of the highest rarity in human experience,
wherein heaven leans and kisses earth” (The Life of Mary Baker
Eddy, by Sibyl Wilbur).
STRENUOUS
RETIREMENT
From this “retirement” three
hundred and eighty-two revisions of Science and Health were to flow in quick
succession as the Bride more and more descended into the Word. (My. 125)
Accompanying these changes in the textbook, eighty-eight Manuals gushed
forth. From here most of her Prose Works, including Miscellaneous
Writings, and Miscellany were to emanate. Christ and Christmas, a
monumental achievement whose unique mission pertained to her own discovery,
revelation, and founding of Christian Science, was begun on March 11, 1893. The
collected masses of letters which she wrote with her own hand, says Lyman
Powell in Mary Baker Eddy, are bewildering to examine.
In these thousands of letters that flowed
out from Pleasant View she occasionally dropped hints of the rigors that she
imposed upon herself: “0 the amount that I see to be done for all, before
Christian Science is established on the Rock'gainst which the billows beat in
vain . . . ' My labors are harder now than ever before.”
Writing in the Sentinel in 1903
concerning his six years as a member of her household, Mr. Joseph Mann (himself
an unflagging and prodigious worker) asked: “Who that has spent one hour
in the home of Mrs. Eddy has not had his own slothfulness rebuked by her
indefatigable labors to bless others?”
Rocky: Tomlinson, speaking of Mrs.
Eddy, states:Any examination of her activities as an author must of necessity
be inadequate. The mere recounting of the facts can never tell of the earnest
labor, of the consecrated prayer which she gave to the preparation of her
monumental works. Up to the time of closing her College, in a single day she
often taught a class, interviewed students, settled knotty church problems, and
then, while others were sleeping, wrote far into the night, laboring long and
arduously to give the precise interpretation of God's Word which might be
needed to convince the reader of the truth of Christian Science. Early the next
morning she would be at her desk, dictating to her secretary the stirring words
of some one of her works before the gathering of the class.Stopping to call one
afternoon ... she told me that she had been at work the night before until four
o'clock in the morning. After all this labor, to her fell the task of
correcting the mistakes of typists, printers, and proofreaders. How little the
world knows, how slightly it appreciates, the hardships and the self-sacrifice
of Mary Baker Eddy in presenting her inspired revelation to the sons of men!
Only through divine wisdom and unceasing toil did she accomplish the work of
keeping Christian Science unadulterated. What humanity owes to her it now
little comprehends, but future ages will accord a just estimate to the untiring
labor and manifold achievements of the Founder of the Christian Science
movement” (Twelve Years With Mary Baker Eddy).
Bill: Mrs. Eddy's extraordinary
resilience and productivity, and the equanimity she manifested in public,
caused many of her students and admirers to assume that she performed with ease
marvels beyond the capacity of even the most brilliant of her followers. Few of
them recognized the magnitude of the challenge this lonely spiritual leader
faced in founding her radical truths in defiance of entrenched human beliefs.
What Mrs. Eddy did for the world no one but
she could do or know. To The Mother Church, among many other activities, Mrs.
Eddy devoted much time. Before retiring to Concord it had been her patient for
seven years. It represented the Christian Science field. “Had I never
suffered for The Mother Church, neither she nor I would be practicing the
virtues that lie concealed in the smooth seasons and calms of human
existence” (My. 166). Life's ills, she said, are its chief recompense;
they develop hidden strength. “In some way, sooner or later, all must rise
superior to materiality, and suffering is oft the divine agent in this
elevation” (444:2). As we have seen, the material church organization
represented the corporeal body that must be laid off.
There were often nights of mental and physical agony when
Mrs. Eddy struggled to reach a decision or find a solution for a church
problem, and more than once, says Lyman Powell, in Mary Baker Eddy
(p. 252), in order to win, she demolished old machinery with one stroke of
her pen, and constructed almost overnight new machinery better fitted for the
changed condition. “Many a pitched battle she fought to gain breathing
space in which to write, to discover, to build, to organize, to construct; and
if now and then—in an almost continuous struggle against handicaps
covering some forty-odd years—she was stricken, her spirit remained
unbroken as the Scotsman's in the ballad:
“Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew says,
A little I'm hurt, but not yet slain;
I'll but lie down and bleed awhile, And then
I'll rise and fight again.”
Organizational Perils and
the Manual
During this “retirement” period at
Pleasant View Mrs. Eddy in 1895 wrote and copyrighted the Manual of The
First Church of Christ Scientist, in Boston, Mass., of which she put out
eighty-seven revised editions, each revision meeting some contingency or
forestalling some danger. (The eighty-ninth Manual was put out surreptitiously
after Mrs. Eddy left the human scene.)
Her Manual with twenty-nine unamendable
estoppel clauses was also Mrs. Eddy's great plan for a completely spiritual
church, the Church of Christ, which would exist alone in the affections and
need no organization to express it. “The real Christian compact is love
for one another. This bond is wholly spiritual and inviolate” (Mis.
91:10). A material church was to Mrs. Eddy only a concession to the ignorance
of the period, a “suffer it to be so now.” (ibid) “ . . .
Material organization has its value and its peril.... organization is requisite
only in the earliest periods in Christian history. After this material form of
cohesion and fellowship has accomplished its end, continued organization
retards spiritual growth and should be laid off” (Ret. 45:6), hence
the estoppel clauses in her Manual.
While Mrs. Eddy at first strenuously opposed
reorganization of the Boston church, she ultimately consented to its
reorganization as a Mother Church which would draw its membership from
Christian Science churches throughout the world, as long as she was personally
present to control it.
The Manual was strictly a spiritual
guide. It was therefore small wonder that at Mrs. Eddy's passing in 1910 many
wondered why she had left the Christian Science movement without the slightest
provision for the continuity of The Mother Church and with an unamendable
Manual which by its provisions prohibited the performing of all the
vital functions of The Mother Church. All centralized control came to a
screeching halt. Mrs. Eddy strenuously opposed reorganization. She said it was
not from God.
A legal Deed of Trust with a
self-perpetuating Board of four Directors had been appended to the Manual (page
128) to care for the maintenance of, and services, in The First Church of
Christ Scientist in Boston, Mass., at Mrs. Eddy's passing. But all powers
relating to centralized control, that Mrs. Eddy had conferred upon them while
she was here and needed a powerful Board of Directors to help in her work, were
revoked by the now famous estoppel clauses which required her approval, and in
many cases, her written consent given in her own handwriting. To make
certain that there could be no misunderstanding, her final By-law reads:
“No new Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-law amended
or annulled, without the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our
textbook, Science and Health” (Man. 105:1). She was alerted to the
necessity for this By-law because the various members of her Board of Directors
made repeated attempts to have her change or remove the estoppels, when they
thought she might soon leave the scene. But of course the whole intent of the
Manual was that The Mother Church, at her departure, should become a
Branch Church with no more power or authority than any other branch Church of
Christ Scientist. The estoppel clauses made mandatory all surrender of
centralized control.
Buried in the archives of The Mother Church
are many letters written by Mrs. Eddy to her Board of Directors fervently
urging them to use spiritual means rather than human means for upbuilding the
Cause of Christian Science. (See her Essay on Material Church Activity [EOF p.
1].) If all these letters were widely published the entire field would awaken
from its blind belief that Mrs. Eddy sanctioned the continuance of The Mother
Church as a material organization and named the Board of Directors her
successor. The only Church Mrs. Eddy wanted perpetuated is “the structure
of Truth and Love” (583:12).
To a student Mrs. Eddy explained that
“organized church is enmity against God. It is death to Spirit.” Mrs.
Eddy struggled desperately to save her church from the death-blow of
ecclesiasticism. She was fully aware of history's record and how soon each
spiritual leader's Christ-legacy to humanity had been suffocated and strangled
by ecclesiastical domination and religious organizations.
Tommy: In the Tenets of The Mother
Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Mrs. Eddy states, “As
adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient
guide to eternal Life.” The “inspired Word” is Science and
Health, as she brings out on page 46 of Science and Health under the marginal
topic “Spiritual interpretation.” This is why “eternity awaits
our Church Manual” (My. 230:2).
Tina: It must be very important to
understand that when Mrs. Eddy speaks of the “Inspired Word” she
means what God dictated to her, including her spiritual interpretation of
Scripture.
Moderator: Yes, Tina, this
understanding is crucial. The inspired Word is certainly built upon the
Scriptures but is in no way limited by the Scriptures. That Mrs. Eddy sensed
much beyond the Bible, says Mrs. Orgain, as the promise of Christian Science,
is evident. After gloriously interpreting “The City of our God,”
which is “without boundary or limit” and which supersedes the walled
city foursquare, Mrs. Eddy says: “The writer's present feeble sense of
Christian Science closes with St. John's Revelation as recorded by the great
apostle, for his vision is the acme of this Science as the Bible reveals
it.” In 1904, nearly three years after writing this statement, Mrs.
Eddy added the Twenty-third Psalm in which she said “divine Love” is
the infinite Shepherd causing one's cup to run over any previous Biblical
prescription or proscription of method, because of the great spiritual
understanding divine Science brings.
Mrs. Eddy never said that “the
Scriptures” were our “sufficient” guide to eternal Life. She
added the word “sufficient” after she had made it clear that the
“inspired Word” was Science and Health's divine interpretation of
Scripture. In Miscellany, p. 238:16 she tells us that we must rise above
even it: “On the swift pinions of spiritual thought man rises above the
letter, law, or morale of the inspired Word to the spirit of Truth,
whereby the Science is reached that demonstrates God.” Thus there
is something beyond eternal Life, typed by the Tree of Life in the Bible, and
that is infinite Love.
So to know God, as Principle, Love, is an
inherent quality even beyond Word, Bride; but the yielding of Motherhood,
Bible, with its seven days of creative consciousness, is the first step to that
end, and the Manual tends wholly to that end.
Billy: Could you explain that?
Moderator: Yes, Billy. Remember we
have said that in Revelation Jesus held but seven stars in his right hand while
he prophesied that woman would hold twelve stars. To put it simply, it just
means that Jesus stood for Genesis, for the seven days of creation. While the
Bible prophesied twelve stars in woman's crown, the Bible only utilized seven
so long as it accepted God as a creator—as Father or Mother. “The
eternal Elohim has created the universe” represents the Bible
consciousness in which God is represented as creative Mother (592:16). But,
“the eternal Elohim includes the forever universe” (515:16) is
the Word that existed “before the foundation of the world” and this
is symbolized by the woman of the Apocalypse who symbolizes generic man. (See
Matt. 13:35.)
Rookie: This would show the
progressive expansion of the original Word beyond the Bible conception of it.
Moderator: Yes, Rookie, The
Mother Church was only built as a testimonial to Mrs. Eddy as Mother. But
“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass.” was founded
on “the Rock, Christ” (Man. 19). It symbolizes that each has
everything within himself to win salvation—to make himself both source and
expression of his own generic being. Deep within each one of us is the Bride
consciousness, the kingdom of God.
Mrs. Orgain says, “While control was
the constant aim of the teaching of the Bible in its Fatherhood tendency,
Motherhood had always pleaded, through the foreseeing prophets, for the final
sufficiency of the Branch (the individual) as both its own “root and
offspring.” Isaiah had prophesied this sufficiency in his statement,
“There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a Branch shall
grow out of his roots ... and a little child shall lead them” (Isa.
11:1,6); and Zechariah had prophesied, “Thus spealketh the Lord of hosts,
saying, Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH [meaning you and me and all];
and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of
the Lord” (Zech. 6:12) —the structure of his consciousness shall be
identical with the structure of God's consciousness.
When Mrs. Eddy made it clear that the
“inspired Word” began with her writings it freed everyone to find God
completely within his own consciousness; it rose above the limitations of Bible
Christianity, culminating in “Christian Scientists be a law unto
yourselves,” and such promises as “it is your Father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom,” and we accept only a “glorified”
Jesus.
Also, in Miscellany 266:3-5 Mrs. Eddy
warns against the controlled vision of the Bible as the very first of the most
imminent dangers confronting the twentieth century—“the robbing of
people of life and liberty under the warrant of the Scriptures.” Mrs. Eddy
wrote this at the close of the nineteenth century through the channel of The
New York World. To Julia Field King she wrote: “You are master of the bad
tendencies of Socialism and not at all at their cruel mercies” which would
rob the people of life and liberty. (See DCC. 108.)
And so it was that Sibyl Wilbur could say
that Mrs. Eddy “ably directed her students by love that was wise, and
counsel that was firm in the midst of dereliction, stubborn opposition, revolt,
and schism, to that state of mind and that perfection of organization so that
they found themselves self-operative under provisions which would prevent their
straying from her teaching. And in doing this she succeeded in withdrawing her
own personality ... leaving only Truth enthroned for ruler . . . “ (The
Life of Mary Baker Eddy, p. 343).
But the field failed in general to
comprehend the estoppel clauses. Mrs. Eddy had always been hampered by the
human mind's resistance to Truth whatever the situation was, so this question
of personality had to be resolved. She did it by substituting government by law
for government by persons. The textbook must become “the rod of
iron.” And it will structure our consciousness in line with God's
consciousness.
The Science she had discovered must be seen
as the Principle of all existence. We must reach the demonstration where we are
taught of God alone. A Science can't survive if it is built on personality. She
knew she must perfect the textbook so it would become the teacher.
Diane: Was she able to accomplish
this?
Anna: Yes, she was. With the dramatic
accomplishments of the next two decades, the scientific evidence which had
accumulated since her great discovery in 1866, gathered momentum and clearness
until its reached its culmination of scientific statement in 1908. Then Mrs.
Eddy could substitute her paean of praise on the flyleaf of Science and Health
for her former denunciation of mortal mind. Mrs. Eddy knew that she had not yet
reached the ultimate practical proof of absolute Christian Science,
“but,” she said, “I have written it, and my works teach it”
(EOF 61). She had fully revealed Truth; it now needed only to be practised. It
will unfold forever.
Francie: As we have seen, moving to
Concord was in no sense a retirement. Mrs. Eddy had to marshall all her
energies to awaken a slumbering world, destroy the dream sense of existence,
and reinstate reality—the reality and scientific ultimatum on which rests
the Science of being: namely, that “God is Mind, and God is infinite;
hence all is Mind.” This understanding annihilates the belief in human
birth, the last enemy.
Perfecting the
“System” in Science and Health
Kathleen: Mrs. Eddy's impelling
motive in retreating to Concord was to develop her teaching and the statement
in her textbook to the point where the system in it would be so clear that,
once having learned that system, all revelation a student would need would come
to him through his spiritual understanding of the divinely scientific system
and his dedicated living commitment to that system. This alone, she knew, would
enable each one to make progress in his journey from sense to Soul. Therefore
it was crucial that the system of Science in the textbook be brought to
perfection. She labored to expound the divine Principle which henceforth was to
be the only government. “Infinite space is peopled with God's ideas”
(503:15), and its government is divine Science.
Rocky: Were there any other reasons
why Mrs. Eddy saw the wisdom of leaving Boston to seek seclusion in Concord?
Bill: A more mundane and immediate
benefit was that by giving up teaching she would have a more definite knowledge
of what her students were doing, and could better decide what the capacities of
each might be for filling positions of responsibility.
In the past, the students' easy access to
her had been a breeder of indifference and contempt, and was actually the cause
of rebellion and desertion. The move to Concord effectively removed that
obstacle, promoting in its place obedience and respect.
The Textbook for the
Ages
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy saw that much
needed to be done in order to make Science and Health the textbook for all
ages, as well as the present. She knew that if her discovery were sunk in
personality, and her students failed to demonstrate her teaching, it would
again be lost as was the teaching of Jesus. She realized she had to look to the
future for the spiritual growth necessary to understand her revelations in a
practical way. Commenting on the lack of spirituality and the deficiency of
personal teaching, she wrote: “What then of continual recapitulation of
tired aphorisms and disappointed ethics; of patching breaches widened the next
hour; of pounding wisdom and love into sounding brass; of warming marble and
quenching volcanoes! [the volcanoes and tornadoes or pride, vanity, envy, that
were tearing the heart out of Christian Science]” (Mis. 316:20). And all
she had ever wanted to do was share with them her vision of ultimate reality.
ere was Mrs. Eddy, envisioning divine
metaphysics in all its scope and grandeur, in all its depth, breadth, and
height, in all its possibilities and implications, but because of her students'
lack of comprehension much valuable time was lost in the repetition of
“tired aphorisms” and “pounding wisdom and love into sounding
brass”!
Material Church Bonds
Loosened
Preparatory to withdrawing to Concord Mrs.
Eddy wrote her Church, November 28, 1889.The Church of Christ (Scientist) in
Boston was my patient for seven years. When I would think she was well-nigh
healed a relapse came and a large portion of her flock would forsake the better
portion, and betake themselves to the world's various hospitals for the cure of
moral maladies. These straying sheep would either set up claims of improvements
on Christian Science or oppose The Mother Church, or sink out of sight ... This
state of Church lasted ten years. It even grew rapidly worse when about three
years ago I for lack of time to adjust her continual difficulties and a
conscientious purpose to labor in higher fields and broader ways for the
advancement of the glorious hope of Christian Science put students in my
pulpit.As one who is treating patients without success remembers they are
depending on material hygiene, consulting their own organizations and thus
leaning an matter instead of Spirit, saith to these relapsing students, 'now
quit your material props and leave all for Christ, spiritual power, and you
will recover.' So I admonish this Church after ten years of sad experience in
material bonds to cast them oft and cast her net on the spiritual side of
Christianity, and adopt alone the golden rule for unification, progress, and a
better example as the Mother Church” (Mrs. Eddy's Letters and
Miscellany, Vol. 1:21:8). (Alice Orgain Library)On December 2, 1889,
the Church Board unanimously adopted the following resolution:
“(1) That the time has come when this
Church should free itself from the thraldom of man-made laws, and rise into
spiritual latitudes where the law of love is the only bond of union.”
Mrs. Eddy did not move to Concord to
establish a material church organization but to help mortals see how the
material body (for which the church was a symbol) was to be laid off, and
replaced with man's spiritual body or oneness with God. She wanted to show us
how to fulfil the fact that “Principle and its idea is one, and this one
is God [Principle, Life, Truth, and Love]” (465).
Francie: Mrs. Eddy realized how
difficult it was for most of us to understand that the matter we see around us
in our waking hours is no more real than the matter we see in our dreams. In
the night dream we meet men and women; these dream-people appear to have life
in their bodies, intelligence, activity, and yet when that change of
consciousness takes place which we call waking up, we realize that the objects,
people, circumstances in our dream were all illusions. There was nothing real
about anything that went on in the dream. The whole sense of life,
intelligence, substance, and activity was all false. There was no real life or
intelligence or substance in those people in our dream. The bear that was
chasing us, or the neighbors who came to call, in our dream, were pure
illusion.
We all have to see that life and
intelligence are no more in matter than are honesty and loyalty, graciousness,
or good humor. It was clear to her that just as the sleeper is mesmerized to
believe that his dream is real, so is the daydream of material existence but a
mesmeric state. This waking dream state is ended only by the dreamer awaking to
the spiritual fact that man is just an image in the Mind of God, the divine
Principle, Love, that Mind and Mind's idea are one. Life and intelligence are
the emanations of God, and are reflected by man and beast.
Bessie: After moving to Concord why
did Mrs. Eddy state in the June, 1894 Journal, p. 94, “My work with The
Mother Church is done”? (The italics are hers.)
Moderator: For one thing, The Mother
Church was a symbol for the mortal body which must be laid down. She had moved
to Concord to bring the Bride-consciousness into Science and Health. In
preparation for completing her Word—particularly with reference to the
addition of the city foursquare, or Bride, to her Apocalypse—she had
dissolved her first Boston church which was founded on Jesus and
“manifested” Fatherhood only. (562:3-7)
The Mother Church, which she called upon
twelve of her students to organize, was two steps behind Bride, says Alice
Orgain, in Detached Branch, p. 367. This was because revelation always
precedes founding or demonstration, and it isn't a backward step to find out
where one's feet (Church, foundation) are, after seeing a higher vision of
oncoming glory. Being aware of where one's feet are only steadies the feet and
intelligently directs them to their goal of the fulfilment of one's vision.
Those who were satisfied with theory only,
and didn't see Mrs. Eddy's necessity to unite vision and demonstration, accused
Mrs. Eddy of inconsistency. But Mrs. Eddy's consistency lay in the fact that
she remained out of the footsteps of her Church (which symbolized the mortal
body and the warfare between the flesh and the Spirit) up to her vision for the
completion of her Church-history, which she then totally dismantled through the
estoppel clauses in the Manual. Mrs. Eddy merely fed her church (as its
Pastor or Pastor Emeritus) until it reached her vision. Then the Church
(symbolizing the material body) was dissolved.
This explains why Mrs. Eddy had no (visible)
participation in the building of The Mother Church which was built as a
testimonial to her—to her completed Motherhood. This is why she said at
the laying of its cornerstone, “My work with The Mother Church is
done.” While Mrs. Eddy could never join in the activity or building of a
Church below her mentality, her revealed and published vision (meaning all her
writings) made it a spiritual necessity to found her steps in the human
consciousness and become a Leader to that end. She alone had seen the vision.
She alone knew how it must be reached, and reached in strict conformity with
the prophecy of Jesus in John's Revelation. So from her Concord
“retirement” Mrs. Eddy remained outside the pale of
“founding” but constantly fed her founding with her vision, and bore
the suffering of its apathy. The lethargy and passiveness of the field prodded
Mrs. Eddy to more and more practical leading. She must complete the human
footsteps in her founding to the point of the Bride, meaning to the point of
showing humanity it was one with its divine Principle, Love.
The textbook had to be brought to the point
where it was capable of leading the student into a divinely scientific
consciousness which would supplant the mortal consciousness relying on the
testimony of the five physical senses. The knowledge obtained from the physical
senses leads to sin, to human birth, and consequently to death. This meant that
“a knowledge of error and its oper-ations must precede that understanding
of Truth which destroys error, until the entire mortal, material error finally
disappears, and the eternal verity, man created by and of Spirit, is understood
and recognized as the true likeness of his Maker” (252:8). Also,
“Ignorance of the error to be eradicated…subjects you to its
abuse” (446:31).
Mrs. Eddy had to expose and denounce error,
uncover it and lay it bare because, as Jesus said, “Ye cannot fill vessels
already full.”
So, “in the year 1889, to gain a higher
hope for the race, I closed my College . .. and sought in solitude and silence
a higher understanding of the absolute scientific unity which must exist
between the teaching and letter of Christianity and the spirit of Christianity,
dwelling forever in the divine Mind or Principle of man's being and revealed
through the human character” (My. 246). Her aloneness was that of one
whose certainty of God's leading presses on to meet the great demand—the
demand to complete her textbook, buttress it with proof, and commit it to the
providence of God.
Rocky: What do you think she meant by
“a higher understanding of the absolute scientific unity which must exist
between the teaching and letter of Christianity and the spirit of
Christianity” What is it that is revealed through the human character?
Anna: Regarding the “human
character” through which the spirit of Christianity must be revealed, it
is that character of which Mrs. Eddy speaks in Unity of Good (49:8):
“The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be
sinless” because the only sin is to believe in an existence separate from
God. The reality and substance of the true “human character” are
good and nothing else. “Through the eternal reality of existence
[we] reach, in thought, a glorified consciousness of the only living God and
the genuine man” (Un. 49:11).
We reach this true human character as we wed
ourselves to Love, meaning as we become Love. In her last class, the class of
1898, she urged her students to be Love because when Love is expressing
itself as love, we are the bridal-consciousness that is symbolized by the city
foursquare. Then we are expressing the absolute scientific unity that must
exist between the teaching and letter of Christianity and the spirit of
Christianity. When we are Love expressing itself as Love, we are dwelling
forever in the divine Mind or Principle, and this is being expressed through
the human character. This is also “the divine concurrence of the spirit
and the Word.” She also speaks of it as “the spirit and the
bride—the Word and the wedding of this Word to all human thought and
action” (My. 153:27) which would be the letter and the spirit of
Christianity revealed through the human character.
Bill: After leaving Boston Mrs. Eddy
did a monumental job on the new edition of Science and Health—the 50th.
She made it clear that to be a genuine Christian Scientist, Love must become
the sole law of our being—the beginning and the end of our being.
In a Journal article (Vol. IX, p. 1) entitled “Science
and Health, Fiftieth Edition,” published under the name of a student but
known to have come from the pen of Mrs. Eddy, we read:This new volume continues
to be a rebuke to the personal senses and, as such, will prove no more
acceptable to the sensualist than have former editions; in fact, it must prove
less so, since it takes us upon higher ground ... Christian Science in the new
volume explains nothing to carnal or mortal mind to gratify its curiosity, or
to render easier a compliance with its mandates: instead, the book will be
found to be arrayed against all error, and it will be surprising if even in us
many errors that hitherto have been smoldering are now, by its perusal, aroused
to hostility.
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy knew that inductive or deductive
reasoning is correct only as it is spiritual, induced by love and deduced from
Spirit. In “Fundamental Christian Science,” (My. 349:27-10) she
states the fundamental proposition that inductive and deductive reasoning is
correct only as it makes manifest the infinite nature, including all law and
supplying all the needs of man. Concerning materialistic reasoning she
states:“ ... Wholly hypothetical, inductive reasoning reckons creation as
its own creator, seeks cause in effect, and from atom and dust draws its
conclusions of Deity and man ... leaving science at the beck of material
phenomena, or leaving it out of the question. To begin with the divine
noumenon, Mind, and to end with the phenomenon, matter (the material, mortal
man] is minus divine logic and plus human hypothesis, with its effects, sin,
disease, and death. It was in this dilemma that revelation, uplifting human
reason, came to the writer's rescue, when calmly and rationally, though
faintly, she spiritually discerned the divine idea of the cosmos and Science of
man.”There can be no realization of Love wedded to its own spiritual
idea as long as the belief in human procreation and human birth continues.
Only in proportion as human generation ceases can the unbroken links of
eternal, harmonious being be discerned. Only as human generation ceases can
man's coexistence with God appear “and the natural order of heaven [come)
down to earth.”
Significance of
Estoppel Clauses
Bill: The Mother Church was a symbol of the human
body that must be laid down, and this is the real significance of the estoppel
clauses in the Manual. Their true import is the estopping of the
continuation of mortal procreation. When Mrs. Eddy says, “From first to
last The Mother Church seemed type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh
and the Spirit,” no logical conclusion can be drawn concerning the reason
for the estoppel clauses other than their spiritual significance in connection
with the estopping of the belief in a “flesh” creation. Why else is
it that “eternity awaits our Church Manual”? When the divine
Mind's creations become natural to us and supplant mortal mind's
dream-creations, time will have been encompassed. This is why “eternity
awaits our Church Manual” which governs the “Church” that
symbolized the warfare between the flesh and the Spirit. This warfare between
the flesh and the Spirit is concerned with the overcoming of human birth and
all that follows in its wake, and the estopping of it.
Moderator: Yes, that's correct, Bill.
Perhaps we can go into this subject more deeply when our topic is The Mother
Church.
Rookie: How does the Spirit overcome
the flesh?
Moderator: Margie, would you like to
answer that?
Margie: By rising above the temporal
dream or rubbish of error—belief in sin, sickness, and death. Each one
must learn that God is the only Life. When the belief that life and sensation
are in the body has been estopped, has been overcome by the understanding of
what constitutes man as the image of God, then the estoppel clauses will have
been put into operation and honored, and Spirit will have overcome flesh. Then
“the warfare between the flesh and the Spirit,” which The Mother
Church symbolized, will have ceased.
Mrs. Eddy moved to Concord with the
intention of making this fundamental truth of Christian Science clearer than
she had heretofore. The next 382 editions did, indeed, take us to progressively
higher ground.
“The divine must overcome the human at
every point,” says Mrs. Eddy. So, we must “take divine
Science…Study it, ponder it.” You eat the divine body of this
Principle as you approach nearer and nearer this Principle, partaking of the
nature or the primal elements of Truth and Love. (See 559:20.)
Moderator: Bill brought out that Mrs.
Eddy regarded The Mother Church as a symbol of the organic body of mankind
which she labored to lead humanity to lay off, even as Jesus laid off his
mortal body. The mortal body was to be exchanged for the divine body set forth
in the textbook. The following is Joseph Mann's report of a little Easter
sermon Mrs. Eddy preached to her household:You must get rid of the 'old
man,' the old woman; you cannot make them better and keep them. You are not
getting rid of the old man if you try to make him better. If you should succeed
in making him better, he would stay with you. If you patch up the old and say
it is good enough, you do not put it off, but keep it. If you try to make the
old satisfactory, you are preparing to keep it, not to put it off.
We have but one Mind; and to abide in this
perfect freedom of individuality is the resurrection—is to have risen
above material or lower demands. The resurrective sense is positive; it is
'yea, yea, and nay, nay.' The resurrective sense does not listen compromisingly
to error [to the demands and lusts of the flesh]. It is always about its
Father's business, reflecting Principle. Jesus' whole life was resurrective.
That is, his life was a constant conscious rising spiritually above sin,
sickness, death; and his resurrection from the grave was, to sense, a type of
divine Love's final triumph over the human belief that matter is substance, or
has power to impose limitations on Mind or man. (DCC. 98)The continuous
revelations that came to Jesus caused his mortal body to be translated out of
the belief of flesh, blood, and bones. Mrs. Eddy used The Mother Church for the
same purpose—as a symbol of the mortal body that must be translated.
“ 'The new tongue' is the spiritual meaning as opposed to the material. It
is the language of Soul instead of senses; it translates matter into its
original language, which is Mind, and gives the spiritual instead of material
signification” (Hea. 7:8).
Under the impact of the revelations we receive
from Science and Health, our seeming matter body will yield to the true and
ever-present spiritual body, Mind's body, since Mind and its idea is all that
really exists. The body of Christ or the body of divine Principle is the
integral system of God's ideas which must be studied, pondered, learned, as she
admonishes on page 559:19-26. Every forward thrust opens vistas to grander and
higher steps yet to be taken. Finally man will realize that he lives in a
universe where all good is infinite, where we “understand true humanhood
... [and] see it to be sinless—as ignorant of sin as is the perfect
Maker” (Un. 49:8). This would be the result of obedience to the true
meaning of the “estoppel” clauses.
Recess
Mrs. Eddy's Legacy of
Scientific Operation
Tommy: I would like to stress that when
Mrs. Eddy moved to Concord it was to bring about the “culmination of
scientific statement” which would make Science and Health the teacher and
thus replace all personal teaching. This impersonal teaching would unfold
infinitely as its system and Science was understood in its differentiation and
integration, and in its analysis and synthesis, which always operate
simultaneously to produce harmonious results. The operation of this Principle
shows us the reality of our being and our true relationship with all things
spiritual.
Individuality is the reflection of Principle
so there can be no individuality divided from Principle. We all come from the
same source and we all combine in scientific unity to form Truth's compound
idea. All must be integrated within the one universal being. Similarly all the
figures and calculations in mathematics come from the principle of mathematics.
Mrs. Eddy, in her “retirement”
continuously urged us to take possession of our inheritance. “Heirs of
God, and joint heirs with Christ,” she said, “we are partakers of an
inheritance where there is no division of estate.” We take possession of
our inheritance when we are governed by Principle alone.
What we inherit is an understanding
of the seven synonymous terms which constitute a system of ideas that
operate through the fourfold divine infinite calculus of Word, Christ,
Christianity, and Science. Mrs. Eddy's “system” involves the synonymy
principle. Her seven terms for God are not equinyms—words of equal
meaning. Her seven terms for God are SYNONYMS, namely, “words of
like implication only in one or two or more senses. Thus dull is
a synonym of stupid as said of a pupil, but not as said of a
knife” (Webster). A knife can be dull but not stupid. From this example we
can see that synonyms are words which are alike in some respects, but may have
marked differences of meaning and are interchangeable only when their
difference doesn't affect the meaning intended. Mrs. Eddy's seven synonyms are
interchangeable only when they refer to God. If the seven synonyms for
God were freely interchangeable there would be no “system” in the
textbook, just as there would be no system in arithmetic if 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.
were equal and meant exactly the same thing. There could be no system in music
if do, re, mi, fa, sol, Is, ti, do, all meant exactly the same thing. They all
refer to the principle of music, but that is where the sameness ends. A science
is built on differences, whether it is the science of arithmetic, of music, or
of divine metaphysics. If Mrs. Eddy's seven synonyms all meant exactly the same
thing there would be no point in having seven. The seven synonyms operating
through the four mediums of Word, Christ, Christianity, and Science constitute
a divine Science that is governed by spiritual laws that hold man “in the
rhythmic round of unfolding bliss” (Mis. 83:1).
When understood, the order, diversification,
categories, and system enable each student to be a law unto himself, to be
scientific divine consciousness. This understanding, in turn, is the Spirit
itself, and makes the letter and the Spirit one—“the divine
concurrence of the spirit and the Word” (My. 246:20).
Mrs. Eddy hid this system of divine ideas in
the textbook to await discernment through spiritual growth and exalted vision.
Her move to Concord was for the purpose of perfecting this divine system (the
“Comforter”) so it could lead all mankind into the land of Christian
Science where “fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and
acknowledged.”
Tina: What causes the fetters to
fall?
Francie: We have just seen that
“Christian Science healing is 'the Spirit and the bride'—the Word and
the wedding of this Word to all human thought and action” (My.
153:27). It is making practical what is in Science and Health that causes
the fetters to fall.
Tommy: It was after Mrs. Eddy moved
to Concord that she perfected the divine system of ideas in Science and Health
and so fulfilled the prophecy she made in the fiftieth edition, that gradually
the evidence gained up to the fiftieth edition would gather momentum and
clearness until it reached its culmination of scientific statement. (380:25)
Rookie: Why did the rapid growth and
expansion of Christian Science slowly grind to a halt after Mrs. Eddy left the
scene?
Kathleen: That's a good question,
Rookie, When Mark Twain changed his opinion of Christian Science and began
enthusiastically supporting it, he predicted: this “new religion will
conquer half of Christendom in a hundred years.” This might have happened
had the momentum built up by Mrs. Eddy continued. Two factors, however, did not
favor a rapid expansion of Christian Science by any large number: first, the
disobedience of her students; and second, mankind's natural preference for
turning over to others the custody of spiritual affairs.
Sally: Too many people find the
excitement of pageantry more stimulating than study and solitude with God. As
Kathleen indicated, had the healings and the regeneration of hopeless human
beings continued on the scale achieved during Mrs. Eddy's lifetime—and for
40 years following because of the momentum Mrs. Eddy built up—Mark Twain's
prediction might have been realized. Mrs. Eddy brought to earth the power of
Love to overturn, to reform, to heal.
She was the life-link through which the Word
was made flesh, meaning the Word is made flesh as the message in her teaching
and writing is assimilated. It is our understanding of God and what we
are spiritually that constitutes the life-link through which the real reaches
the unreal to reform, to heal, and to usher in the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Moderator: Yes, Sally, that's right.
With Mrs. Eddy the important thing was healing. She was grievously disappointed
in the demonstration of Christian Science and frequently warned that there must
be better healing work or our cause would float off into theory.
In the pulpit a revival was needed—an
outpouring of love, of the Spirit that beareth witness. She had found it
essential when she was pastor to lead them by her own state of love and
spirituality.
To divine Mind, matter doesn't exist; it is
an error of statement. But to mortals the material sense of everything has to
be relinquished through an orderly process and discipline. You can't simply
talk it away. This is why Science and Health has four levels of spiritual
consciousness, which take in the relative and the absolute; and much of Science
and Health is written on the level of Christian Science which specifically
handles error with Truth—“the term Christian Science relates
especially to Science as applied to humanity,” to erroneous conditions and
beliefs.
Lida Fitzpatrick in her memoirs quotes Mrs.
Eddy's warning: “Unless there is less teaching, less church making, and
better healing, and more of it, our denomination will sink into the slough of
past sects in having a religion of the letter without the spirit—of
doctrine without demonstration.”
Fading of Matter
Beliefs
Francie: It is the demonstration
of this Science that is the lifelink. It is demonstration alone that can
usher us into the third baptism, the final immersion of human consciousness in
the infinite ocean of Love where matter is unknown and is as obsolete as the
flat earth. But the link to this consciousness of divine Love is demonstration.
Hence Truth's “embodiment in the incarnate Jesus—that life-link
forming the connection through which the real reaches the unreal, Soul rebukes
sense, and Truth destroys error” (350:27-30). It was the truth lived by
Mrs. Eddy that enabled her to be the life-link in founding Christian Science in
human consciousness. Christian Science is the Word made flesh on a world-wide
scale. The Word is the spirit of Truth, the knowing of it.
Bessie: What does “the Word made
flesh” mean?
Francie: The Bible speaks of Jesus'
teachings as “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John
1:14). Today the Word is in the form of a Science that can reach all mankind.
It comes to the flesh and translates humanity out of its fleshly beliefs. In so
doing Christian Science reveals you to be “incorporeal, divine, supreme
infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth and Love.
As a ray of light is sent by the sun to do
its appointed work on earth, so Jesus was sent by God, Principle, Love, to
lighten the spiritual darkness of the world. When Jesus prophesied (John 14:16)
that God would send the “Comforter” or spirit of Truth, he was
prophesying that the truth he had exemplified and individualized in his own
life and work would come as a universal divine Science which could be
demonstrated by all who accepted and practised its revelation of the true
nature of being. Thus the second appearing of Jesus has come as a Science,
which is now at work. This Science is destroying the entire mass of error,
“and the scientific ultimate of this God idea must be, will be, forever
individual, incorporeal, and infinite, even the reflection, 'image and
likeness,' of the infinite God” (Ret. 70:23). Mrs. Eddy once said,
“man is as big as God.” One infinite God can have only one infinite
reflection: therefore man is always the full reflection of God.
Billy: When Mrs. Eddy said that one
infinite God can have only one infinite reflection, doesn't that wipe out all
sense of individuality'?
Moderator: No, indeed, Billy. It does
NOT WIPE OUT INDIVIDUALITY, but on the contrary gives to every man infinite
individuality. This however should be carefully explained or else the thought
unprepared for such a vast spiritual concept will chemicalize and make trouble
for the teacher.
Francie: The personal sense of
individuality was exposed as nothingness by Jesus when he taught that of mine
own self I can do nothing, but if I let the “I” go to the Father,
Principle, and realize that Principle and its idea, man, are one thing, then
all power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Then I am “the Christ,
the Son of the living God,” as Peter discerned. (See Matt. 16:16.) What
Jesus understood, taught, and demonstrated was the Christ. Proportionately as
we assimilate the teaching of the first and second coming of the Christ it can
also be said of each one of us: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God,” which makes us the full reflection of God, and gives us
infinite individuality.
Sally: As St. John foretold, Mrs. Eddy through her
discovery of divine Science is showing humanity how to do, on a universal
scale, what Jesus did individually. It is now only a matter of spiritual
education. On every side we see signs of matter disappearing under the
microscope of Spirit. Our advanced physicists are seeing the unreality of
matter, and expressing great astonishment and admiration for Mrs. Eddy's
scientific statement of being: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor
substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation for
God is All-in-all . .. “(468:9). As a result of the teaching of this
divine Science, misconceptions indulged since the beginning of time are
disappearing.
Scientific Statement and
Proof
Moderator: What were some of the big
changes made in 1891 by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health that she knew would
lead to “Its culmination of scientific statement” and make Science
and Health a truly scientific textbook?
Florence: In the fiftieth edition
Mrs. Eddy revised the material in the various chapters so it would conform to
the 1907 definition of God; that is, the Mind section would be the initial one,
followed by what is characterized as Spirit, then Soul, then Principle, then
Life, then Truth, and lastly, Love. In general each subject in the textbook was
arranged according to the Word order, or her definition of God (465) as Mind,
Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love. This textual arrangement, however,
is only discernible to those who have made an in-depth study of the seven
synonymous terms for God. (Much explanatory material concerning this subject is
available from Rare Book Company.
In 1902 Mrs. Eddy further arranged the
chapters scientifically—the first four chapters characterizing the Word;
the second four chapters characterizing the Christ; the third set of four
chapters characterizing Christianity; and the last four chapters characterizing
Science. She wanted to make Christian Science discernible in its scientific
message, so it would unfold infinitely as any other science does. Therefore,
today Science, “the Comforter,” the headstone of the corner, can be
learned step by step as a system of divine ideas. This is what is comforting.
Moderator: Who can tell us what are
the three great categories of this divine system which constitute reality?
Sally: The three great categories
are:
- the seven synonymous terms for God: Mind, Spirit, Soul,
Principle, Life, Truth, and Love
- the four mediums through which the synonyms are
expressed, namely, Word, Christ, Christianity, and Science
- the four levels on which they operate, namely, Science
itself, divine Science, absolute Christian Science, and Christian Science
When our consciousness operates in harmony
with these three great categories of being it is one with the structure of
reality, and operates as the structure of reality.
Moderator: We can see Mrs. Eddy
wanted to make Christian Science clearly perceptible as a Science that could be
learned and understood, because what can be understood can be
demonstrated. Her colossal accomplishments during the next two decades
vindicated her decision to seek the seclusion necessary to revise the textbook.
She had seen that “the letter plentifully reaches humanity today, but its
spirit comes only in small degrees.” It was the spirit which was the need
of the hour, and which must be embedded in the message. “The vital part,
the heart and soul of Christian Science,” she said, “is Love. Without
this, the letter is but the dead body of Science.”
Francie: As has already been said, it
was this fiftieth edition Mrs. Eddy was working on in 1890 in which she
predicted the finality of her revelation when she wrote: “Many years ago
the author made a spiritual discovery, the scientific evidence of which has
accumulated to prove that the divine Mind produces in man health, harmony, and
immortality. Gradually this evidence will gather momentum and clearness, until
it reaches its culmination of scientific statement and proof” (380:22).
During the next twenty years that evidence
did indeed gather “momentum and clearness.” So unabated was the
stream of revelation pouring forth, that Readers in the churches sometimes
purchased a new Science and Health every month in order to be sure of having
Mrs. Eddy's latest revelations. During the next twenty years three hundred and
eighty-two editions flowed from the presses. Each edition contained changes,
each brought more of the Bride's descent into the Word of Science and Health.
By 1910 Science and Health had reached its culmination of scientific
statement, and held within itself the divine seed that would unfold infinitely
in proof of its divinity. The many books today being published, explaining the
scientific system embedded in our textbook, bear eloquent testimony to this
infinite evolvement. Dedicated students of Christian Science will continue to
make ever higher discoveries in the textbook concerning the system of
Christian Science and what it involves as it impels them higher and higher from
a boundless basis.
Grace: Speaking of this full and
final revelation that now needs only to be learned and practised, Mrs. Eddy
said, “God wrote the textbook.” And “what God has spoken to this
age through me is the way and sure foundation, and no man entereth by
any other way into Christian Science” (DCC. 218).
What Mrs. Eddy wrote is destined to “rule
with a rod of iron”—it will “rule ... imperatively, absolutely,
finally” (565:16).
SESSION XI: DEATH OF THE
PERSONAL SENSE OF MRS. EDDY
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy's teaching
allowed no place for death anymore than it did for sickness. She made no claim
for herself: “I cannot speak of myself as 'sufficient for these things.'
“ She had before written in Unity of Good, “I insist only upon the
fact, as it exists in Science, that man dies not,” and she met every
onslaught of death upon herself and those around her with unshaken confidence
that even if the victory was not yet, it would be. “Our brothers are not
dead, neither do they sleep nor rest from their labors and their works do
follow them,” was her steadfast conviction and the tenor of her teaching.
The only enemy was a belief in a power apart from God, in a word, mental
malpractise.
Juliann: Mrs. Eddy knew there was
only one universe, didn't she? Why does everyone think there is a different
universe in what we call the “hereafter”?
Florence: The belief in another
universe arises from the fact that our present viewpoint is wrong. As du Nouy
tells us in his Human Destiny, p. 19, “It is the scale of
observation which creates the phenomenon. The scale of observation depends on
man; it is he who creates it.” When we take a limited view of the divine
universe we see a material universe. But taking a limited view doesn't make the
universe material. It only makes it appear so. Just as when everyone took a
limited view of the earth and concluded it was flat, their limited view didn't
make the earth flat, it only made it appear flat. In the same way there isn't a
material universe which we are now living in and besides it a spiritual
universe which we hope someday to escape to. There is only the spiritual
universe, and looking at it from a material point of view doesn't change the
one spiritual universe into a material universe.
Billy: What is the real universe
composed of?
Florence: The only universe that
really exists is the infinite image and likeness of Mind, Spirit, Soul,
Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. The only universe is this universe we are now
living in, but we must learn to see it spiritually. Nothing ever changes except
our point of view. Mrs. Eddy knew she wasn't going anywhere. No one can ever
get outside of Mind's omnipresence. Heaven is a state of Mind. We only need to
change our viewpoint, our way of thinking, in order to find heaven here.
Moderator: Thank you, Florence, that
is absolutely right. And so as Mrs. Eddy entered the calm of the westering
light of her long crusade, the allness of…” Love more and more
occupied her thought. “Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so
filled with Truth and Love that sin, disease, and death cannot enter
them…” (My. 210). If love is the fulfilling of the law, then
the belief in the opposite of love is all there is to death, and the only thing
that leads to death.
Motherhood
Ceasing
Rookie: Did Mrs. Eddy at any time
give notice that she felt the motherhood phase of her mission was coming to an
end?—by motherhood I mean her personal teaching phase.
Moderator: If you mean, did she
signal her approaching personal departure, the answer is yes. In the third
edition of Science and Health in 1907, Mrs. Eddy for the first time inserted
the paragraph, beginning: “if you or I should appear to die, we should not
be dead” (164:17-29). To the alert this was a notice that Mrs. Eddy
realized the time for withdrawal of motherhood had come, in fulfilment of the
scriptural prophecy of the final “half a time” of motherhood. (Rev.
12:14, Dan. 12:7; see also My. 181:27) “The half a time” of
motherhood means motherhooding couldn't go on forever. After she had founded
Truth in human consciousness, the other “half a time” would be the
taking over of the impersonal Word, her writings, often called “the
Bride.” When we discuss the Book of Revelation this subject will be more
fully dealt with.
Commenting on this 1907 addition to Science
and Health, Mrs. Orgain says it was “the first time Mrs. Eddy ever placed
herself under the possibility of 'death.' To the observant Christian Scientists
it was a great shock, causing them to ponder anew the fourteenth verse of the
twelfth chapter of Revelation which Mrs. Eddy had refrained from interpreting.
In the fourteenth verse was contained this mystical statement concerning the
limit of the time she would be 'sustained' as Mother against the persecutions
of the dragon [mesmerism, animal magnetism, the opposite of all the God-crowned
woman stands for].
Tina: What did Revelation 12:14 say?
Juliann: It reads “And to the
woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the
wilderness, into her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and
half a time from the face of the serpent.”
Marie: Why would she refrain from
interpreting that? It obviously refers to her mission.
Grace: It is a prophecy that the time
of the “mothering” phase of her God-appointed mission would have to
end. Mrs. Eddy saw it as prophesying her personal withdrawal from the human
scene so her written Word (Bride) could take over and be All-in-all to each one
of US.
In explanation of this, Alice Orgain says
that Mrs. Eddy's omitting to interpret this Scripture was in line with her
commendation of Jesus under like conditions: “Haply [Jesus) waited for a
preparation of the human heart to receive startling announcements” (Mis.
84:2).
Moderator: Mrs. Orgain speaks of the
shock it was to alert readers when Mrs. Eddy added that paragraph (S&H
164:17-29) to the textbook. Do you think anyone today would be shocked by what
is written there?
Anna: No. What Mrs. Eddy has written
and taught on the subject of death has so penetrated the world's thinking that
today many people feel death is only a subject for undertakers. “If Mind
is within and without all things, then all is Mind” (257:1). There is no
matter to die. “Mortals awaken from the dream of death with bodies unseen
by those who think that they bury the body” (429:17).
Tina: Doesn't Mrs. Eddy say that when
examined in the light of divine Science, mortals present more than is detected
on the surface, since inverted thoughts and erroneous beliefs must be
counterfeits of Truth? (267:19)
Anna: Yes. She is telling us that we
are not mortals. When viewed from divine Science, she says, we are immortals.
It is only our false viewpoint that makes us look to each other as though we
were mortals.
When asked, “What connection is there
between the mortal and the immortal,” Eustace replied, “Exactly the
same difference that there is between two times two is five, and two times two
is four, or between any lie and the truth about which it is the lie.”
“It is self-evident that there can be
no lie about anything if the truth about it does not exist first. Because this
is so, a lie is merely the misstatement of a fact. A lie is not something of
itself, nor does it have any substance or mind of its own. It borrows all from
the truth about which it is the lie, and misstates it . . . “
(Eustace-Clar Correct Teaching p.267).
Jackie: Physicists today are telling
us that what we think of as matter is mostly empty space. Solid bodies, they
say, are made up of atoms in motion. Things that seem solid to our senses are
mostly open space. They feel there is no reason why the physical body could not
be interpenetrated with another body of a different rate of vibration.
Physicists also tell us that what appears to be a solid object to our point of
view, would not be to the thought that has advanced to a different point of
view, but that things on their plane of existence would be solid to
them.
Moderator: This throws light on a
statement made by Mrs. Eddy that has long puzzled students: namely, “What
thou needest to know is that mortal mind has translated the body and its
functions into matter, and immortal Mind gives back the original with its
functions preserved and harmonious, but not as not in matter, but as and of
Mind” (EOF. viii). The fact that all is infinite Mind infinitely
expressed, doesn't mean we will “lose the solid objects and ends of life
nor [our] own identity.” Rather, by breaking away from the mutations of
time and sense and fixing our gaze on reality we will rise to the spiritual
consciousness of being (261:24) where things are just as solid, but where all
is harmony and there is no sense of human birth—all tears shall be wiped
away from our eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain. The former illusions are wiped
away. (Rev. 21:4)
Tina: Returning to our main subject,
how did Mrs. Eddy know that the time had come for her withdrawal from
motherhood—that the motherhood phase of her mission was drawing to a
close? In a word, how did she know the time had come for Science and Health to
take over and lead humanity into the land of Science—the promised land
where fetters fall? (227:1)
Moderator: To Mrs. Eddy—God's
faithful, watchful sentinel, always working on a plane of thought far above the
human—there were many indications.
Mrs. Eddy's 1890
Prophecy Fulfilled
The change from eight synonyms for God to
seven synonyms was a vital factor in fulfilling her prophecy in the fiftieth
edition that gradually the evidence of her discovery would gather momentum and
clearness until it reached its culmination of scientific statement.
Billy: Why?
Moderator: Because the eighth synonym
had been “Incorporeal Being.” In the fourth edition of 1907 this
synonym descended to man as God's gift or reflection, so we have salvation as a
gift and not labor. (442:25-29) The other seven synonyms for God constitute the
elements of man's divine being—of your incorporeal being, Billy. The
change to seven synonyms brought the entire textbook into conformity, and gave
evidence of how closely Mrs. Eddy had listened to God during the preceding
forty-one years. And it enabled her to replace her denunciation of mortal mind
(on the flyleaf of Science and Health) with her paean of praise and
thanksgiving, as we saw in a former Session.
Many other statements indicating the descent
of the Bride had appeared in Science and Health since Mrs. Eddy's move to
Concord. Let us mention just a few. She defined man and woman as
“elements” and “native qualities” (57). She withdrew
permission for marriage, and placed it in the category of resistance of the
human will to revealed Truth. She added page 68:27—69:30 to our textbook.
She dropped the capitalization of wisdom, intelligence, and substance, giving
these qualities to man, God's reflection. The Extension to The Mother Church
had great spiritual significance as a mystical symbol of the fulfilment of Mrs.
Eddy's bridal mission, superseding her motherhood phase. It symbolized the end
of human procreation, the first death, as it closed our eyes to our divine
being.
When they laid the cornerstone of the
Concord Branch (1903) on Mrs. Eddy's birthday, she said it pointed to the new
birth, heaven here, the struggle over. (My. 158:12) Naturally, for us
the struggle goes on until we have assimilated the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy
and allowed them to transform us. We must overcome all error—“the
divine must overcome the human at every point” (43:27). Then our God-being
is revealed to us as the God-being we have always been, just as in days gone
by, the round earth was revealed to those who had believed it flat. The round
earth had always been there and was unaffected by mistaken beliefs.
There were many other changes indicating the
descent of the Bride into Science and Health, which, in turn, indicated
that Mrs. Eddy was making all preparations to relinquish her personal or
wilderness-woman Leadership to the Leadership of her Word (the Bride).
Diane: Would you explain what is
meant by “wilderness-woman Leadership”?
Moderator: To put it simply, Diane,
It refers to Mrs. Eddy's personal teaching, to her personal direction of the
students. Mrs. Eddy's personal withdrawal would force the students to go to her
writings for answers to their questions, and to go to God directly. They could
no longer lean on her, personally, for teaching.
Bessie: Were there any negative
indications to Mrs. Eddy that the time was nearing for her personal
withdrawal—that it was time for her textbook, the impersonal Word (Bride),
to take over?
Margie: Yes, the resistance to her
Word in Christian Science assumed great violence during the latter part of 1906
and in 1907. Her son's legal persecution of “mother,” and the
inordinate persistence of some sections of the press to vilify and slander Mrs.
Eddy, were all indications that the time had come for the impersonal teachings
of Science and Health to take over.
Lyman Johnson records that scarcely a day
went by during this trying period that Mrs. Eddy wasn't held up, subversively,
as a race annihilist, on the front pages on certain hostile newspapers. The
most noxious was The World, a New York paper. It instigated the infamous
“Next Friends” suite—Mrs. Eddy's son's legal persecution of her.
The World was using him to discredit Mrs. Eddy, pandering to his envy of
those close and dear to his mother and to his greed and fear that they might
inherit her fortune.
Tina: I have been wanting to ask what
part Mrs. Eddy's three marriages played. She states (107:3), “God had been
graciously preparing me during many years for the reception of this final
revelation….”
Anna: Mrs. Orgain gives a plausible
answer when she speaks of Mrs. Eddy's statement (Mis. 298:14), “it is not
good to marry.” But if one does marry, Mrs. Eddy holds them to faithful
allegiance thereto after the obligation has been assumed. This, says, Mrs.
Orgain, applies with equal force to church obligations, or to the obligation of
any debt. One who owes a debt to the Bride, Word, by reason of having
contracted a marriage outside; one who owes a debt to Church, by reason of
failing to see the true idea in the “spiritually organized Church”
(Ret. 44); and one who owes a debt to man, by reason of failing to see
God's all supply—all must be paid to the utmost farthing before one is as
free as the one who has not contracted these obligations. The wise and the
foolish virgins are not in the same class. (See Matt. 25:1-13.) Jesus, says
Mrs. Orgain, contracted none of them; Mrs. Eddy contracted all of them, hence
she was forced to find the scientific solution for all of them. This made her
of necessity the Bride! (The Detached Branch, p. 342-343)
Bill: Returning to how Mrs. Eddy knew
the time had come for her Motherhood withdrawal, wasn't opposition also arising
from many quarters in the church such as the opposition of men asserting
supremacy over woman? And wasn't there also rebellion in the Board of Directors
against Mrs. Eddy's provision in the Manual for The Mother Church to
pass out of existence when Mrs. Eddy's signature was no longer available?
Margie: Yes. The Board of Directors
refused to recognize the rationality of Mrs. Eddy's estoppel clauses. These
prohibitive provisions stripped the Board of Directors of all powers except
those legally given them in the Deed of Trust in the Manual, pp.
128-135. The record shows that her Board of Directors made repeated visits to
her home, pleading with her to permit the continuance of The Mother Church
after her passing, and permitting the 5 member Board of Directors to continue
after her passing.
There were, of course, other negative
factors. These persecutions, which continued even into 1909, elicited much
sympathy from the field, to which Mrs. Eddy responded with the wonderful
statement that she did not regard these attacks upon her as a trial, “for
when these things cease to bless they will cease to occur” (My.
143:22). They blessed Mrs. Eddy by negatively revealing to her that it was time
for Motherhood to yield to the impersonal Bride as Word. The textbook, Science
&Health, is the Bride.
Anna: Returning to the symbol of
“time, times, and half a time,” Mrs. Eddy noted the coincidence of
the beginning of her mission in Christian Science (1866) as being
according to Daniel's prophecy that a great revelation would occur at that
time. (My. 181:28). His prophecy also included a prophecy of the
'end' of her mission as being 'for a time, times, and an half,'
(Daniel 12:6,7). Since Daniel's prophecy of the 'time, times, and an half'
accorded exactly with the prophecy of Jesus concerning herself (Rev. 12:14),
she therefore undoubtedly accepted the prophecy of her leaving (symbolized by
an 'half a time') as inescapable.
Juliann: What does the mystical
expression “Time, times, and half a time” mean?
Moderator: We know it has no
connection with time, but rather with the decisive spirital events of Mrs.
Eddy's mission. This is evidenced by the fact that the man angel who brought
the “little book” had previously sworn (in the tenth chapter of
Revelation) “that there [would] be time no longer” (Rev. 10:6). All
prophecy is timeless and only awaits a like-mindedness. It awaits the
“disappearance of material sense before the conscious facts of spiritual
Truth” (593:4). The things of the Spirit are timeless. Two thousand years
ago Jesus said, “The time is at hand.” (See scriptural note, S. &
H. 558.)
Regarding the mystical “time,”
Mrs. Orgain thinks it might refer to the establishment of the Branch-church
idea which was a symbol for the Bride-consciousness, which means man as God's
reflection or idea is self-existent and self-expressed. It means God and man is
one.
“Times,” (plural) was also
fulfilled by Mrs. Eddy in the Mother and “man child” prophecy. In
this phase of her career Mrs. Eddy was showing all humanity how to use the
Principle which the God-crowned woman symbolized. This was the mission of the
prophesied “wilderness woman,” who would show mankind the way to work
out its own salvation through assimilating the truth contained in Science and
Health—the Truth that transforms man into his original God-being. It
prophesied salvation on a world-wide basis.
Lastly, the “half a time” (the
time just before her passing) was the time of her Leadership (see My.
359:6-12), after her Motherhood in the Word had been fulfilled.
After this, both Motherhood and Leadership
were ready to yield the other “half a time” to the descending Bride,
the Word, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
Kathleen: Mrs. Orgain calls our
attention to the fact that while Mrs. Eddy didn't interpret Revelation 12:14,
she did interpret Revelation 12:15 and 16, in which Mrs. Eddy addresses her
comments regarding her Word to “you” and “your.” The
Scripture here reads: “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a
flood, after the woman [meaning after Mrs. Eddy had passed on] that he might
cause her [Word] to be carried away of the flood” (570:8). Mrs. Eddy asks,
“What if the old dragon [mesmerism, animal magnetism] should send forth a
new flood to drown the [impersonal] Christ idea? He can neither drown your
voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the deep waters of chaos and
old night” (570:8, 18). This terminology, says Mrs. Orgain, was an
additional proof that the fourteenth verse ended the Motherhood-phase of Mrs.
Eddy's mission because the interpretation of the succeeding verses was
addressed to her followers.
Tina: What was she telling her
followers?
Kathleen: That the
“serpent,” animal magnetism, would continue to keep humanity
hypnotized with the belief that evil was real, until spiritual education
supplanted all belief in evil as real. The serpent or the old dragon will
continue its delusion that man is flesh, blood, and bones, until spiritual
education convinces man he is incorporeal being, Mind's image and likeness.
Mrs. Eddy knew that nothing could overthrow
the Science she had hidden in the textbook. It only needs to be studied,
pondered, loved, and given first place in our lives. Then it leads us out of
bondage to the material senses and into the land of Science where fetters fall.
As we abide strictly by its rules, heed every statement, and advance from the
rudiments laid down, we make progress. The way has been pointed out. “But
self-denial, sincerity, Christianity, and persistence alone win the
prize,” she says, “as they usually do in every department of
life” (462:13). Spirit alone is the life-giving quality of Mind. (517:7)
Anna: Heaven, to Mrs. Eddy, was a
present reality. It needed only to be perceived, worked for, and then
demonstrated—demonstrated by living, not dying. But materialism was so
entrenched it would take centuries of spiritual growth, Mrs. Eddy felt, for the
complete triumph over death. She knew, however, that gradually the divine
system set forth in Science and Health would be understood by all mankind and
would replace the Adam-dream illusions of human birth and death. It would usher
in a totally new structure of consciousness. This divine system of Christian
Science is today being understood by an ever-widening circle of dedicated
students.
Johnny: On the subject of death Mrs. Eddy wrote:A
suppositional gust of evil is the dark hour that proceeds the dawn. This gust
blows away the baubles of belief, for there is in reality no evil, no disease,
no death; and the Christian Scientist who believes that he dies, gains a rich
blessing of disbelief in death, and a higher realization of heaven. [Our
friends who have “passed on” are with us now as verily as when we
talked together]. If we would awaken to this recognition, we should see
[them] here and realize they never died; thus demonstrating the fundamental
truth of Christian Science” (My. 297:12).
Mental Murder
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy understood spiritually
that death was an illusion. It was mortal mind's terrible and unconditional
conviction that death is a reality, that acted as hypnotic suggestion, or
animal magnetism and brought about the very thing mortal mind greatly feared
regardless of the fact that there was absolutely no reality in it. When she
felt the date of her departure drawing near, knowing death to be nothing more
than false belief, hypnotic deception, she wanted her students to be more and
more aware of what death really was. She asked Adam Dickey and Calvin Frye to
instruct the others that if she should leave here it was because she was
mentally murdered.
Billy: What did she mean?
Moderator: First, there was virulent
and deadly opposition from segments of society which had a vested interest in
maintaining the birth-death cycle, the womb-to-tomb syndrome that Mrs. Eddy was
exposing as a lie and rapidly destroying with the truth that makes man free.
Much of this hostility, of course, was basically impersonal—the world
simply wanted to maintain the status quo of “blessed events”
(followed by funerals). It was the resistance of error to Truth, the working of
the carnal mind on its spellbound prey, and it was this false and ignorant
perpetuation of error's hypnotic suggestions that Mrs. Eddy saw as “a
combination of sinners that was fast” and that could harm—could
mentally murder.
Besides the lethal volleys of hate. and
misunderstanding that were coming at her from the world, she sensed much
malpractise coming from her own students. For example, as we have just seen,
her Board of Directors did not understand the reason for the estoppel clauses
in the Manual. They did not sense the deep spiritual meaning that lay
behind the estoppel clauses; the Board of Directors was interested in
continuing their worldwide sovereignty after her departure. Mrs. Eddy realized
they were not seeing her as God sees her; they were lying on the watch waiting
for her to die. This she considered “mental murder.”
She sensed that the members of her own
household were not really giving her much support—they were not
realizing that God's reflection is never born and never dies, that manhood
is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun; that the radiance of Spirit
dawns upon the enraptured sense with bright and imperishable glory. (246:12)
She countered this malpractise by directing them not to see her “sprawled
out on the brink,” but to see her around the house as she used to be. She
instructed them to see her as God sees her, free, upright, perfect.
Marie: She wanted her students to
maintain actively the facts of Science. The battle lines must be drawn and the
two-edged sword of Spirit vigorously wielded against the murderer, mortal mind,
until mortal mind's supposititious power to harm was overcome and victory
rested on the side of eternal life, demonstrated here and now.
Bill: Mrs. Eddy knew that as long as
she was personally on the scene, this intense and malignant opposition would be
directed at her, but she also knew that the hatred and animosity was aimed at
the TRUTH she had established on earth. Many good and “religious”
people thought she was undermining the order of rational science and
established religion. Mrs. Eddy knew that once she left the scene the
opposition would be directed against the great movement she had set in motion.
She was not fooled by the multiplication of adherents to Christian Science. She
foresaw increased resistance to the truth she had brought into the world, the
truth which uncovered organized mortality: “There will be greater mental
opposition to the spiritual, scientific meaning of the Scriptures [to her
divinely scientific interpretation of the Scriptures, in a word, to divine
Science] than there has ever been since the Christian era began. The serpent
[that corporeal sense, the dragon, that wants to perpetuate human birth and
corporeal bodies] will bite the heel of the woman—will struggle to
destroy the spiritual idea of Love; and the woman, this idea, will bruise the
head of lust” (534:24). Without matter bodies the serpent can't
survive.
Tommy: Today few people realize the
fury of the malignant attacks launched against Mrs. Eddy right up to the time
of her earthly departure. The world at large is still laboring under many
illusions about her. But time will reveal Mrs. Eddy in her true motives and
character, just as time has revealed Jesus in his true motives and character.
Nineteen centuries ago he was considered a criminal worthy of death.
ALONE WITH GOD
The year 1910 found Mrs. Eddy doing
everything she could to strengthen the base of operations, as though she wanted
to make them secure for many years after her departure. The worldwide growth of
Christian Science was phenomenal, but the opposition was also growing more
intense and determined. To Augusta Stetson she wrote:
I am alone, absolutely, here! No one can
know me really, or can see what I have to meet, or meet it for me.
All are far from seeing or understanding
what I am at work all the time, and in every direction, to destroy [animal
magnetism]; and so I am met by all in a certain sense, with antagonism.
[People like you better when you tell them their virtues than when you tell
them their vices (571:5)].
It is the errors that my students do not
see, neither in themselves nor in others, that I am constantly
confronting and at war with. If they and the world did see these errors which I
see, they would take up arms against them, and I could lay down mine.
But, to open the eyes of the blind from
paralyzed optic nerve is nothing, compared with opening them to
see the tendencies of their own human natures, even at the very best. Which
tendencies must be subdued to become a true Christian Scientist. . . [The
italics in this letter, in her own handwriting, are Mrs. Eddy's.] (Augusta
Stetson, Sermons and Other Writings, p. 28. See Appendix).
Original Sin
Florence: What Mrs. Eddy was “at
work all the time, and in every direction to destroy” was animal
magnetism. On one occasion, Adam Dickey recalls in his Memoirs of Mary Baker
Eddy, she called her household and delivered quite a long admonition,
saying, “Where all students have failed, is in not knowing how to handle
animal magnetism, It we don't break the belief that mesmerism has power, we are
still the victims of mesmerism.”
Tina: What do you think she meant
here by “animal magnetism”?
Florence: Animal magnetism was her
veiled and cryptic term for the belief in a sexual creation—a flesh,
blood, and bones creation.
Mrs. Eddy used “animal magnetism”
as a term for error, more consistently than any other phrase because it came
closer to what the one sense of sin is. Remember, when Laura Sargent asked Mrs.
Eddy, “Mother, what do you mean by 'sin,' when you use 'sin, sickness, and
death' so often in the textbook?” Mrs. Eddy answered: “Sin is the
connubial relationship [meaning the sexual relationship, the Pandora box] from
which sickness and death result .... The end of the belief in male and female,
as two, will be when woman stops child-bearing” (Divinity Course,
p. 15). In a class Mrs. Eddy said that “Christ’s kingdom on earth
would not be manifested until man has returned to the state of innocence in
which sexual ideas and relations have no peace. To Salome Jesus had said
“Death will never cease until women stop child-bearing. I am come to
destroy the works of birth.”
“The human thought does not constitute
sin, but vice versa, sin constitutes the human or physical concept” (Ret.
67:3). In other words, animal magnetism, aggressive mental suggestion, is the
sin. It comes to us for life, and we give it all the life it has, Mrs. Eddy
said.
Tina: What is this “sin”
that makes the sinner?
Florence: We have seen what that sin
is in her explanation of it to Laura Sargent, about the “connubial
relationship” which, by the way is the connotation given by all churches
to the phrase, “original sin.” In her article, Marriage and Sense,
Mrs. Eddy states: God made them male and female from the beginning, but His
creation was not physical. He made qualities and formations of character, which
shall ever remain thus, as the reflections of God, the Father and Mother of the
universe. Not that God, Principle, Love, is male and female in person, two in
form, but as including in Himself all the qualities of Mind. When we understand
this, we shall have no outlined personality, but shall have individuality all
the same. This is absolute Science, wherein there is but one Mind; and this
Mind is the unity of masculine and feminine and neuter, as Mind—as
infinite Mind, not finite. Here is the union again of man and woman, not
personal but impersonal, not physical but mental, not finite but infinite. This
must be so in the reflection of God, for He (Principle, Love), is neither
finite nor physical, and if we reflect God, we must become like Him in our
consciousness ... Is the connubial relation sin? Yes. Can you be a Christian
Scientist and maintain it now, for honesty is Christian Science's first law?
“Can you uphold the old marriage relation, which is only legalized lust,
and be a Christian Scientist? . . .” (EOF. 79).
Anna: Mrs. Eddy seems to have had a
hard time teaching her students that animal magnetism is the belief of human
birth, the belief of mortal creativity argued to us by “something out
there” (that Jung might call the subconscious) asking for acceptance as
our own consciousness. In an article in Dickey's book, Mrs. Eddy instructed the
household members: “Now the main thing is to keep your watch. Keep your
watch. Jesus said, 'Could ye not watch with me one hour?' “ During a long
talk with many illustrations she explained how to keep your watch.
Animal magnetism and sin (this belief of
sexuality and “a combination ... that is fast that can harm” us, and
all these other things that are apparently hammering away at us) is what we
have to handle. We must keep our watch so they can't enter our thought to harm
us. (See her “Admonition and Counsel,” My. 210.)
Moderator: She also said the error is
never “out there,” so it must be handled as our own thinking.
Naturally it is not our thinking because our thinking comes to us direct from
God. What is seemingly hammering at us is the belief that there is more than
one Mind. We must keep our watch against the beliefs that say we are mortal, we
were born of the flesh, we create, and all the other erroneous suggestions with
which we are bombarded all day long. It is these mental suggestions coming to
us as our own thinking that Mrs. Eddy warned the students to be aware of. All
these errors stem from the one fundamental illusion that there is another mind
besides the one divine Mind from which everything real and true emanates. That
there is another mind, comes into being with the sense of human birth,
and that is why it is called the carnal or mortal mind, because human birth and
mortality are identical.
In the Baker Notes we find Mrs.
Eddy's “cure” for sexuality. She says, “The treatment, Love is
All, will make the person mentally strong and confident, and without fear. Love
is All, will destroy lust or sex desires, as sex is lack of mental
confidence” (DCC. 285).
Recess
Moderator: As Mrs. Eddy's departure
drew nearer she seemed to be living in two worlds. Day by day she drew closer
to God. Sometimes she was alone all day, attended only by Adelaide Still. On
one such occasion Mrs. Eddy dictated:As I sit quietly alone in my room
conversing with the world, and the people thereof answer me intelligibly, the
good in man comforts me, affords me pleasure and gives me no displeasure, and
our communings are sincere and sacred. All this has its fulfilment without a
sign dishonest, insincere, ungrateful, unjust. But the opposite of this
experience claims as much feasibility and reality as the experience itself.
Here learn a lesson of the parable of the sower, both (kinds of seed) sprang up
and bore fruit. The good fruit was productive and the evil fruit produced
nothing, for good is real and evil is unreal.
The wisdom of this hour and the proper labor
of this hour is to know of a certainty the quality of the seed which takes root
in our thought. In short, the moral life's history is, Be good, do good, speak
good, and God, infinite good, cares for all that is and seems to be. Who
believes what I have written? He who has the most experience of Good. Who
disbelieves it? He who has the most fear of evil. What is the remedy for this
belief? It is experience; for every moment, hour, and day of mortal existence
brings each one of us nearer the understanding of the nothingness of evil in
proportion to our understanding of the allness of good. (Preserved in Adelaide
Still's Memoirs).Mrs. Eddy's clear and unfailing spiritual sense, her
unswerving reliance on God, her consciousness of His ever-presence, seemed to
grow stronger with every passing year. Now, in 1910, she saw more clearly than
ever the need of love in everything, the need for the love of good.
Years before in one of her classes a student had asked: How shall we know
whether our love is personal or impersonal? In substance, Mrs. Eddy had
replied: When your love requires an object to call it forth, you will know it
is personal; when it flows out freely to all, you will know it is impersonal.
(Emma Shipman, We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, p. 84).
As Mrs. Eddy now sat alone all day, more and
more her love flowed out freely to all—to friend and foe alike, with no
hint of partiality.
Grace: Eight days before Mrs. Eddy
left us she dictated and signed the following revealing statement, which is
destined to mean more to humanity with every passing century: “it took a
combination of sinners that was fast to harm me.” This was not a
despairing cry, but a rousing trenchant warning to us all that we are never
dealing with matter but with malicious mental malpractise, we are dealing with
“a combination of sinners” which may appear as this or that, as a
belief of it. It was Mrs. Eddy's last appeal to us to wake up and see
that we are never faced with error as a reality, but only as aggressive mental
suggestion—human birth and death are merely hypnotic deception. They are
both imposters. It was a clarion call to “let the dead [the gross
materiality in our thinking] bury the dead [it is solely our materiality that
can see death, or a dead body].” It is only the deadness of the carnal
mind that sees death. She taught us that there is positively no cause for
failure, discouragement, or sorrow. Every Scientist must put completely out of
his thought the belief that he will sometime change to another plane of
existence. We must make our plans for immortality, and stop talking about
death—let the dead materialistic thinking bury its own beliefs of death
and deadness.
Dying doesn't kill us, and being born
doesn't cause us to live. Only going out from the one Mind and being in rapport
with this divine Mind is life and living. If we don't see this, Mrs. Eddy's
teaching and sacrifice would be in vain. She revealed that we are the
omni-action of the divine Principle. Man is the infinite reflection of all the
seven synonymous terms for God (that we are) signify. Through spiritual
education this will be realized and demonstrated.
Tommy: One form of persecution Mrs.
Eddy had always found particularly hurtful and reproachful was to have mean
motives falsely ascribed to her—to have her accusers succeed in their
intrigues to denigrate her in the eyes of the people, and place her on a lower
plane than where she belonged. This was stabbing the moral sense of life, and
Mrs. Eddy regarded it as “mental murder.” She was waging a
life-and-death struggle with mesmerism which she held to be the deadly foe of
mankind, but her enemies had often succeeded in getting an apathetic public to
regard her struggle as merely a bid for personal prestige.
Nothing had ever been more remote from Mrs.
Eddy than a desire for personal homage or prestige. Early in her career she had
learned the wisdom of keeping personality out of Christian Science. She had
eagerly longed to have the world recognize Christian Science and the importance
of her mission. But two highly successful public appearances showed her the
danger, and warned her that personal homage and adoration could quickly turn to
hostility and opposition once the uncompromising demands of Science were
understood—namely, that its requirements exacted a total evangelization of
the human self in addition to learning its heavenly theory. Because her
thoughts moved in the grooves of omnipotence—in the grooves of
Science—personal adulation was anathema to her. The thoughts of her
accusers and persecutors revolved in their own orbits “and must stand the
friction of false selfhood until self-destroyed” (Mis. 104:18).
One year before Mrs. Eddy left us, an entry
in Tomlinson's diary quotes her: “in so far as one personalizes thought he
limits his spiritual growth. We grow in understanding, and if I have ever
permitted any personality I have outgrown it.”
Margie: Mrs. Eddy never sought
leadership. In the face of the great problems given to her she felt herself
nothing. There was always a voice telling her: “Mary, take yourself out of
the way and let God act through you.” In Miscellany (129:28) she
tells us to go to God for every answer, and trust God's direction. She wanted
us to accept her counsel and teachings only as they include the spirit and the
letter of the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the teachings and example
of Christ Jesus.
Grace: Mrs. Eddy knew she was living
on a plane of thought that would be instantaneous death to any of her students.
Hitherto she had been the focus of the assaults on Christian Science. How could
she warn her students of the lethal forces that would soon be arrayed against
them—of the challenge they would have to rise to when she was no longer
there to parry and take the brunt of the world's antagonism? Now that her time
with them was nearing its end, how could she help them ascend to that altitude
of spiritual demonstration necessary for carrying the movement forward?
Sally: Don't you think when she
taught them that death was mental murder brought about by “a combination
of sinners” she was trying to galvanize attention on how to meet animal
magnetism? Animal magnetism is the belief that man is born of a woman and
destined for a womb-to-tomb journey. She wanted them to see once and for all
that this whole mortal picture was only hypnotic suggestion, with no more
reality than the dream we have in sleep, Only spiritual education will
awaken us from this dream.
Florence: In this connection it is
interesting that both the doctor and the undertaker testified to the perfect
physical condition of her earthly body. She did not die of any physical cause.
The cause was mental—mental murder.
Bessie: Could you say in just a
sentence what Mrs. Eddy meant when she wanted the students to know that she was
being mentally murdered?
Moderator: She was, in effect, saying
that if you accept that the author of Science and Health can die, that
acceptance is mental murder. It was her student's acceptance that she (or man,
God's image and likeness) could die that constituted mental murder. As students
of Science and Health they should have known that there is no death since there
is no matter to die out of. Man is spiritual. Spirit doesn't die.
In the Dr. Baker Notes is a
statement by Mrs. Eddy which reads: “All the trouble I have is with my
students.” Laura Sargent tells us that during her last carriage ride Mrs.
Eddy murmured as though lost in thought, “if my students had done as I
told them I might have made it.” And we might add that because we today
are obeying her she is making it.
Mrs. Eddy can never be separated from
Science and Health, and no one questions that Science and Health is making it.
If Science and Health lives, Mary Baker Eddy lives. (See My. 120:2.)
Anna: Right is radical, and there
must be radical reliance on Truth, but mortals have such fear of being thought
ridiculous and their illusions are so firmly fixed, it may take the full
seventh thousand-year period to awaken mortals and rid them of their illusions.
Mrs. Eddy had done all she could to rouse the world to the new paradigm, to
awaken humanity to its present ownership of all good. Now, like Jesus, who
knew his words would never pass away, Mrs. Eddy put implicit trust in the one
Mind to carry the movement forward. She knows Science and Health will carry on
until the entire mass of error is destroyed and Truth is eternally glorified in
man's spiritual freedom.
Mrs. Eddy loved her students, and greatly
desired to remain with them, just as Jesus loved his disciples and yearned over
them. But both Jesus and Mrs. Eddy knew it was expedient for their followers
that “Mother” leave, for only when motherhooding ceased would the
students begin to stand on their own feet and go direct to God for guidance.
Then divine Science would take the place of personal Leadership and
motherhooding.
Mrs. Eddy knew it was only through the benign influence of
God that she had carried on the work, and that it was the Lord who would
continue to carry it forward. She knew what she had written would unfold
infinitely and lead them to oneness with divine Principle, Love. The textbook
had been dictated by God, and no essential ingredient necessary for its eternal
unfoldment had been neglected or omitted.
The Final
Release
Moderator: And so we see Mrs. Eddy at Chestnut
Hill, now in her ninetieth year, still hard at work. Visitors came and went as
they had done at Pleasant View. There were periods of struggle and periods of
great calm, but over it all, she knew was the reign of harmonious divine
Principle. Her uncommon common sense continued to be shown in her practical
application of Jesus' teachings to all the little things of everyday living.
This perfect blending of the spiritual and practical gave her household an
example of what makes a real Christian Scientist.
As summer gave place to autumn, Mrs. Eddy
moved quietly into the closing weeks of her earthly career. On the first of
December she went for her usual drive. It was a bright frosty day. Silently she
rode through the beautiful winter scene with Laura Sargent at her side. To Mrs.
Sargent, Mrs. Eddy seemed intent, perhaps far away deep in prayer. It was to be
her last drive.
When she arrived home she asked for her
writing tablet and wrote her last message to the world she loved so much:
“God is my life.” It was a message that summed up the “Life in
and of Spirit” that for forty-four years she had patiently tried to make
clear to humanity. (See Appendix article for Fernand E. d'Humy's spiritual
explanation of these four last written words: p. 341.)
The next day she spent in prayer and deep
thought, as she sat at her desk. She talked at times to those about her with
her usual calm and serenity, but those accustomed to her ways were aware of a
change. In the evening she went to bed at her usual time. In the morning she
did not get up. It was to be her final day.
It is reported that she sent messages to the
“watchers” and for several hours prayed silently for herself, at the
end of which, says Adelaide Still, she was very much improved and asked the
watchers to drop the argument. “Just leave me with divine Love. That is
all I need.”
Battle-scarred and battle-hardened, inured
and disciplined by half a century of warfare, this faithful sentinel of God set
her face for the last watch in this mental and spiritual Armageddon. The life
and-death struggle between her realization and conviction that Spirit is the
only reality, and the “combination of sinners that was fast,” must
have called up Jesus' lonely fight of which she had written many years
earlier:In the garden night-walk, that hour of gloom and glory, the utter error
of supposed life in matter, its pain, ignorance, superstition, malice, and hate
reached him in their fullest sense. His students slept. “Can you not watch
with me one hour?” was the supplication of their great spiritual Teacher,
but receiving no response to this last human yearning, he turned forever away
from earth to heaven, from sense to Soul, and from man to God ... The weight of
mind bearing on him at that hour from the throng of disbelievers in the great
Principle for which he was to be crucified, weighed heavily. . . “ ( S.
& H., Early Edition).Mrs. Eddy was speaking for herself as well as for
Jesus when she wrote that “the real cross Jesus bore up the hill of grief
was the world's hatred of Truth and Love,” S&H (50:30) In the
forty-four years since her great revelation of Life in and of Spirit she had
done all she could to show that Truth (God) is the actual life of man, and that
Love decrees man's eternal perfection, therefore man is not subject to human
birth resulting in death.
Now she must leave the world and commit her
writing to honest seekers for Truth. That night at 10:45 (Friday, December 3,
1910) Mrs. Eddy quietly passed to a higher state of divine consciousness.
Tommy: Aren't there several different
accounts of Mrs. Eddy's final farewell?
Adelaide Still's
Story
Moderator: Yes. According to one
report, only Adam Dickey and Mrs. Sargent were present. According to the
“Official Report,” William and Ella Rathvon, Irving Tomlinson, and
Calvin Frye were also present. My good friend, Carl Lundstrom, for many years a
Journal-listed practitioner, had the privilege of interviewing the sister of
Adelaide Still who told a different story which-given Mrs. Eddy's holy history
and her immaculate spiritual understanding that there is no death—carries
the ring of truth: The sister's account states that only Adelaide Still, Laura
Sargent, and Calvin Frye were present. The sister further stated that on that
night, Dec. 3rd, the furnace in Mrs. Eddy's Chestnut Hill residence broke down.
A repair man was called immediately as it was extremely cold. When the
repairman arrived Laura Sargent went downstairs to admit him. Mr. Frye then
went down to show the repairman where the furnace was. He quickly returned to
the first floor where Mrs. Sargent waited for him, and together they went to
the second floor to rejoin Adelaide Still who had remained with Mrs. Eddy.
When they reached the second floor they
noticed Adelaide standing in the doorway leading into Mrs. Eddy's room. Mrs.
Sargent called out to Adelaide but she did not answer. Laura and Calvin
approached the doorway and stood slightly behind Adelaide. The three, looking
into the room, saw Mrs. Eddy standing near the foot of the bed, smiling.
Mrs. Eddy acknowledged their presence and
stood silently nodding her head as she smiled at them. She raised her left hand
in a sweeping gesture towards the bed where her lifeless body lay, and turned
her head from side to side, indicating, “No! That lifeless form is not me.
'I am alive forevermore.' “
As they returned their gaze to Mrs. Eddy
they witnessed the vision of their beloved Leader slowly fading before their
comprehending eyes.
What an insight into the magnitude of Mrs.
Eddy's mission this gave the three faithful watchers.
They must have been overwhelmed with the
same feeling the disciples experienced when they beheld their beloved Master
being parted from them while he blessed them. (Luke 24:51)
No audible word was spoken, Mrs. Eddy
silently communicated the great message that all mankind eagerly awaits to
hear, and which all mankind must grow to understand: there is no death.
The sister recounted further that according
to her sister Adelaide's testimony the three, Calvin Frye, Laura Sargent, and
Adelaide, experienced no grief after that moment. However, they each related
that for an hour after the vision they could not utter a word.
When Archibald McLellan and Alfred Farlow,
representing the Board of Directors, arrived, they advised the members of Mrs.
Eddy's household to keep silent about their wonderful experience of seeing Mrs.
Eddy alive and smiling after what mortal mind calls death. Mr. McLellan was
able to convince the three witnesses that the world would criticize and
ridicule Christian Science if they published the facts of what really occurred
on the night of December 3rd. Thus a blanket of silence descended on the
beautiful experience of the three witnesses.
Florence: I understand a number of
members of the Board of Education—teachers and lecturers, Paul Stark Seely
and Peter V. Ross among them—were well aware of this event, but it was not
generally known.
Rookie: Why do you think McLellan was
so concerned about keeping this occurrence a secret?
Anna: Adelaide Still, Laura Sargent,
and Calvin Frye no doubt interpreted what they had witnessed in the vision of
Mary Baker Eddy alive and smiling and then gradually fading from sight, as her
ascension. If they did communicate this feeling and interpretation to the
practically minded McLellan, it no doubt caused alarm bells to ring furiously
in his mentality. Fear of ridicule instantly wiped out any desire to
participate in their spiritual interpretation.
Francie: The Directors saw Mrs. Eddy
as dead, and were intent on burying their concept of her, in accordance with
Jesus' teaching, “Let the dead bury their dead.” They did not realize
that “ascension” has nothing to do with taking away a material body,
but instead demonstrates there never was life in matter in the first place.
Mrs. Eddy had proved beyond cavil that matter is nothing but an image in mortal
mind. She had taught humanity that man is a calculus of divine ideas that
doesn't come and go, or ascend, but is ever-present.
Mrs. Eddy brought the good news that the
ascension comes because each higher manifestation of Truth uncovers its
supposititious opposite to be met and destroyed. Thus we rise step by step
until we finally reach a condition which has no erroneous expression. This
moment must be the ascension when the material senses can no longer manifest or
cognize us because we have overcome their claims. To subjective sense,
ascension is only expansion from earth to heaven. The starting point in
divine Science is that heaven is HERE; there is no error to ascend out of since
good is ALL and is ever present.
At the time of Jesus the infantile spiritual
thought of the people was unable to grasp the idea that life exists without
material form, thus it was necessary for Jesus to remove the physical form in
his ascension.
Rocky: When Jesus ascended, he did
not leave a body, did he?
Moderator: That's right, Rocky. The
type of ascension Jesus accomplished was for all time. It does not need to be
repeated. He had to prove there is no life, substance or intelligence in
matter; he had to ascend out of matter. His ascension was unique. Mary
Baker Eddy began in her teaching where Jesus left off. It was not part of her
mission to repeat what Jesus had already proved. Christian Science teaches
there is no matter; all is infinite Mind, infinitely manifested (468:10). This
means there is no matter to ascend out of. Mrs. Eddy's leaving,
therefore, was necessarily different from Jesus' parting. Had her students been
able to rise to the point of seeing her correctly instead of entertaining such
a personal sense of her, she might have continued on with us. On page 313 of
Clear Correct Teaching, Eustace explains that Mrs. Eddy permitted
herself seemingly to die in order that Christian Science might ascend from the
confusion of being attached to her personally, into its rightful status of
impersonal Truth.
Jesus was the personal or matter
presentation of God. Science and Health is the impersonal or Mind presentation
of God. Mrs. Eddy, as the Revelator—in fulfilment of the half-a-time of
Motherhood—had to disappear from the earthly Christian Science picture in
order that the Revelation could be found by you and me as the Christ.
As we have reminded ourselves so often in these Sessions,
Mrs. Eddy can only be found in her writings. If we try to find her as a person
we lose her. As we turn to God, divine Love will show Mrs. Eddy to us as she
really is, namely as “the system [of divine ideas] that she denominated
Christian Science.”
PART II: Mrs. Eddy
Forever Found In Her Writings
SESSION XII: MRS. EDDY'S
RELEASE FROM BIRTH AND DEATH
INTRODUCTORY
Moderator: In Part 11 of these
Sessions we will find Mary Baker Eddy as God, Principle, Love, knows her. And
we will each find ourselves as God knows us. “There is only one I, or
Us” (588:11). This I or us is the divine Principle, God. There is no other
I or Ego, so there is nothing to be born or die.
We are going to see that Mary Baker Eddy is
the name God uses to give Science and Health to the world. Mrs. Eddy and the
woman of the Apocalypse are just different names for the same sense, but
neither of them is a person. Therefore what Mrs. Eddy wrote was the woman of
the Apocalypse writing it; what Mrs. Eddy brought was the woman of the
Apocalypse bringing it.
Tommy: Do you mean to say that God,
Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy, and the woman of the Apocalypse are all
names for the same divine sense—for perfect understanding?
Moderator: Yes, Mary Baker Eddy,
woman of the Apocalypse, Science and Health, Author, and Mind of Christ can all
be used interchangeably when we honor her statement in Miscellany,
page 120:2. Her life and mission can never be understood from a human
standpoint, and in these Sessions we are dealing with her from the standpoint
of spiritual sense, and what we are saying must be evaluated from a spiritual
standpoint. Mrs. Eddy's mission was to show God's womanhood, just as Jesus
showed God's manhood. She explained God as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life,
Truth, and Love and showed us how each individual can progressively incorporate
these seven synonyms for God, Principle, Love, into his own consciousness and
so reflect God through like-mindedness, through having the same substance God
has, the same identity God has, subject to the same Principle God is subject
to, having the same being God has, constituted of the same facts God is
constituted of, and being the same Love God is ceaselessly and forever being.
Tina: How do we start to replace
mortal thinking with this immortal Truth?
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy tells us
spiritual teaching must always be by symbols. (575:13) Does everyone know the
definition of “symbol”? We start with learning symbols.
Jackie: A symbol is something that
stands for and suggests something else by reason of relationship, association,
or sign of something, as the lion is the symbol of courage; the cross has
always been one of the symbols of Christianity.
A symbol is also an arbitrary or
conventional character used in writing or printing relating to a particular
field, just as do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do are symbols used in music. Every
nation might have different ways of pronouncing or writing them, but the idea
behind these symbols is the same, so musicians from every country in the world
can get together in an orchestra and play the same piece of music, because they
understand the idea behind the symbol.
In mathematics it is the same. What we call
one, two, three, the Japanese would call something else, so would the Germans,
the French, the Italians, and every other non-English-speaking people, but the
idea behind the symbol is identical in every language. Therefore every nation
can calculate with its own symbols and the results are the same the world over.
The Bible uses natural symbols such as sheep
and shepherd, the garden of Eden, light, firmament, dry land, etc. Mrs. Eddy
saw the idea behind these symbols. Her textbook is concerned with showing the
idea the symbol represents. She uses symbols to bring to mind the idea that
lies behind the symbol, because “idea” is defined in the textbook as
“an image in Mind; the immediate object of understanding.” Without
the use of symbols there would be no way to bring about the
“immediate” understanding of what is under consideration. The symbol,
as something we can understand, is necessary to clear up the meaning of an
intangible idea. The spiritual idea is something the human mind could not grasp
without the aid of the symbolism Mrs. Eddy uses in the textbook.
Moderator: In religious history what
has been the danger connected with “symbols”?
Francie: Religions have all succumbed
to equating symbol with idea, with the result that the idea was swallowed up in
the symbolism. Instead of using the symbol only for the purpose of translating
the idea to human consciousness, the symbol always took on more importance than
the idea behind it, until the idea was lost completely. Mrs. Eddy used symbols
only to translate abstract intangible divine ideas to human consciousness.
Moderator: So, Tina, to answer your
question how to replace mortal thinking with this immortal Truth, we begin by
learning the symbols, just as we do in mathematics and music.
Bill: Once we know the notes in music
“we can sing 'most anything,” as the music teacher said in a
well-known musical.
Moderator: As it is with learning the
notes and numbers in music and mathematics, so it is with Science. Once we
learn the symbols that constitute the fundamentals in Science, we can calculate
“ ‘most anything”—in fact, we can calculate endlessly in
the matrix of infinity.
This is why it is so important to learn the
meaning of the seven synonymous terms for God, and how they operate on the four
levels of spiritual consciousness.
After defining God (465) Mrs. Eddy states,
“Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God.” So as we study
Science and Health, ponder it, approaching nearer and nearer to this divine
Principle, we “eat the divine body of this Principle,” and we are
replacing mortal thinking with immortal Truth because we are partaking of the
nature, or primal elements, of Truth and Love. Thus the seven synonyms for God
become our mentality, our consciousness.
We are never creators of anything. Mary
Baker Eddy, as a person, was not a creator; God, Principle, Mind, is the only
creator, the Principle that has created all, just as the principle in
mathematics has created all. Nothing needs to be created, 2x2=4 always was. It
is important to remember, as Mrs. Eddy told Joseph Mann, that God doesn't know
words; God only knows the spirit. Our work is a continuous discarding of the
mortal viewpoint until, finally, we too know only the spirit, which from all
eternity has been the only reality.
Sally: What does that mean?
Moderator: It means that the
“Woman” had the “little book” open throughout eternity
for all to read and understand, that is, to catch the spirit. And yet, in
1866, for our benefit and comprehension, Mrs. Eddy had to give Science and
Health as “words”—the words which God does not know.
Rookie: Why do you think Mrs. Eddy
had to keep changing these words in her 432 editions of Science and
Health?—and also hide what materially-minded students were not yet able to
understand?
Moderator: In those 432 editions of
Science and Health Mrs. Eddy was gradually removing the veil that hides from us
our true being. She was gradually removing the mist that hides our Bride
consciousness from us: “All things will continue to disappear until
perfection appears and reality is reached” (353:18). Each edition
contained higher, more scientific, more spiritually profound explanations, as
the field was prepared to receive them and the mist was gradually removed. The
spectral [our ghostly beliefs] must be given up at all points (353:19). In
those 432 editions Mrs. Eddy was removing the ghostly beliefs that chain us to
a matter body. She was revealing the Principle by which evil could be ruled out
of our consciousness as unreal, as pure illusion.
Grace: Also from another point of
view, as the students saw through and beyond the words and imbibed the spirit,
the concepts of Science and Health became more true to Life, and the exact same
Spirit which is Science and Health appeared to students as Mrs. Eddy
bringing out new revisions. But Christian Science, she says, in her
marginal heading (146:25) is as old as God and “lives through all
Life, and extends throughout all space.” Science and Health remains the
same through all eternity, and the words—the letter which
“killeth” when divorced from the spirit—are embraced in the
students' own communion with God, with Science and with Health.
If we think of Mrs. Eddy as gradually
getting clearer on Science and Health, that is, if we think of her as
incomplete or faulty at times, or if we think of her as more apt at catching
God's voice and message than we ourselves, then we see her as a person just as
we are seeing ourselves as persons. As such we LOSE her; and it is right that
we should, because until we have lost the false sense we will not FIND her in
her message, meaning, find God and God alone as the Giver of her message. When
we find her in her message we find the omnipresence of present perfection, and
“time no longer,” which is just another way of saying that the
“little book,” Science and Health, is and always has been complete,
just as the multiplication table was always complete. Time doesn't enter.
Moderator: We have previously
referred to Mrs. Eddy's statement (380:25) that what she discovered would
gradually gather momentum and clearness [to the student] until it reached its
culmination of scientific statement and proof. Explaining Mrs. Eddy's
prediction, Dr. Max Kappeler in a recent Seminar said, in substance, that Mrs.
Eddy is saying, “Look here, you have not yet reached the culmination of
scientific statement and proof; you have not yet seen what the textbook really
says; you have not yet seen the authority that lies in the textbook; you have
not yet seen the metaphysics of the divine Principle that is hidden in the
textbook. But Mrs. Eddy states as a prophecy that little by little it will
gather momentum and clearness. There is today a momentum taking place in the
understanding of her statements, and what she says in the textbook is becoming
clearer and clearer to us.”
Bill: For this ever-increasing
clarity of what the Christian Science textbook contains we are deeply indebted
to Dr. Max Kappeler who has devoted the past fifty years to an in-depth study
of the structure of the Christian Science textbook and to “the system
[Mrs. Eddy] denominated Christian Science” (viii:27). Kappeler has seen
that reading the textbook isn't sufficient to gain the understanding we
need. A different kind of approach, a different model of approach, is necessary
in order to get the higher sense of the text. His many books, and the tape
recordings of his yearly Seminars, explain this new approach to the Christian
Science textbook. (For information regarding his books and recordings see
Appendix.) Joel Jessen, a student of Max Kappeler, has also written two
excellent books on this subject. (See Appendix.)
Marie: Returning to the woman of the
Apocalypse, I would like to ask if we are all the woman of the Apocalypse.
Moderator: Yes, as God, Principle,
Love, sees us we are, and as Science and Health teaches us to see ourselves, we
are.
In the past it has been thought unwise and
untimely to give the impression to the world that Mary Baker Eddy is the woman
of the Apocalypse. But we grow in Science and are eventually able to make
distinctions. We distinguish between a time-ridden person—a person who is
born and dies at a certain time—being the woman of the Apocalypse, and the
timeless symbol of the woman of the Apocalypse whom Mrs. Eddy typified. Then we
no longer think of Mrs. Eddy in the past tense, saying, she was the woman of
the Apocalypse, but we know she is the woman of the Apocalypse.
Tina: Not many people would
understand that, would they?
Moderator: I'm afraid that's right.
We are all fooled by the evidence before the five physical senses. The belief
is so firmly fixed that we live in matter bodies. But, you remember, Mrs. Eddy
told Martha Wilcox that our sense of personality is all mental phenomena, it is
not physical. What is appearing to us is all mental phenomena, mental images
formed in our so-called mortal mind. There are no physical bodies. There is
nothing going on outside of our thinking or separate from our mind. This
supposititious mortal mind outlines itself as a belief of a material
personality, Mrs. Eddy explained, with form and conditions and laws and
circumstances—in fact, with all the phenomena that are embraced in what is
called material life and personality. But not one single thing in this whole
fabric of supposititious evil is true. All this mental phenomena is only
aggressive mental suggestion coming to us for us to adopt as our own thought.
If we don't adopt it as our thinking it remains nothing, a zero. In order to
live, this sense of personality has to get you and me to adopt it as our
thinking.
It is very important to keep in mind that
there is no material personality. Matter bodies resulted from the Adam-dream.
Error is constantly coming to us from the universal and collective
subconscious, but it is always impersonal. Mrs. Eddy says that error comes to
us for life and we give it all the life it has. Through the Science she brought
we can free ourselves from all the false beliefs we have been unwittingly
accepting as true about ourselves, namely, that we were born into the flesh,
and are a mortal material personality subject to all the error incident to that
fundamental erroneous claim. The more we claim we were never born into matter,
the easier it will be to see Mrs. Eddy's oneness with the woman of the
Apocalypse, and to see our own unity with infinite good, to see that we have
never been split away from the infinite good to become mortal personalities.
Mrs. Eddy saw herself and all mankind as
Mind's image and likeness, as God-idea, “the spiritual idea.”
Mrs. Eddy says, “Human capacity is slow
to discern and to grasp God's creation and the divine power and presence which
go with it, demonstrating its spiritual origin.” But since she has
shown us how to discern and how to grasp God's creation, she exhorts us
to throw off all mortal illusions—to detach mortal thought from all
material conceptions in order to come rapidly into line with the divine
structure of consciousness, making our structure of consciousness and the
structure of reality one. This alone can fathom the infinite.
“Understanding can grasp even the infinite idea” (S.&H. first
edition p. 416:29).
Diane: Why would that be true?
Moderator: Because the Infinite is
conscious of itself and there is no other consciousness. The one consciousness
is our consciousness. “All consciousness is Mind” (God), Mrs. Eddy
affirms three times in Prose Works. If consciousness is seen negatively it is
just a lie about the one and only consciousness, and by reversal points to the
true consciousness.
As we culture the divine Mind through the
study of Mrs. Eddy's writings the divine Mind becomes our Mind in practise as
well as in theory. And with this divine Mind we can fathom the infinite, which
reveals eternity and newness of Life. (520:12) All error disappears
proportionately as we see ourselves as a calculus of divine ideas.
Diane: What does calculus mean?
Bill: The dictionary says it is a
method of computation; any process of reasoning by the use of symbols. It
further says it is a “concretion—the state of being concreted.”
Concreted means to make actual or real; cause to take on the qualities of
reality.”
So, when we see ourselves as a calculus of
divine ideas we are seeing ourselves as the spiritual idea, that is one with
divine Principle, Love.
The Spiritual
Idea
Juliann: Is this why Mrs. Eddy says
that her “successor” is “the spiritual idea”?
Anna: Yes, the spiritual idea, whose
name is Christ Science, is her successor, and “the government shall be
upon his shoulder.”
Billy: Could you explain “the
spiritual idea”? Is it actually my true self, my God-being?
Anna: Yes. Mrs. Eddy says one
infinite God—the Mind that you are—can have only one infinite
reflection. Each reflects the whole. The spiritual idea concerns the great
revelation and discovery Mrs. Eddy made which evolved continuously through the
432 editions of Science and Health, always gathering momentum and clearness
until it reached its culmination of scientific statement.
To reveal “the spiritual
idea”—your true being, and everyone's—was Mrs. Eddy's
distinctive mission in fulfilment of prophesy: “I have yet MANY THINGS to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when the spirit of Truth is
come he [Science] will guide you into ALL TRUTH” (John 16:12,13). Science
guides us into an understanding of our God-being—our coincidence with
Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love, from which, in reality,
we have never been split away. It is our being now.
Billy: But just what was it that Mrs.
Eddy revealed about me—and about everyone?
Anna: She revealed the Christ, that
same Christ that entered into the minutiae of the life of the personal Jesus.
This Christ-spirit, Mrs. Eddy said, made him an honest man, a good carpenter,
and a good man, before it made him the glorified. (See Mis. 166:28.)
Then on page 167 (ibid) she tells us what we
are when our identity is seen to be that of “the spiritual idea,” and
that our real name is Christ Science. Through spiritual education we are
learning to understand ourselves as a calculus of divine ideas, and this
spiritual education is supplanting the false view of ourselves as mortals with
a matter body. The whole of the textbook is concerned with the unfolding of
our true nature as Christ Science.
Tina: What does this Christ Science
show us we are?
Bill: In the article just referred to
(Mis. 167:1) Mrs. Eddy says, “The material questions at this age on the
reappearing of the infantile thought of God's man, are after the manner of a
mother in the flesh, though their answers pertain to the spiritual idea, as in
Christian Science.”
Consider one of the questions: “is the
babe a son or daughter?”
Mrs. Eddy's answer pertains to the
spiritual idea, namely, your true being: “Both son and daughter:
even the compound idea of all that resembles God.” All through the
textbook Mrs. Eddy unfolds this idea of the masculine-feminine nature of the
spiritual idea, meaning your masculine-feminine nature as God's image and
likeness. As the compound idea that fully reflects God, your masculine nature
“corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth,” while your
feminine nature corresponds to Life and to Love (517:8-10).
As you study Science and Health you are the
mother giving birth to this “male-female Child” that is your own
being. While you are giving birth to your true God-identity, you are at the
same time wedding yourself to that God-identity. Finally there is no longer
need for motherhooding. You are your true identity, Christ Science, a
calculus of infinite divine ideas, perfectly reflecting your divine Principle,
Love. In this way you attain the Bride status—the divine masculine and
feminine qualities in one consciousness—the compounded spiritual
individuality that is complete. This is why in Science the Bride is a higher
symbol than Mother. Mother is always concerned with attaining the perfection of
the CHILD, and as we said, motherhooding disappears when “Bride”
conceives man in the idea of God (582:14), that is, conceives man as that which
he has always been and now is.
Jackie: What would our true Ego be,
then?
Florence: The Ego, Mrs. Eddy says, is
limitless, There is only one I Am; there is, in reality, no personal I. The
divine individuality is reflected in all spiritual individuality. Science and
Health is here to show us how to awaken from the mortal dream of a life and
sense of existence separate from divinity. Everyone thinks he has an
“I” separate from everyone else's “I” and that consequently
there are billions of people each able to say, “I am.” But Mrs. Eddy
shows us there is only one I Am, and that we each reflect this one I Am, which
bestows infinite individuality upon each of us. Your divine Ego and my divine
Ego is limitless since it fully reflects the infinite individuality that is
God. Mortals conceive of their individuality belonging to them personally as a
body, moving in time and space. This concept, however, is fast fading out and
giving place to man's true identity as “the spiritual
idea”—timeless, spaceless, infinite individuality, the full
reflection of the seven synonymous terms for God, and always operating in the
matrix of infinity.
This infinite Ego or I Am-ness that
fully reflects God can never be in anything. Our real name is Christ
Science, as Anna and Bill have just explained, and therefore we can be
everywhere present, just as God is—or as 2x2=4 is, as the omnipresence of
present perfection. It is only a matter of spiritual education.
To get the facts about ourselves we have to
go to the divine Mind, and drop all that the five physical senses are telling
us. The divine Mind alone has all faculties, perception, and comprehension. The
five physical senses have none. Slowly, the whole world is becoming aware of
these facts that Mary Baker Eddy founded in human consciousness.
In Part I of these Sessions we recorded the human struggles
incident to the founding of Christian Science in human consciousness and the
progress made by Mrs. Eddy and her students. We rejoiced because through these
struggles and this progress heavenward the crown can be won and worn. This
crown Mrs. Eddy, typifying the woman of the Apocalypse, wears as her right (as
we do too), not because as a person she was gaining small segments of the crown
over a period of years, but because as we shall now see, she is the woman of
the Apocalypse, prophesied by St. John who saw the BOOK in her hand open for
all to read and understand.
(Reminder to the reader: The Appendix includes a limited
“dictionary” of symbolic terms for those who are not well versed in
symbolic language.)
CAUTION IN THE
TRUTH
Moderator: In past Sessions we have seen that during
Mrs. Eddy's lifetime, as a concession to the general ignorance of that day, she
discouraged public statements and articles in the Christian Science periodicals
concerning her place in scriptural prophecy. She wanted to avoid stirring up
controversy. She was always wise, and especially so in this matter. She knew
the future would vindicate her motives and actions.
When she was pressed to interpret St. John's
revelation, she was careful to impersonalize that revelation. She wished to
protect the Science it was her mission to establish in human consciousness. She
knew she was merely seeing in advance what we would eventually all see and be.
The textbook is the holy city which we become, which the world becomes as it
assimilates the message of Christian Science. So when she was asked about St.
John's revelation she replied that “the Apocalypse like all holy vision,
when left to mortal's interpretation or application to identify its meaning, is
susceptible of abuse owing to one's ignorance of another's mood and mode of
thinking” (EOF 63).
Mrs. Eddy was fully aware that the woman in the
Apocalypse—the God-crowned woman and the wilderness woman—was a
prophecy of her twofold mission to discover the Christ Science and to found
this Science in human consciousness. She knew the twelfth chapter of Revelation
was a specific prophecy of her coming, and that she was the one “whom God
had appointed to voice His Word” to this age (559:30, 560:17), just as
Jesus was the one whom God had appointed to voice His Word nearly nineteen
hundred years before. Mrs. Eddy was the “visible” idea (560:18)
prophesied in Jesus' parable of the woman who took the leaven and hid it in
three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. This “leaven”
was the Science of the Christ. In this prophecy Jesus foretold “the second
appearing in the flesh of the Christ, Truth,” that was hidden in
sacred secrecy from the visible world. (117:31-9) Science and Health had to
come through a human personality, in order to be understood by mortals.
Difference Between
The Missions of Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy
Rocky: Before we start could we have
a brief review of how Mrs. Eddy's mission differed from the mission of Jesus?
Moderator: Jesus came as a
personal savior, Mrs. Eddy says the impersonation of the
spiritual idea had a brief history in the earthly life of Jesus. (565:13)
Christ, or the spiritual idea, appeared to human consciousness as the man
Jesus, Mrs. Eddy tells us. At the present time, however, the human concept of
Christ is based on the incorporeal divine Principle of man, and the
Science Mrs. Eddy brought has elevated this idea and established its rules in
consonance with their Principle. The ideal of God, she says, is no longer
impersonated as a waif or wanderer. Today Truth is not fragmentary,
disconnected, unsystematic, but concentrated and immovably fixed in Principle.
(Ret. 93)
We could illustrate the difference between
Jesus' mission and the mission of Mrs. Eddy with mathematics, where we might
say we have the personal and impersonal. The personal would be like a written
example in mathematics, while a mathematical principle would correspond to the
impersonal, We can see that the particular written example has no intrinsic
value whatsoever beyond what that example is pointing toward—the
principle.
You can always erase the example without
touching the principle; you can immediately replace the example and an infinite
number of examples. If a child writes 2x2 = 4 on the blackboard with a bit of
chalk, the example is just a bit of dust on the blackboard and can be erased.
The example impersonates the mathematical principle. When the example is
erased, however, the principle hasn't been touched.
The example is like a personal Savior. It
explains why Mrs. Eddy could say to Mr. Wiggin: “If there had never
existed such a person as the Galilean Prophet, it would make no difference to
me” (My. 318:32). Mrs. Eddy had discovered the Principle behind the
example Jesus was giving, and Mrs. Eddy could reproduce that example. So, the
mission of Jesus differed from the mission of Mary Baker Eddy in that Jesus
gave the personal example with his body, while Mrs. Eddy's mission was to
discover the Principle that lay behind what Jesus did, and establish, i.e.,
found, that Principle in human consciousness.
Anna: Jesus prophesied the bringing
of this Science in his revelation to St. John on the Isle of Patmos: “And
there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the
moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, and she being
with child, cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered” (560;
562).
It was Mrs. Eddy's mission to reveal the
motherhood nature of God, just as Jesus had revealed the idea of the fatherhood
of God. Mrs. Eddy revealed God's motherhood as a Science. As a Science it was
the “greater light,” since it could be learned and understood by all
mankind.
And it must be clear that Mary Baker Eddy is
the name God uses to give Science and Health to the world—showing the
Science behind the startling yet natural demonstrations of Jesus as God's
personal representative.
Moderator: We are now going to
see the logical growth from the idea of intelligent and creative persons to the
certainty of one all responsible Person. A spiritually minded inquirer will
readily see that Mary Baker Eddy was not an ordinary person. In fact she would
be lost if thought of as a person. She must be seen as the way God appears to
so-called material, personal thought. God first appears as a scribe of thought
contained in a book of material paper and ink, and finally as the God-offering
that embraces and closes the book, when the book's message has been assimilated
and made our God-being.
Since God is the author of Science and
Health, and the author of all, no representative or manifestation or image of
God can be independently a creator, father, mother, or even a benefactor,
teacher, healer, any more than your shadow can be any one of these personages
on its own.
In all God's kingdom there is no man-to-man relationship,
for this would be animal magnetism, There is only eternal God-“man”
or Principle—idea correspondence, in which all is harmony.
The Woodbury
Trial
Bessie: Why has so little thought and emphasis been
given to educating the world, and especially Christian Scientists, concerning
Mrs. Eddy's identity with the woman of the Apocalypse?
Moderator: Much confusion in the
ranks of Christian Scientists may have arisen from statements made at the time
of the Woodbury trial.
Marie: What was that about?
Moderator: In 1899 Mrs. Eddy's
Communion Message to her church in Boston included the denunciation of a
well-known type of sin. Mrs. Woodbury, a disgruntled, disloyal, and dishonest
student, took umbrage at this Communion Message, assuming that Mrs. Eddy's
remarks about the Babylonish woman were aimed at her. She sued Mrs. Eddy for
slander. Using tactics of scorn and ridicule she charged Mrs. Eddy with
claiming to be the woman of the Apocalypse. This was a maneuver to discredit
Mrs. Eddy, to impute shameful conduct on her part, thus separating Mrs. Eddy
from her teaching, and driving a wedge between Mrs. Eddy and her rightful place
in scriptural prophecy. Mrs. Woodbury was pandering to the spiritual ignorance
of the people at that time.
In the Gospel of John (5:18) we are told of
similar treatment accorded Jesus for claiming that God was his Father and for
healing on the Sabbath.
In 1890 Mrs. Woodbury had given birth to an
illegitimate child. In an effort to explain away this happening and save her
reputation she purposely and wrongfully distorted Mrs. Eddy's views on the
subject of marriage and progeny, maintaining that Mrs. Eddy taught “mental
conception.” Mrs. Woodbury called her illegitimate son “The Prince of
Peace,” and insisted he had been immaculately conceived. Deceitfully she
circulated rumors attributing to Mrs. Eddy an alleged secret doctrine that
repetitions of the historic virgin birth were possible today.
Mrs. Woodbury's motives were to defame Mary
Baker Eddy, to show that Mrs. Eddy, far from fulfilling Jesus' prophecy of the
woman of the Apocalypse, was actually deceiving the people. She made a mockery
of all Mrs. Eddy taught, but many ministers of the gospel continued to cite
Mrs. Woodbury as authority for what Mrs. Eddy said, rather than take the
trouble to examine what Mrs. Eddy actually said.
Mrs. Woodbury's bill of complaint showed her
action to be largely a propaganda move to discredit Mrs. Eddy. The bill of
complaint charged that Mrs. Eddy considered herself to be the “woman
clothed with the sun,” the woman of the Apocalypse. It also charged that
Mrs. Eddy claimed Science and Health to be inspired.
Mrs. Eddy engaged two capable lawyers and
won the suit.
So impressed was the news media with what
came to light during the trial that at its conclusion newspapermen asked Mrs.
Eddy for a statement concerning the woman of the Apocalypse. This she refused
to give them but sent them to Mr. Kimball. When they pressed Kimball for
information regarding the woman of the Apocalypse, Kimball said Mrs. Eddy had
never taught in her classes that she was the woman of the Apocalypse, and that
she did not wish her students to teach it. What the newspaper reported of their
conversation with Mr. Kimball appeared in the July Journal of 1901.
At the time Mr. Kimball talked with these
newspaper men he was unaware that an article by Judge Septimus J. Hanna, which
identified Mrs. Eddy with the woman of the Apocalypse had been set in galley
proof in the Journal office. Mrs. Eddy had approved that article in three
separate letters. (For Judge Hanna's article and Mrs. Eddy's three letters of
approval, see Appendix, p. 349.) Mr. Kimball's motive in saying what he did to
the newspapermen was to protect his Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. The actual fact
was that Mrs. Eddy, herself, knew she was fulfilling the divine prophecy of the
woman of the Apocalypse, and she was always grateful to those students who were
aware of her divine mission, and who recognized her as fulfilling Jesus'
prophecy regarding her. (It is a matter of record that the early students who
saw Mrs. Eddy's identity as the woman of the Apocalypse did the best healing
work.)
Because of the notoriety and unpleasantness
of the Woodbury trial, it was decided not to publish Judge Hanna's article,
identifying Mrs. Eddy with the woman of the Apocalypse, at that time.
The questions raised by the Woodbury trial
and all that led up to it caused many inquiries from the field regarding Mrs.
Eddy's status as having fulfilled Jesus' prophecy concerning the woman of the
Apocalypse. Finally in 1941 the Christian Science Board of Directors appointed
a committee of six editors and ex-editors to determine just what Mrs. Eddy
herself had said with reference to her place in Bible prophecy We have already
seen that in three separate letters she approved Judge Hanna's article for the
Journal identifying her with the woman of the Apocalypse. The committee
prepared fifty-seven typewritten pages of evidence showing that Mrs. Eddy
considered herself, definitely, as having a place in Bible prophecy.
The following is a brief summary of the
fifty-seven pages of evidence produced by the committee of editors. The
testimony they contain clearly shows that Mrs. Eddy definitely regarded herself
as having a place in Bible prophecy. These conclusions are not new to Christian
Scientists; they simply confirm Mrs. Eddy's writings. The steadily unfolding
understanding of Christian Science and its fruitage bears witness to their
truth. (Published in the Christian Science Sentinel for June 5,
1943, and also the Christian Science Journal for July 1943):1.Mrs. Eddy,
as the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, understood herself to be
the one chosen of God to bring the promised Comforter to the world and
therefore the revelator of Christ, Truth, to this age.2.Mrs. Eddy regarded
portions of Revelation (that is, Chapter 12) as pointing to her as the one who
fulfilled prophecy by giving the full and final revelation of Truth; her work
thus being complementary to that of Christ Jesus.3.As Christ Jesus exemplified
the fatherhood of God, she (Mrs. Eddy) revealed God's motherhood; she
represents in this age the spiritual idea of God typified by the woman in the
Apocalypse. (See Science and Health, 565:13-22.)4.Mrs. Eddy considered herself
to be “the God-apponted” and “God-anointed” messenger to
this age, the woman chosen by God to discover the Science of Christian healing
and to interpret it to mankind; she is so closely related to Christian Science
that a true sense of her is essential to the understanding of Christian
Science; in other words, the revelator cannot be separated from the
revelation.5.This recognition of her true status enabled her to withstand the
opposition directed against her by “the dragon” (malicious animal
magnetism); she was touchingly grateful to those who saw her as the woman of
prophecy and who therefore trusted, obeyed, and supported her in her
mission.6.This same recognition is equally vital to our movement, for
demonstration is the result of vision; the collecting of this indisputable
evidence of our Leader's own view of herself and of her mission marks a great
step forward; wisely utilized, this evidence will stimulate and stabilize the
growth of Christian Scientists today and in succeeding generations...Mrs. Eddy
devotes pages 558 and 559 of S&H to the “little book open” in the
hand of the angel, which was prophesied by Jesus in the tenth chapter of
Revelation. This is the little book or “man child” with which the
woman of the Apocalypse, in chapter twelve of Revelation, is pregnant, and to
which she gives birth. Mrs. Eddy makes it clear that this little book is
Science and Health which contains the revelation of divine Science.
Mrs. Eddy then presents six pages concerning
the woman of the Apocalypse (pp. 560-565). On page 561:22 she says, “The
woman of the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man.” This is frequently quoted
by students who do not realize the deep meaning of the statement and thus it
has tended to confuse the field with reference to the woman of the Apocalypse
and just how Mrs. Eddy fulfilled Jesus' prophecy in this regard. Also, while
Mrs. Eddy identifies Jesus with the twelve foundations of the
holy city, her revelation is identified with the twelve gates of the holy city.
She explained and made practical the holy city.
Jesus demonstrated the Science of being in
his every thought and act in his day-to-day life on earth. He did not give much
instruction. He more or less gave the laboratory experiment, and indicated the
Comforter would come in the form of a textbook. This textbook, when understood,
will usher in a totally new system of reference or what is meant by the holy
city, an outpouring of bliss and glory that presents to human consciousness the
spiritual facts of being. In this holy city there is “no material
temple,” no material body, no material world. It is a wholly spiritual
state of consciousness in which no trace of the material system of reference
any longer lingers. This holy city has four equal sides, namely, the Word, the
Christ, Christianity, and Science. In Science and Health, the “little book
open” to which the woman of the Apocalypse gives birth, the first four
chapters are devoted to the Word; the second four chapters are devoted to the
Christ, the third set of four chapters are devoted to Christianity; and the
last four chapters to Science. These sixteen chapters in the “little
book” are the numeration table of the Science of being; they are the
fundamentals with which we can calculate infinitely. What is indicated here is
that our present consciousness must be educated, must be transformed,
transmuted to conform to the Christ- consciousness, to a completely new way of
being conscious of all things.
When Mrs. Eddy says that the kingdom of God
is within us, she means that the structure of being has its reflection within
us as a structure of understanding. When the structure of understanding and the
structure of being (what God is) are of the same nature, we are the city
foursquare. This kingdom of God .”..is within reach of man's consciousness
here,” and the “little book open” which the woman of the
Apocalypse brought reveals this kingdom of God within. “In divine
Science,” which is the fourth side of the holy city, “man possesses
the recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his understanding of
God” (576:23). What is written in the “little book open” causes
the twelve gates of the city foursquare, the holy city, to open
“within” and to fill us with understanding. Then with that
understanding gained, they open “without”—outward, in
demonstration of the spiritual understanding that has been gained.
But, “without a correct sense of its
highest visible idea [Mary Baker Eddy, who brought the 'little book open,'] we
can never understand the divine Principle.” The Messenger and the Message
are inseparable and must be so understood. The Book of Revelation tells us the
“dragon” made war against the woman who brought “the little
book.” It is the dragon (old theology) animal magnetism, that wants to
separate Mary Baker Eddy from her place in Bible prophecy—that wants to
drive a wedge between Mrs. Eddy and the Science she discovered and founded,
that is, to keep her real identity hidden from the world. This wedge started
with the Woodbury trial when Mrs. Woodbury brought ridicule and infamy against
the contention that Mrs. Eddy fulfilled Jesus' prophecy of the woman of the
Apocalypse. During the Woodbury trial, when badgered by her enemies, Mrs. Eddy
is supposed to have made a statement to the effect that she was not the woman
of the Apocalypse but just a little white-haired old lady. However in Science
and Health she definitely identifies herself with the woman of the Apocalypse;
and when a statement of any kind is in conflict or at variance with what Mrs.
Eddy has written in Science and Health, a loyal Christian Scientist takes what
Mrs. Eddy says in the textbook as his standard, and the exception or deviation
is disregarded.
While Mrs. Eddy's enemies would rob her of
her place in scriptural prophecy, those who have begun to see what has actually
been presented in Science and Health realize that the magnitude and marvel of
Mrs. Eddy's life has not yet been glimpsed in one millionth of its wonder.
Mrs. Eddy reflected the God character. It
was always her trait (and often to her great grief) to think people better and
bigger than they really were. She endowed others with her ideal and then made
them think it was their own. It was supremely natural for Mrs. Eddy to help
others, sparing neither ease, time, nor money to that end. She soon learned
that her most unselfish motives evoked the most ingratitude; yet it is only by
such motives that the best results are achieved. Her discovery of the Science
of Mind-healing was the outgrowth of her motives and method. Mrs. Eddy had an
honest heart, and she knew we never need to despair of an honest heart;
“bigotry, ignorance, envy fall before an honest heart.” Her purity
and honesty evolved in her the spiritual understanding and spiritual power that
enabled her to fulfil Jesus' prophecy regarding the woman of the Apocalypse.
Mrs. Eddy knew that in reality each
individual is constituted of both the masculine and feminine qualities, since
each individual reflects the Father-Mother God wholly and completely. Each
individual was therefore a harmonious blending of the masculine and feminine
qualities of mind and heart that make up or form the image and likeness of the
Father-Mother God or Principle of being.
In Twelve Years With Mary Baker Eddy,
Irving C. Tomlinson states that Mrs. Eddy encouraged him to “cultivate
this tender emotion; have a cell less in the brain and a fibre more in the
heart in yourself and it will do much for your lectures and in healing the
sick....When lecturing, or addressing the church ... let this tenderness
appear, and like the dew it will refresh the parched ear and lonely
heart.” Above everything Mrs. Eddy yearned for her students and lecturers
on Christian Science to reflect and express Love, because Love, she said, is
the secret of all healing. But it is not mere human love, not the love for a
person or anything, she insisted; it is Love itself, the Love that is the
Principle of man's being. The realization of this Love, even for a moment, will
heal the sick and raise the dead. This, Mrs. Eddy herself had proved beyond
question or cavil. That divine Love is man's Principle was the core of the
message she brought in fulfilment of Jesus' prophecy concerning the woman of
the Apocalypse who was “with child,” and “brought forth a
man-child”—Science and Health. Science and Health, the “little
book” in the hand of the angel, is destined to bring forth a new heaven
and a new earth.
Juliann: Was Mrs. Eddy always aware
of the fact that she was to fulfil that prophecy of the woman of the
Apocalypse?
Anna: From early childhood, Mrs. Eddy
sensed she had a mission. When in 1866 she discovered divine Science she knew
what her mission was and with unsurpassed love and energy devoted herself to
its accomplishment. After her husband, Dr. Eddy, died in 1882, Mrs. Eddy,
wracked with sorrow and grief, went through a period of deep darkness, gloom,
and struggle. Dr. Eddy had been Mrs. Eddy's only earthly tie, and she felt
deeply, keenly her irreparable loss. Gradually she came to see that God meant
for her to rely on Him alone, and that from then on her life must be the Life
in and of Spirit. It was at this point of deepest tribulation and wretchedness
that her true identity was unmistakably revealed to her. She saw her identity
as the woman Jesus had prophesied in the twelfth chapter of the Book of
Revelation. She was the woman of the Apocalypse. She had brought forth the
“man child,” Science and Health.
With the realization of her true
identity—and her enlarged understanding that henceforth her life must be
the Life in and of Spirit-her energy, vigor, and courage returned. She was
instilled with a new confidence. An incredible strength, love, power, now
characterized all her actions and her new outreach. She saw that as the woman
of the Apocalypse her teachings encompassed those of Jesus, fulfilling
Jeremiah's prophecy, “A woman shall compass a man.”
Margie: We have seen previously that
Mrs. Eddy's early loyal students and her faithful Normal teachers recognized
the fact that Mrs. Eddy was the woman St. John prophesies of in the twelfth
chapter of the Book of Revelation.s
Mrs. Eddy Identified
in Journal Article as Woman of the Apocalypse
Bill: Previously we saw that Mrs.
Eddy approved Judge Hanna's editorial in which he identified Mary Baker Eddy
with the woman of the Apocalypse, but that it was not published because of
certain circumstances which arose at that time. (For Judge Hanna's complete
article, see Appendix.) While Hanna's article was not published, several
articles did make the pages of the Journal, identifying Mary Baker Eddy as the
woman of the Apocalypse.
One of these articles appears on pages
171-173 of the July, 1895 Journal in which the Editor writes:
It is an unquestionable historical fact that heretofore most
of revelation has come through men. Must there not have come a time when, in
the eternal fitness of things, woman should become the medium of divine
revelation? That such a time must come is clear from the fact that God created
man male and female. There can be no whole man without the female.
Genesis is authority for this claim; but it by no means rests there. Revelation
expressly declares the appearing of the Woman of the Apocalypse. The only
possible question is as to when this Woman shall appear. We cannot in this
article go over all the ground upon which we base our belief that this Woman
has appeared and is now with us. There are numerous indicia, both in the
Scripture and outside of it, pointing to these as the times of her
appearing. It is sufficient for our present purpose to point to that one
indice which, to every Christian Scientist, is evidence
conclusive, and that is the coming to this age of our text-book, Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures. The wondrous results of this book in
uplifting humanity and bettering the conditions of the race sufficiently attest
its divine origin. How could this book come? It must come through a person; and
in the divine order above indicated, that person must be a female ... It is
upon this premise we declare that the Reverend Mary Baker Eddy is the divinely
appointed instrument of the higher revelation which has come to us.It was Mrs.
Eddy's mission to lead the world to an understanding of the underlying reality
of all things. Her teaching reveals the fundamentals and operation of all
spiritual being, which guide mankind into the promised land of Science.
Moderator: To sum up in essence what we have seen:
Since the beginning of time no contribution has been made to the world that can
equal Mrs. Eddy's contribution. Her spiritual genius saw the world at a
different angle from that of her fellows. This great difference of viewpoint
decreed tragedy for her on earth. “They hate him that rebuketh in the
gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly [they loathe him that speaks
the truth]” (Amos 5:10).
Where everyone else saw matter and materiality, Mrs. Eddy,
like Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, gave thanks for the glory and the
everywhere-present God who is Spirit (infinite good) and Love.
Margie: When one contemplates the revolutionary
nature of Mrs. Eddy's discovery it doesn't seem so strange the world is slow to
accept the revelation she brought. The discoveries of Copernicus were made
nearly five hundred years ago, and yet to the physical senses—to the
eyes—it still seems the sun rises and sets even though astronomy has
informed us positively that the opposite is true. Thus, it does not seem so
astonishing that mortals are slow to accept the Science of being which tells us
there is no life, truth, intelligence or substance in the body; that the life,
truth, intelligence, and substance are in God, Principle, Love and remain in
God, and man is the pure reflection of all that God, good, is. We must learn
ourselves as “incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul,
Principle, Life, Truth and Love.”
Moderator: Before we continue, would anyone like to
comment further on what Bliss Knapp had to say regarding Mary Baker Eddy and
her fulfilment of Bible prophecy?
Johnny: In support of Bliss Knapp's testimony I would
like to call attention to the fact that the dedicated and faithful Christian
Scientists, those in close touch with Mrs. Eddy, all believed her to be the
woman prophesied by St. John.
During a former Session we listened to the reminiscences of
Caroline D. Noyes, a student of Mrs. Eddy, who stated that a distinguishing
feature of Mrs. Eddy's students and loyal followers, and of her Normal School
teachers, was that they all recognized the fact that Mrs. Eddy was the woman
St. John prophesies of, in Revelation XII, and that the “little book”
spoken of in chapter X of Revelation was Science and Health. They knew that no
mortal man could have been instrumental in the coming of Christian Science.
They knew that the “little book” must be in fulfilment of the
prophecy concerning the “seed of the woman”; and that God's feminine
nature as well as His masculine nature must appear in order to complete and
bring out the whole man.
Grace: In an article, also from the Christian
Science Journal, the writer states:
Our beloved Teacher and Pastor followed faithfully and
devoutly the requirements of the Orthodox belief, up to the very portal of
Heaven. Then Christ, hearing her knock for admittance, opened to her a vision
of spiritual realities, of which mortals had heretofore been ignorant. This
spiritual vision is depicted in celestial pictures in Science and Health, whose
“leaves are for the healing of the nations”—the healing of all
states of mortal thought.
John the Revelator saw this hour. He saw the “great
wonder which appeared in Heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet; and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” Who can doubt
John's revelation is fulfilled today? Surely our Pastor is clothed with the
sunlight of divine light and love. ... (Vol. 6, page 110)
Moderator: Kathleen, I see you have something to
share with us. Please do.
Kathleen: It is an article from an 1892 Christian
Science Journal called “His Cause,” which states:
“Her child was caught up unto God, and to his
throne.” Every student of true Christian Science who has discerned
Principle, and entered in any degree into the deep things of God has seen that
Divine Science is the “child” that the dragon stood ready to
devour “as soon as it was born.” The more they have—through
love for and obedience to the impersonal demands of Principle—received the
promised revelations of God, the more unmistakably clear becomes the fact that
today the vision of the Revelator is being fulfilled…and the woman also
“hath a place prepared of God,” where she “is
nourished.”
The author makes a pertinent point in this
article, in addition to identifying Mary Baker Eddy as the woman of the
Apocalypse. The article also states that the “Child” is now come
“without sin”; Mary Baker Eddy's “Child,” unlike the Virgin
Mary's child, “is a Light not veiled by the flesh as Jesus was, but set on
the Eternal Hill of Science shining steadily, a sure guide to the feet of all
who look up…The Light now radiates unobstructed—unobstructed by the
veil of the flesh—from the 'Throne of God.' “ Two thousand years ago
the light had to be veiled in the flesh; nothing else could have been
understood. The dragon (wroth with the woman who, in Science and Health, has
exposed him as being merely hypnotic suggestion, animal magnetism) prevails
not, says the author of this article. We see that God is caring too for all
who—through the woman and the Child—lift their gaze above the brazen
serpent, and look beyond the cross to the now unveiled Throne of God,”
Principle, Love.
Ignorance Resulting
in Misunderstanding
Tommy: Why do you think people in
general, and even some Christian Scientists, have difficulty identifying Mary
Baker Eddy as the prophesied woman of the Apocalypse?
Anna: People in general have not made
an in-depth study of Christian Science. But if a Christian Scientist is tempted
to deny Mrs. Eddy's identity with the woman in the Apocalypse it is probably
because he or she is “looking for her in person,” instead of seeing
that the sainted Revelator can only be found in her writing and teaching,
namely, in the Word of God—the “Bride,” Science and Health.
The way to this Science is through integrity
of purpose, purity of motive, uprightness of character, and a holy life—a
life divested of personal ambition, self-conceit, self-glory, envy. It is
strict departure from the “Who shall be greatest?” syndrome. He who
is found teaching and living outside the Truth as laid down in Science and
Health cannot claim to be a Christian Scientist. It is our character and daily
life that matters, not our words. Mrs. Eddy said that he who would part Science
and Health and use her words falsely as his own is but a plagiarist, and he who
would teach Science and Health and ignore its author, “the same is
a thief and a robber.”
Florence: As we discussed earlier,
Mrs. Eddy was always motivated to protect her child, Science and Health. She
knew that unwise talk, such as equating herself with the woman of the
Apocalypse, would stir up controversy and tend to polarize the opposition's
hostility toward Christian Science. Such negative effects would outweigh the
positive effects. So she kept the matter impersonal at all costs to herself and
her holy history. In the widely circulated article alluded to earlier in this
Session, which appears on page 63 of Essays and Other Footprints, Mrs.
Eddy is obviously trying to allay the ignorant speculation rampant in the
1890's concerning the prophecy of the God-crowned woman and her identity
therewith.
The article reiterates the fact that she is
not capable of applying St. John's far-reaching thoughts except “as type
and shadow…which symbol or type stands for a quality and not a
person.” In the same tone Mrs. Eddy writes concerning a clergyman's
remarks, that all clergymen may not understand the illustrations in Christ
and Christmas, “or that these refer not to personality, but present
the type and shadow of Truth's appearing in the womanhood as well as in the
manhood of God, our divine Father and Mother” (Mis. 33:7). To Mrs. Eddy's
spiritual consciousness there was nothing else, nothing other than the
manhood and womanhood of God. There is, in reality, no mortal man. There never
was and never will be but one man, and that is Jesus' revelation of manhood and
his identity therewith; there never was and never will be but one woman,
and that is Mary Baker Eddy's revelation of womanhood and her identity
therewith. We look for the sainted Revelator in her writings, and there we
find her.
Looking for Mrs. Eddy in person or elsewhere
than in her writings, and calling that the woman of the Apocalypse would have
no more validity than to fancy a statue of Liberty represented by a woman
resembling some individual form or face, then naming it that individual. But
those who look for Mary Baker Eddy only in her writing and teaching have no
difficulty equating her with the woman of the Apocalypse.
Mrs. Eddy could discover the Christ, Truth,
reveal it to this age, and found it in human conscious-ness because of the
flawless purity of her thought and her transcendent love for humanity.
“The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the
sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of their own beliefs”
(226:25). From early childhood Mrs. Eddy yearned to lead mankind out of
its house of bondage. It is the presence of this God-quality in her thought
that identifies her as the woman of the Apocalypse.
Grace: Despite the fact that Mrs.
Eddy didn't wish her followers to talk much at this time, especially unwisely,
concerning her identity with the woman of the Apocalypse, she still wished them
to be aware of her place in Bible prophecy. The early students who did the best
healing work were those convinced of Mrs. Eddy's identity with the woman of the
Apocalypse. For them Life, Truth, and Love dawned in faith then glowed
“full-orbed in spiritual understanding” (298:3).
Every passing year will bear out more fully
that Science and Health was dictated by God, just as every advancing epoch of
Truth will be characterized by a more spiritual apprehension of the Bible
because of the Key to the Scriptures given in the Christian Science textbook.
The Bible was a closed book until God saw fit to reveal its secrets to Mary
Baker Eddy.
Juliann: I remember reading in
Collectanea or Essays that the students were invariably successful
in healing and teaching if they realized the woman prophesied by St. John in
Revelation XII related to Mary Baker Eddy and her mission. It built up their
understanding and conviction. Their healings equalled those of the first
century Christians—of St. Paul and the other Apostles.
Sally: Prophecy in the Bible
“foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ,
Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visible world” (118:7-9) related
to Mary Baker Eddy in the same way that prophecy related to Jesus when it
foretold the first appearing in the flesh of Christ, Truth. This is the
“second appearing” and “it will be the last,” said Mrs.
Eddy. It is a full and final revelation that will unfold infinitely.
Florence: Jesus explained his place
in Bible prophecy as a proof of his divine mission. That is, Jesus, as the
visible idea, claimed to be the fulfilment of the prophecies concerning
himself.
Jesus foretold the coming of the Comforter,
Divine Science, whose fruitage, divine healing, would attest to its divine
origin. In order to have this healing fruitage (as we have it in the last one
hundred pages of Science and Health) God's messenger must first appear. There
must be a visible idea. Revelation X11 describes this “visible” idea
as a woman in travail; and what she brings forth, divine Science (the “man
child”) is identified with God and His Throne.
Moderator: When Mrs. Eddy wrote that
the Bride (Science and Health) is the Word (My. 125:26), and the Word is
God (John 1:1), and that she was only to be found in her writings, she clearly
identified herself with the God-crowned woman of the Apocalypse. And she
definitely indicated her identity with the wilderness-woman when she wrote in
Science and Health, in the sixteenth and up to the fiftieth edition:
“He [the Revelator] sees a great red
Dragon at the couch of the ideal deliverer of this present age, causing her
sore travail” (16th ad. p. 515:8. Present ad. 559:32-9).
Upon this sore travail of the Woman, the “star of
Boston, high in the zenith of Truth's domain,” looked down. It looked down
“on the long night of human beliefs, to pierce the darkness . . .”
(Mis. 320:23). To this “long night of human beliefs,” which is
the resistance of error to Woman's mission, St. John, the Revelator, gave the
new name of dragon, meaning the attempted drag on of human
beliefs into Science; it is the attempted drag on of the sum total of human
error into the flawless purity of Science. The attempted drag on of the mixing
of Spirit and matter is the great stone that must be rolled away, before the
“womb-to-tomb” syndrome can be vanquished. The adamant of error, the
self-love more opaque than a solid body, is the belief that man is the father
of man, whereas the sole reality of the human concept is the divine idea itself
which never leaves its divine Principle, God, Mind, the only cause and
creator.
Jesus Born Again to
Us
Bessie: What happened to the “man child”?
Moderator: The “man child” who symbolizes
Truth and who was Mrs. Eddy's completely spiritual conception of Jesus, could
not be touched by the “drag on” of Old Theology because the man child
was gradually lifted from earth to heaven in Science and Health by the
wilderness woman who is a symbol for the Motherhood mission of Mrs. Eddy and,
in the human consciousness, by the collective demonstration of The Mother
Church which symbolized the field (her students).
Mrs. Eddy, in her “founding” mission could only go
as fast as the field could take it. She needed a sounding board. It was the
response of the field or “Church” that told her how fast she could
give out the revelations coming to her from God. The Church was a symbol for
that collective consciousness Mrs. Eddy had to reach and transform. This is why
in Pulpit and Press (p. 20) she says, “From first to last The
Mother Church seemed type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh and
Spirit, even that shadow whose substance is the divine Spirit, imperatively
propelling the greatest moral, physical, civil, and religious reform ever known
on earth.”
Articles published in the C.S. Journals in the
1890's, already cited, give evidence that the field clearly saw that the
“man child” is Science and Health, and that “the ideal
deliverer” is Mrs. Eddy as identified in her Word. We know that the
Journal was under her supervision through 1910.
These articles state “And her child was caught up unto
God, and to His throne”; and also that Divine Science is the
“child.” Mrs. Eddy calls the “little book” in the hand of
the angel “divine Science” (558:9 & 559:20). The writers saw that
“today is being fulfilled the vision of the Revelator...and the woman also
hath a place prepared of God, where she 'is nourished. 'They noted that St.
John's Revelation expressly declared the appearing of the woman of the
Apocalypse. The only question was when this Woman would appear to the physical
senses. (in Science we know she is ever-present, and that Science and Health is
as old as God [146:25, marginal heading].) They (the writers of the Journal
articles) were convinced this prophesied woman had appeared because of the
coming of Science and Health to the world.
Commenting on these excerpts, Alice Orgain in Footsteps
of Prayer p. 26, says it will be noted that one of these excerpts
denominated the “man-child” as “Divine Science,” while the
other identified him as “Science and Health,” and Mrs. Eddy also
interprets him as “Jesus, the masculine representative of the spiritual
idea” (565:11). In line with this, Mrs. Eddy also says, “The second
appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing
idea of God, as in Christian Science” (Ret. 70:20). All three of
these definitions mean one and the same thing, for Science and Health consists
wholly in lifting Jesus (as the child of the prophets and the theme of the
apostles) from the crucified to the glorified, as shown in Science and Health,
page 200:25-29, added in 1908. It took Mrs. Eddy thirty-three years to
accomplish this (1875-1908), just the number of years of Jesus' original
earth-life. Of course Jesus must be viewed impersonally in the light of Mrs.
Eddy's definition of him in the “Glossary” as “The highest human
corporeal concept of the divine idea . . .” Thus Jesus, the Lamb (purified
human consciousness), as represented in Science and Health, exclusive of the
Key to the Scriptures,” was eventually lifted to wed the “Key to the
Scriptures,” his heavenly Bride, the “adorned”
—completed—Word (My. 125:26, Rev. 19:7-9; & 21:2). It is this
adorned completed Word that is symbolized by the five extra stars on the
woman's crown.
Mrs. Eddy, in her explanation of Revelation XII:5,
specifically correlates her “man child” (Science and Health) with
Jesus: “'And she [the Apocalyptic woman] brought forth a man child, who
was to rule all nations [all states of thought] with a rod of iron: [an
inexorable Principle] and her child was caught up unto God and to His throne.'
“ When she thus correlates her “man child” with “Jesus, the
masculine representative of the spiritual idea, . . .” (565:12), the
question might be asked: How did this Apocalyptic woman bring forth Jesus when
it was only after his completed earth-life, resurrection, and ascension that he
prophesied of his rebirth, in John's great Revelation, from which Mrs. Eddy
quoted?
The answer is, says Mrs. Orgain in “Footsteps of
Prayer” (see pp.26-28) that Christian Science in Science and Health has,
step by step, spiritually interpreted Jesus' words and deeds through the
consciousness of Mary Baker Eddy to the degree that Mrs. Eddy has made Jesus
say (as expressed in her interpolated brackets): “I am he that liveth and
was dead [not understood]; and, behold, I am alive for evermore [Science has
explained me]' “ (334:26).
Bill: If Christian Scientists would compare their
view of Jesus with that of the orthodox Christian, or with their own view of
Jesus before coming into Christian Science, they would readily see how
completely Jesus has been born again to them.
SESSION XIII: THE BOOK OF
REVELATION
Moderator: The Book of Revelation can
be interpreted only from a spiritual standpoint, and since it has always been a
bit obscure to most Christians, let us take a brief look at it. From the
Christian Science point of view the Book of Revelation is a prophecy of the
coming to the world of Christian Science. The climax of the Book of Revelation
comes in chapter twelve when the woman of the Apocalypse gives birth to a
“man child,” to Science and Health, the “little book.”
The Book of Revelation contains seven
visions—encased in a prologue and an epilogue. It deals with the warfare
between “the spirit of Truth” (John 14:17) and “a murderer...a
liar and the father of it” (John 8:44). The entire Bible has been leading
step by step up to this prophecy of the coming of Mary Baker Eddy and her
discovery of Christian Science.
Jesus was the only one in human history who
had experienced the warfare with “the murderer.... the liar,” and
come through it victorious over death and the grave. By his victory he proved
that mortal birth and death are human illusions.
Does anyone know the structure of the Book
of Revelation? how it is made up?
Anna: The prologue which takes us to
Revelation 4:1 is divided into seven parts, or the seven messages to the
churches. Mrs. Eddy throws light on these seven messages by saying, St. John
“goes on to portray seven churches, the full number of days named in the
creation, which signifies a complete time or number of whatever is spoken of in
the Scriptures.” She asks us to note St. John's inspired rebuke to all the
churches except the church in Philadelphia, the name whereof signifies
“brotherly love.” Mrs. Eddy reminds us of the joy that follows
obeying the Golden Rule: “As ye would that men should do unto you, do
ye,” and reminds us that Jesus toiled for the “spiritually
indispensable” ('00. 14:23).
Moderator: We know the Book of
Revelation contains seven visions which make up its main body. Can anyone tell
us what these seven visions consist of?
Francie: The first vision concerns
the throne (divine Principle) and the Lamb (purified humanity) who takes the
book from “the right hand of him that sat on the throne.” This
symbolism signifies that learning what is true begins to banish error. (Rev.
4:1 to 5:10)
The second vision concerns the
opening of the seven seals and the sealing of the servants. (Rev. 5:11 to 8:1)
God, Principle, is found to be the only authority.
The third vision concerns the
sounding of the seven trumpets. (Rev. 8:2 to 11:19) The warfare between Truth
and error begins.
The fourth vision concerns the woman
and the dragon. The woman is clothed with the sun, etc. (Rev. 12:1 to 14:20)
The fifth vision concerns the seven
vials of wrath (Rev. 15:1 to 18:24). Here we have a picture of the seven angels
meeting the seven last plagues. These plagues are for the purpose of destroying
all desire to worship error. Their aim is to destroy ignorance about divine
reality and man's oneness with God.
The sixth vision concerns the seven
triumphs of Truth. Here we get the final warfare between the spirit of Truth
and the spirit of deceit. The victory belongs to the spirit of Truth. The
individual must learn to let Truth do the work. “The eternal Elohim
includes the forever universe”—God, infinite good, includes
within Itself the whole of what is manifested. Therefore human endeavor must be
abandoned. Human endeavor is only set in motion because man believes he is
separate from God. When it is realized that God is All, is our own Mind there
is nothing left to war against, and we cease our warfare. (Rev. 19:1 to 20:15)
The seventh vision concerns a
new heaven and a new earth which brings perfect peace. The warfare and the
overcoming of error created the ability to recognize the holy city, divine
scientific consciousness. This divine consciousness (the “holy city”)
has always been a present fact. The individual must be victorious over all
false beliefs—the divine must overcome the human at every
point—before we become one with divine consciousness. The warfare is
always the struggle to lay off illusions, to supplant the Adam-dream with
reality as revealed through Christian Science, (Rev. 21:1 to 22:2)
Moderator: The Book of Revelation in
its entirety is a treatise on Christian Science. The Revelator's “vision
is the acme of this Science as the Bible reveals it” (577:30). It
prophesies the warfare which brings Christian Science into manifestation in
consciousness. Irving C. Tomlinson in The Revelation of St. John an Open
Book, says: “The preface (Rev. 1:1-20) gives the Revelator's
explanation for his task; the introduction (Rev. 2:1 to 3:22) presents seven
conditions ... that would hinder the manifestation of Christian Science; while
the conclusion reveals seven admonitions which forward the manifestation of
Christian Science. The seven visions (Rev. 4:1 to 22:5) set forth the warfare
between Truth and error wherein Truth triumphs, and Christian Science is made
manifest in consciousness” (page 57). (See also John W. Doorly and The
Scientific Evolution of Christian Science by Peggy M. Brook, pp.
100-103.)
Woman appears in the apocalyptic vision at
the climax of its unfoldment. She typifies the spiritual idea.
Rookie: I know we have talked a great
deal about “the spiritual idea” but I would appreciate having it
briefly reviewed at this point.
Moderator: The spiritual idea
concerns the divine origin of man wherein man is the full reflection of both
the masculine and feminine qualities of his divine Principle, Love.
As we have seen, the revelation of the
Fatherhood of God came through Christ Jesus, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah
(7:14). The revelation of the Motherhood of God, prophesied by the Revelator,
came through Mary Baker Eddy and has its fulfilment in Christian Science
“without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning
of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God” (Heb. 7:3).
Mrs. Eddy's consciousness had to be wholly spiritual or she could not have
received the revelation.
This spiritual idea of Life, Truth, and Love
appearing in Christian Science is confronted by the serpent of corporeal sense,
“the great red dragon” of the Apocalypse. To the divinely illumined
woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the
wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God (Rev. 12:6 and 14). Mary
Baker Eddy's revelation, called in the Apocalypse the woman's “man
child,” is “caught up unto God, and to His throne,” continuing,
in Christian Science, his triumphant rule.
“After the seven vials of wrath are
poured out; the seven last plagues finished; the destruction of Babylon
accomplished; after the white horse rider, whose 'name is called The Word of
God,' has ridden forth triumphantly; after the angel with the key seals up the
great red dragon; and the final judgment is forthcoming from the books opened
before the throne of God, woman reappears in the apocalyptic vision. This time
from 'a great and high mountain,' John beholds the spiritual idea as the
'bride,' 'the Lamb's wife,' . . . 'descending out of heaven from God.' Her
glory is 'the glory of God'; . . . 'The Lamb's wife' is the Word of God
understood and demonstrated” (Tomlinson: The Revelation of St. John an
Open Book, p.61 and 62).
Marie: What about the “little
book” that came in the fourth vision?
Tommy: Concerning the “little
book open,” Mrs. Eddy asks: “Did this same book contain the
revelation of divine Science?” Then she says: “Take divine Science.
Read this book from beginning to end. Study it, ponder it.”
After the angel with the little book cried
with a loud voice, seven thunders uttered their voices. When John was about to
write down what the seven thunders had said, a voice from heaven told him to
seal up those things which the seven thunders had said and not write them.
What the seven thunders uttered has been
revealed in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
The one purpose of the Apocalypse, as we have said, is to depict the warfare
which makes Christian Science manifest, and no seals of error can silence the
truth of being which is made manifest through the revelation of Christian
Science.
Since our subject for today deals especially
with the woman of the Apocalypse, who will give us a brief synopsis of
Revelation, chapter 12, where the woman enters?
Man Child
Appears
Florence: Revelation 12:1 told us a
great wonder appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.
This woman is with child, meaning she is
pregnant with a great blessing for the human race. Science and Health opens
with the statement: “To those leaning on the sustaining infinite today is
big with blessings” (vii:1). Today is pregnant and big with
blessings heralded by the God-crowned woman's teaching. The woman is going to
give birth to the solution of mortality—the problem of human birth which
leads to sickness and death and every discord to which humanity is heir.
This account of the God-crowned woman and
the birth of the “man child” comes in the fourth vision, along with
the appearance of the great red dragon, a symbol for the supposititious
opposite of everything the woman's man child stands for. And so the warfare
between the dragon and the woman begins.
Spiritual
Warfare
Tina: What is the warfare about?
Florence: It's the warfare, as we
have just said, which begins with Mrs. Eddy's opening statement in the Preface
to Science and Health where it is inferred that the message brought by the
Apocalyptic woman—pregnant and “big with blessing”—will
conquer the drag on of Old Theology by making “plain to benighted
understanding” man's present perfection and God-being that needs no
salvation. The warfare will continue to the end of the textbook and it is
finally seen that error is nothing but illusion, and so the Adam-dream is
forever destroyed.
Rookie: Is the textbook then just
destroying the myth that started in the Garden of Eden?
Florence: Yes. We learn from Mrs.
Eddy's spiritual interpretation of this Bible story that it shows sin to have
existed as a false claim before anybody was ever thought of as a
sinner-“sin existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was
formed” (Ret. 67:1). It has never been true that life, substance,
and intelligence are in matter or in what we think of as a matter body; it has
never been true that 2 x 2 = 5; it was never true that the earth was flat even
though not so long ago nearly everyone believed it was. Every single truth you
can think of can have a lie told about it. Isn't that so? We don't have to
accept any of those lies. But we are all mesmerized by the big lie of life in
matter and believe it to be truth. Mrs. Eddy says, “A lie has only one
chance of successful deception,—to be accounted true” (Un. 17:1).
This is what happened to Adam in the Garden
of Eden. He accepted a lie as the truth. It was Mary Baker Eddy's divine
mission to show mortals how to free themselves from that lie that has plagued
us since time began. The Bible repeatedly prophesied her mission to come and
rescue man from the Adam-dream of life, substance, and intelligence in matter.
Elsie: I have never read the Bible.
Can someone tell me what this “Adam-dream” is all about?
Jackie: From Sunday School I remember
that God asked Adam if he had eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree that was
in the midst of the garden. It seems that the serpent had talked to Eve, Adam's
wife, and had deluded, tempted, her into eating of the fruit of the tree that
is in the midst of the garden. I guess we all know it has to do with sex and
the belief that mortals are creators. Eve ate the fruit and gave to her husband
and he ate of it too.
It must be clear this story wasn't put out
by ERA or any other “Equal Rights” movement. It symbolizes the
seeming good and evil in each man, woman, and child and how to overcome the
evil or error, the miscalculations.
So, when God asked Adam about his
dereliction he answered by blaming his wife, adding: And don't forget you gave
her to me. Adam made error personal, and this is where he made his big mistake.
He didn't see, as Eve did, that the whole thing was just an error like an error
in mathematics, or like striking the wrong note on the piano. He made the error
personal, and blamed somebody outside of himself, outside of his own mentality.
Eve, on the other hand, saw it was the serpent (which we know later becomes the
great red dragon in the Book of Revelation). She realized she had been deceived
and beguiled by the serpent, material sense, and that error was absolutely no
part of her real being and never could touch her real being, any more than 2 x
2 = 5 can touch the principle of arithmetic no matter how many third-graders
yield to that particular error.
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy says:
“…Truth questioned the woman regarding the knowledge she had
imparted, and found her honest in her reply, that 'the serpent [mortal mind,
aggressive mental suggestion, ignorance of my true identity] beguiled me, and I
did eat.' The woman was first to see her way out of the difficulty…and is
the first to abandon the belief that life originates materially, and receive a
sense of spiritual being as demonstrated by our Master at the sepulchre. She
[is] first to reflect the All Mother, or the Womanhood of God, in the spiritual
idea of Love” (Vol. 11, sixth edition, pp. 83, 84, S & H).
Adam didn't see that the error was
impersonal. To Eve he said “You did it!” Mrs. Eddy says that
“the first iniquitous manifestation of sin was a finity,” the error
that said “You” to Eve. YOU did it. (See 599:3.) If Adam had been as
alert and perceptive as Eve, he would have regarded the error in the same way
that he would regard 2 x 2 = 5 and would just have dropped it
“’unknelled, unconfined, and unknown'” (Adam and Eve are one:
Adam represents the error we are step by step dropping, letting go of). In
failing to see his mistake, he put her, as Church, between himself and God as a
“time, times, and half a time” for reckoning with his error. (See
Alice Orgain, Detached Branch, p. 162.)
Billy: What does “Church”
as a “time, times, and half a time” mean here?
Anna: It means the Adam in us sees
sin as real and so needs a “Church” or a “saving”
institution (priestcraft, actually) to stand between us and God. Eve is really
true “Church” (understanding) because she saw error was just coming
from cosmic, universal, and collective beliefs. (When we work in the system of
Christian Science we call them false calculations.) We are all Eve as we awaken
to evil's spurious nature and see it as no part of our true manhood.
“Time” is a reference to
our present and forever perfection.
“Times” is a reference to
the line of light that runs through the Bible symbolizing the educational
process by which man rids himself of the belief that error is any part of
himself. St. John's prophecy in Revelation concerning Mrs. Eddy and “time,
times and half a time” also refers to this. “Time” refers to the
Branch idea, symbolizing man's present perfection. Mrs. Eddy established the
Branch Church thirteen years before The Mother Church. “Times” refers
to her years of teaching and founding Christian Science in human consciousness,
her wilderness-Mother phase. The “half a time” refers to her
Leadership period which was cut in half so the impersonal Word of Science and
Health could take over, and lead us into the promised land of Science.
This is what is meant by Adam putting Eve
(the line of light) or Church, as a “saving” institution,
between himself and God. The Church here is really Old Theology, the dragon,
since it fails to recognize man's inherent, innate, perfection and
oneness with God needing no “saving” institution. “Time” is
the dragon, insisting it takes time to win man's perfection—time in the
mortal sense.
Bessie: Would you please repeat what
Adam's error was, and what Eve did that was right?
Moderator: When you miscalculate and
say 2x2=5 you don't blame someone else. You realize ignorance made you
miscalculate. In the same way Eve put sin outside of herself. She said,
“it was ignorance, I miscalculated. It is no part of me.” This left
her inherent consciousness pure for higher and higher conception until Immanuel
(meaning “God with us”) or the Bride's conception, Science and
Health, was reached. Woman is a symbol for that which does not yield to the
error of the ages. Woman is the symbol for that which sees man as innately,
inherently good; she conceives man in the idea of God. Adam's
error—meaning the error of every one of us—was, and still seems to
be, that he didn't claim his present perfection. He puts the responsibility for
his finite consciousness outside of himself instead of expanding his
consciousness to include all that is God-like since the eternal Elohim
includes the forever universe (515:16). He should have put the ignorance
and error outside of his consciousness and then, like Eve, his consciousness
would have been pure for higher and higher conception, for conceiving man in
the idea of God.
Rocky: Is this what is meant by the
“warfare” between the dragon and the woman?
Moderator: Yes. The dragon is Old
Theology that perpetuates the Adam-dream that error is an inherent part of us
that needs a savior or saving institutions to help divest us of error.
Rookie: What does the Bible mean by
“the seed of the woman”, on whom the dragon declares war?
Bill: The seed of the woman was the
line of light that runs through the Bible. It is Eve's seed. Seth, Enoch (who
was seventh in line of Eve's seed, and ascended), Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
and his twelve sons who are the twelve tribes of Israel which Mrs. Eddy says,
with all mortals, “show the working of the spiritual idea,” are all
symbols in the line of light. Mrs. Orgain explains that these biblical
characters symbolize what each one of us will have to encompass in our journey
from sense to Soul. They constitute woman's manhood. Eve's seed, “the seed
of the woman” or the manhood of Woman had to be unfolded first,
before her womanhood could be humanly recognized. Woman is the symbol for the
compound idea—both male and female—but she is first manifested
through manhood as evidenced by the Bible. The men of the Bible are Woman's
seed which the serpent has always made war against.
It was never true that there was man and
woman. There has always been Woman, Love—God, including man. The Bible
prophesied that eventually humanity would see this, would see that “a
woman shall compass a man” (Jer. 31:22). It was the manhood of woman that
revealed the spiritual origin of man, which was a necessary step
in order to attain the consciousness of true Womanhood that reveals man as
never born and never dying, having no origin but
always coexistent with his creator. (557:20). “God is Love [Womanhood].
More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go”
(6:17). Each one of us innately, inherently, is this Love, this Womanhood, the
united consciousness of man and woman. Discovering and founding this truth in
human consciousness was the great, great contribution Mrs. Eddy made to
humanity.
We are this Womanhood, but to realize it we
must lift our manhood to this consciousness. Manhood and womanhood must become
one in perfect understanding. This is what the dragon wants to prevent and this
is what the warfare is all about. What we term matter and spirit are but
“states and stages of consciousness” of the same old heaven and
earth. (573:10) Also manhood and womanhood are states and stages of
consciousness, and have nothing to do with persons as either masculine or
feminine.
Tommy: The divine method of warfare
is not introduced until after the appearance of the “great wonder.”
The great wonder means the Science which Mrs. Eddy discovered and founded in
human consciousness.
This Science or full effulgence of divine
glory declares the allness of good. This revelation appeared in heaven. Heaven
is a symbol for the God-crowned woman. Thus the revelation appeared in the Mind
of Woman. Through the God-crowned woman the present perfection of God and man
was seen and revealed on earth for the first time. This was a challenge to the
material senses, to sense testimony. It started the warfare between Truth and
error. So the divine method of warfare is to stay with the revealed
truth, that is, go out from Mind and stay with Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle,
Life, Truth, and Love. If we begin with God, Principle, Love, instead of with
what the physical senses are saying, we begin right; and to begin right is to
end right.
Bessie: Where does error get its
seeming power to suggest itself as the reality?
Anna: From the same place that 2 x 2
= 5 gets its power to suggest a wrong calculation. Whatever happens in reality
has to come from God, has to have the impulsion of Mind, Spirit, Soul,
Principle, Life, Truth, and Love behind it. Whatever God is and says, error can
immediately suggest the exact opposite, but in doing so it is simply pointing
to the truth because when we reverse what error says we have the truth about
the statement. This makes “matter an error of statement.” If this
were not true we would have duality instead of one universe.
Bill: This is what Mrs. Eddy is
telling us when she says, “Every material belief hints the existence of
spiritual reality; and if mortals are instructed in spiritual things
[instructed to start every thought from God, reckoning God as the only
reality] it will be seen that material belief, in all its manifestations,
reversed, will be found the type and representative of verities priceless,
eternal, and just at hand” (Mis. 60:28).
Francie: In spite of the fact that we
have all been educated to believe we live in a matter universe and that there
is life, substance and intelligence in matter—that we are a
mind-matter-body proposition—the truth forever remains that we live and
move and have our being in God, Spirit, infinite good. There is no truth in
this Adam-dream that says we are born into matter, live a century or so in a
spirit and matter universe, and then go to heaven. Heaven will never be closer
than it is this minute. Heaven is here, now. We only need to awaken to the true
facts of being. What seems to be evil is just a misunderstanding of Spirit,
God. Human belief creates and sanctions counterfeits of reality, but a lie can
only pass for truth as long as there is somebody to believe it. Let's remember
sin existed as a false claim before there was anyone to think it. There was
always the possibility of a musician playing a wrong note or a mathematician
making a wrong calculation, but the wrong note or the wrong calculation is
never a part of the real man, of man's true divine Ego, which remains perfect
regardless of the countless mental suggestions of the claim of sin that existed
before there was anyone to think them or yield to them.
Sally: Actually, who is this
God-crowned woman? The Scriptures present the God-crowned woman and the
wilderness woman as one woman, don't they?
Moderator: Speaking in
Science, the God-crowned woman is a symbol of your true being, of my true
being, and of everyone's true God-being which Mrs. Eddy revealed. The stars on
the head of this God-crowned woman suggest that she is a distant heavenly
wonder. What she represents in the way of man's oneness with God is so far
beyond human comprehension that a “medium” was at first necessary to
come and interpret what this God-crowned woman symbolizes. Hence this
God-crowned woman has a “wilderness-woman” phase. The mission of this
wilderness woman is to teach and mother the human comprehension of man's divine
status and gradually close the gap between what the God-crowned woman stands
for and the present lack of comprehension of man's God-being.
In a sense they are one Woman, but the
God-crowned woman who symbolizes Love and man's present perfection, has no
knowledge of the dualism (the error) which the wilderness woman must uncover
and show the nothingness of, in her warfare with the drag on of Old Theology.
The mission of the wilderness woman was to culture and lift our understanding
of reality to coincide with divine reality.
Anna: We might say the God-crowned
woman is the spiritual idea of God. She conceives, that is, she expands or
unfolds within her own consciousness but never by “accretion”
(68:37); for Mrs. Eddy says that “even eternity can never reveal [unfold]
the whole of God” (517:22). This is evidenced by the fact that the
God-crowned Woman, which Mrs. Eddy says “symbolizes generic man,” is
crowned with the twelve stars of generic being, which in the system of
Christian Science we call “the matrix of infinity.” This God-crowned
woman as Bride, as descended to earth, embraces the twelve tribal gates as the
boundless “city of our God.” The “tree of Life bearing twelve
manner of fruits” that symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel which
“stand in type for the whole human race” (April Journal, 1895), grows
in this “city of our God.”
Motherhood, as symbolized by The Mother
Church “bears” (to mortal consciousness) but never
“conceives,” for in its highest sense Motherhood (in the words
of Mrs. Eddy) merely discovers “some distant idea of Truth” which has
been conceived by the Bride; and in its lowest sense “it is a new
multiplication or self division of mortal thought, as when some finite sense
peers from its cloister with amazement and attempts to pattern the
infinite” (263:21-16).
If Mrs. Eddy could be conceived of as a “Mother”
it could only be in the sense of discovering, one by one, the
progressive “distant idea[s] of Truth,” typed by the stars on the
crown of heavenly womanhood, and founding them in the human consciousness
through Church body. “Church body” means the field of Christian
Scientists who were studying her writing and teaching. Naturally, Mrs. Eddy's
thought reached out to all mankind.
The Dragon
Sally: Could we have a further explanation of what
Revelation 12:4 prophesied when it implied that the dragon stood ready to
devour the Woman's spiritual thoughts and ideas as soon as she gave birth to
them? What do his seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns stand for?
Moderator: In her excellent book, The
Detached Branch, Mrs. Orgain has a chapter entitled “Old Theology
As Dragon” which most of us have read, and which gives a marvelous
explanation of the dragon. The gist of it is that so long as we accept a sinner
or any error as a seeming reality we can't escape the floods of water or what
the dragon (or the “drag on” of Old Theology) casts out of his mouth
to put out the fire of Mrs. Eddy's divine revelation of man's inherent
perfection here and now.
Sin constitutes the physical concept. Sin is
seeing something besides God, infinite, good. It is seeing another
“I” besides the “I Am” that is God and that is the I Am or
divine Principle, Love, of each one of us.
Old Theology, says Mrs. Orgain, has always
had “seven heads and ten horns.” Its first head is the seat of
sin's conception. Concerning this conception of sin, Mrs. Eddy says, as we have
already seen, that the first iniquitous manifestion of sin was a finity. The
finite was arrayed against the infinite. (Ret. 67:9)
The dragon's second head is
its mouthpiece—its publications, and the whole communications-media.
But initially, of course, it operated through the finite human consciousness as
Mrs. Eddy explained, namely, that “sin existed as a false claim before the
human concept of sin was formed; hence one's concept of error is not the whole
of error. The human thought does not constitute sin, but vice-versa,
sin constitutes the human or physical concept” (Ret.
67:1).
Billy: What would the other five
heads of the dragon stand for?
Moderator: The other five heads of
the dragon are the five physical senses. They are his field of operation.
Billy: What would his “ten
horns” represent?
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy defines
the dragon's ten horns (563:11-12): “The ten horns of the dragon typify
the belief that…by means of an evil mind in matter the Ten Commandments
can be broken.”
In her motherhood struggle with the dragon,
Mrs. Eddy put great emphasis on obeying the Ten Commandments and imbibing the
spirit of Christ's Beatitudes. (See Mis. 303:16.)
Anna: Mrs. Eddy struggled against not
only these seven heads of the dragon, but also against the ten horns—the
seeming power of the dragon. She had to fulfil, lovingly, Jesus' prophecy in
Revelation, twelfth chapter, concerning her motherhood phase. Motherhood is
always two: duality—mother and child. And twoness can never silence the
dragon. In fulfilling prophecy, Mrs. Eddy's suffering—like that of
Jesus—was caused by her voluntary acceptance of the claim of man's seeming
imperfection.
Billy: What does that mean?
Anna: Mrs. Eddy had had the true
vision in her great revelation that everything is perfect here and now. But her
followers had not had that vision of present perfection. So Mrs. Eddy had to
come down to the level they were on—she had to accede to the claim of
mortal mind that they were ignorant, ignorant of their God-being and she had to
teach them.
This is why the wilderness-Mother could
never face the dragon. Only the absolute realization that all is perfect now
and no one needs healing or teaching wipes out the dragon. So Mrs. Eddy,
through her Christian Science warfare with the dragon, could only gather what
was necessary for humanity's use in building the “temple of the
Lord.” In her wilderness-woman phase she gave us the Science and the
system, the Principle and the rule which all can learn so that all can
structure their consciousness in line with the structure of divine
consciousness, the structure of reality. When we operate in obedience to her
writings we are Principle in operation because our viewpoint is the same as
divine Mind's viewpoint, which is always the viewpoint of divine Love. It was
divine Love's viewpoint that Mary Baker Eddy brought in fulfilment of the
prophecy of her God-crowned-woman phase.
Tina: How do we stop
“sinning” and structure our consciousness in line with spiritual
reality?”
Kathleen: The only way to avoid
sinning and begin to bring our consciousness in line with reality is to:(1)
start every thought from God—go out from the point of view of the seven
synonymous terms for God(2) operate only through the channel of the seven
synonymous terms(3) operate only as the seven synonymous terms(4) operate only
for the glory of the seven synonymous terms.Making a study of the textbook
shows us we are not what we think we are. Instead we are what Mind, Truth,
knows us to be, as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. Our
true being is the divine infinite calculus of spiritual ideas in operation.
(For an in-depth study of this divine
subject many books and cassettes are available. See Appendix.)
Rocky: Kathleen spoke of the emphasis
Mrs. Eddy put on the Ten Commandments and the necessity of obeying them. Mrs.
Eddy interpreted these Commandments spiritually, didn't she?
Moderator: Yes, Rocky, Mrs. Eddy saw
that if these divinely inspired Commandments were obeyed, human birth would
cease and manhood and womanhood would become one com-pounded spiritual
consciousness.
Her spiritual interpretation of the Ten
Commandments, as they appear in Collectanea, follows:
First Commandment:True creation. One
God, one Mind, one cause, one creator.
Second Commandment (Refers to] false
creation. Mortal mind forms its own concepts and fears or loves them. (See
372:6-13.)
Third Commandment: Creation.
Scholastic theology takes God's name in vain by believing His creation is both
material and spiritual. As there is but one creator, there is but one creation.
Fourth Commandment: [Pertains to the]
reign of harmony.
Fifth Commandment: Reflection.
Sixth Commandment: Christ. By
reflecting our Father-Mother God, thereby uniting in one consciousness the male
and female, the Christ is born, which reveals man as eternal.
Seventh Commandment: Unity. Knowing
that we reflect the male and female, we must not adulterate this idea by
supposing that each of God's children is not complete, infinite. Seeing this
purity, we are partakers of the marriage supper of the Lamb, the unity of man
with the spiritual idea.
Eighth Commandment: Individuality.
Mortal mind cannot steal from our individuality by making us suppose
personality or any phase of matter has power to give to, or take away anything
from God's idea.
Ninth Commandment: “Love thy
neighbor as thyself.” See the spiritual idea.
Tenth Commandment: Fulfilment. Love
gives us all things.
Grace: To keep the Ten Commandments
spiritually we need to “detach mortal thought from its material
conceptions.” This is the only way to carry on the warfare against the
dragon.
Tommy: Anna spoke of Mrs. Eddy's
struggle not only against the seven heads of the dragon, but also against his
ten horns. This struggle is one we cannot escape. Mrs. Eddy showed us the
promised land of Science and showed us step by step how to get there but we
will each have to take those steps. Eustace likens the struggle of the mortal
for understanding and freedom to the butterfly's struggle to free itself from
its chrysalis. It is the fierceness of the struggle that forces the lovely
coloring of the butterfly to appear. The struggles of the mortal force beauty
of character, unselfishness of purpose, and the glory of accomplishment.
In this struggle we should never get
discouraged, since we can always remember that we are already perfect and are
only pecking our way out of illusions. A scientist revealed that it takes a
little chick ten thousand pecks to free itself from the eggshell. We have all
been programmed to emerge from the belief in material life, “to peck open
[our] shells with Christian Science” (552:17) so that we can come out of
bondage and into the realm of Life in and of Spirit, infinite good.
Rod of Iron
Marie: Could we briefly review one
more time what the God-crowned woman and the wilderness woman represent?
Margie: Considering this great
spiritual symbol of the God-crowned woman and her wiIderness-Mother phase,
reminds us that Isaiah 11:1 speaks of a rod that shalI come forth out of the
stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots. In Jesus' great
revelation to St. John this prophecy is illustrated as a Mother—the
wilderness woman—bringing forth a man-child. This man-child, Science and
Health, divine Science, is to rule all nations, all states of thought, with a
rod of iron, that is, with a fixed and inexorable Principle. “Science
makes no concessions to persons or opinions” (456:17). It will rule
“imperatively, absolutely, finally” (565:17). The God-crowned woman
represents self-existent and self-governing generic being. (See Alice Orgain,
Story of the Manual, p. 12.)
Mrs. Eddy discovered the Science that
explains God as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. She
showed what God is and how God operates. She explained God as God knows
Himself. The revelation Mary Baker Eddy (here symbolized as the God-crowned
woman) brought, was the fullness and allness of good.
The travail of the woman in the wilderness
was her endeavor to bring human conduct in line with the Golden Rule so it
would measure up to her full revelation. The wiIderness-Mother's mission was to
bring about an understanding of God, and man's relation to God, man's
Principle.
Mrs. Eddy's life and teaching fulfilled the
prophecy contained in Revelation showing that God is seen in the omni-action of
His idea, in everything—in all thought and all existence. She showed us
that nothing is going on in reality but God and His idea. God is the only Being
being. The problem for the wilderness-Mother was to lift her man child (Jesus,
or Christianity) to Science. “Christian Science healing is 'the Spirit and
the bride'—the Word and the wedding of this Word to all human thought and
action” (My. 153:27).
Moderator: Referring further to
Isaiah 11:1 concerning Isaiah's “rod” and “Branch” we learn
that the Branch refers to the God-crowned woman, it is the message of the
descending Word. The “rod” could refer to the mission of the
wilderness-Mother who had to teach mortals how to sacrifice mortality, duality;
she brought the cross. The “rod of iron” is the fixed and inexorable
Principle that makes no concessions to persons or opinions; these must be
crucified on the cross of Christ Science.
Tina: What then is the Branch that
“shall grow out of his roots”?
Kathleen: True being is always rooted
in an understanding of Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love,
and how these seven synonyms for God operate on the four levels of spiritual
consciousness, namely, Science itself, divine Science, absolute Christian
Science, and Christian Science. The understanding of the divine
“system” Mrs. Eddy embedded in the textbook constitutes the
“Branch-idea” where man as God-idea finds his Christ identity to be
self-existent and self-expressed.
From this we can see Isaiah 11:1 has to do
with the tree of good and evil. It is, therefore, important to understand what
the tree of good and evil signifies. The evil really stands for the Old
Theology (the dragon) that says man needs purification, that he isn't innately,
inherently perfect. Everything that wants to “save” man is not one
with the spiritual idea or Bride concept of infinite perfection, that needs no
purification, as we have stated before.
To gain “pure humanhood” the
Branch must be detached from the rod of the stem of Jesse (which symbolizes a
knowledge of good and evil because it symbolizes Church and all that has its
roots in a saving idea). The Branch (the God-man, Bride, generic man) must be
allowed to grow from “its roots” because the “roots” of the
“rod of the stem of Jesse” are the good it has drawn from the
Word—the inspired Word of Science and Health. Thus it is that the
“BRANCH” is detached and allowed its salvation as a gift of God's
allness. This is the Branch (Bride, city foursquare) that comes down from God
out of heaven. The Branch knows nothing about ascent or descent,
transfiguration or translation. Its gates are open only to God as “natural
good” (119:21). (See Alice Orgain, Detached Branch, p. 274, 275.) True
Church is the structure of Truth (manhood) and Love (womanhood) one—the
Bride consciousness.
God-Crowned Woman and
Wilderness Woman Distinguished
Billy: Are the God-crowned woman and
the wilderness-woman two different women?
Moderator: No. They are one woman,
but Mrs. Eddy makes a distinction between the woman's functions. It has already
been explained that the revelation of the God-crowned woman was the fullness
and allness of good, while the travail of the wilderness woman or Mother was
her endeavor to measure human conduct up to the full revelation. The
wilderness-Mother was Mrs. Eddy's manhood aspect or Michael characteristics
that little by little tore away the veil that hides our present perfection.
Bill: In this respect Mrs. Eddy could
be likened to a director wearing two hats: one hat symbolizes her motherhood
garments of salvation, and the other symbolizes her bridal vestures of the
onliness of omnipresent good.
Grace: Or we could use the
illustration of a straight line finding no abiding place in a curve, meaning
that the wilderness-Mother never touches what is represented by the God-crowned
woman who “symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God.” The
God-crowned woman “illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the
divine Principle and divine idea” (561:22). It was the wilderness Mother's
mission to bring about an understanding of the facts of being.
After presenting this woman in her first
phase as God-crowned, Mrs. Eddy adds, “Also the spiritual idea is typified
by a woman in travail” (562:24). This woman's travail results from the
resistance of the human consciousness to the revelation of Truth. Inasmuch as
Mrs. Eddy was the channel for both the revelation of the God-crowned
woman as typing generic being, and the foundational Mother-phase that was
responsible for bringing about a correct understanding of man's God-being, she
symbolized these two women in one consciousness. Eventually the motherhood
phase is dissolved in the omnipresence of present perfection which the
God-crowned woman symbolizes.
Anna: The body of Science and Health
was the body of the woman in the wilderness, says Mrs. Orgain. It was Science
and Health that healed what was wrong in the church (in the field), while the
God-crowned woman was all the time demanding human expression. She wanted room
to descend upon the earth and dwell with men. (Rev. 21:3)
Jesus' Church was made up of the prophecies
behind him which he embodied; it was natural that he should complete his Church
as he had begun, namely, in prophecies. This he did in his great Revelation to
St. John. Jesus bridged prophecy in his own body, and demanded, in his direct
outline of the wilderness-Mother, that the channel for discerning his prophecy,
namely Mrs. Eddy, should accept the same necessity in order to embody the idea
presented, for the “volume of the book” demanded a body for every
idea. This was necessary in order that heaven (Mind) and earth (body) should be
one, as “in the beginning God created [both] heaven and earth.” Thus,
as Jesus accepted the travail prophesied for the son of the virgin, so he
foresaw and prophesied the final travail, to the idea that discerned it.
Mrs. Eddy discerned it, and it was her mission to establish it in the hearts of
men. The God-crowned woman was to be embodied as generic man. Mrs. Eddy
discerned the fullness of being when she declared the allness of good, for good
embraced the full twelve stars in Woman's crown in human action—the
omniaction of Principle. Simply put, it is saying that each one of us is the
omni-action of Principle.
In the volume of Mrs. Eddy's book (to
paraphrase Jesus' statement, “in the volume of the book it is written of
me”) she discerned and accepted Jesus' prophesies—especially of the
God-crowned woman and the wilderness-Mother. Not only did she discern and
accept them but she interpreted them to her Church (the field), as being
herself. This, says Alice Orgain, sealed her doom to their expression, and drew
about her the larger body these prophesies demanded for the full expression of
their twelve-star Principle. Thus her Church (the field consciousness) became
her body because every member had been drawn to her through the channel of
their acceptance of her own thought expressed in her books. Since “what we
love determines what we are” (My. 270:24), each member was in
reality what Mrs. Eddy had expressed in her writings, but with many
thought-obstructions to its realization.
Because Mrs. Eddy's writings were herself,
their collective expression in Church was her body.
Her Church was the focal point of common
acceptance of the same ideas. As the revealing thought is always the head of
its revealed body, her control of the Church body was inevitable. Thus there
was no escape from the struggle that the wilderness-Mother bore to sustain her
ideas as against the resistance of old theological thoughts in students and
Church, typed by the dragon—the drag on of old views, demanding
purification as against purity. This mistaken need for purification is
symbolized by the water the dragon constantly casts out of his mouth after the
wilderness-Mother. Thus the battle between Christianity, “the
impersonation of the spiritual idea,” and Truth, the impersonal Word,
Science, was fought—the Mother Church being the battleground as it was
prophesied it would be. Mrs. Eddy said: “From first to last The Mother
Church seemed type and shadow of the warfare between the flesh and Spirit”
(Pul. 20:14). And again, Mrs. Eddy says, “The twelfth chapter of
the Apocalypse typifies the divine method of warfare in Science” (568:5),
and the glorious results of that warfare. (See Alice Orgain, Story of the
Manual, p. 64.)
Elsie: Is the woman of the Apocalypse
just a symbol, then, of the whole world giving birth to itself as it divinely,
truly is, namely, man in God's image and likeness?
Anna: Yes, it certainly is a symbol
for that too, but only as a result of what the Woman gives birth to. The Woman
brings divine Science. And as the world assimilates her message—contained
in the “little book”—then the symbol of the woman clothed with
the sun applies also to the world. In reality, of course, the world has always
been inherently, innately, perfect.
Elsie: Then it was the mission of the
wiIderness-Mother to lift us, by her teaching, to oneness with what is
symbolized by the God-crowned woman?
Margie: Yes, the wilderness-Mother
through her teaching not only brings forth Jesus as the “man child”
that is “caught up to heaven,” but she brings us all forth as that
which is caught up to heaven.
Tina: Why was the man child caught up
to heaven?
Margie: Because this man child which
the wilderness-Mother brings forth is divine Science, Truth. And Truth is; it
doesn't need a mother. It is beyond motherhood, so it is “caught up to God
and to His throne.” God and His throne is symbolized by the God-crowned
woman as Love, Bride—not Mother.
Rookie: But the wiIderness-M other
twice fled from before the face of the dragon, didn't she?
Grace: Yes, motherhood is duality,
signifying Mother and child, twoness. (Child is something outside of
Mother.) Twoness or duality can never face the dragon or overcome the dragon
because, twoness, duality, is the dragon.
The Bride, on the other hand, is oneness.
She is wedded to her own spiritual child through likemindedness. She has it all
within herself; she includes the universe, and her spiritual
“Creation” is the “outgrowth, the emanation of her own infinite
self-containment.” (See S&H 519:5.)
Bessie: Would it be out of order for
me to ask at this point who it was that prophesied the Woman's coming? Was it
Jesus or John or God?
Johnny: St. John states that it was
“the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to [Jesus], to show unto
his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he [Jesus] sent and
signified it by his angel unto his servant John.”
It was God, Principle, who, in symbol
language, told Jesus of coming events. So the revelation concerning “a
woman” and the “little book” was an act of God divine Principle,
Love. And this definitely shows the divine authorship of Science and Health. It
was the Mind of Christ reflected by Mary Baker Eddy that wrote the textbook.
Tina: Then you don't think that in
Revelation 12:1 God was portraying woman in general?
Johnny: No. It reads, “a
woman.” God, divine Mind, in the revelation He gave to Jesus, is speaking
of a specific woman, a specific identity or individuality, not woman in
general. This “woman,” this great light, was known to God, just as
Jesus, the other great light, was known to God. What these two witnesses
represent proceeds from God. This woman wears a crown. She is a ruler, as was
Jesus, since the two great lights, meaning their teaching when it is
assimilated, become the ruler; their teachings were created to rule.
The Principle Mrs. Eddy revealed will rule “with a rod of iron.”
Juliann: To a very great extent Mrs.
Eddy proved everything she wrote, by demonstrating the truth of it in her life,
and teaching others how to demonstrate this Truth. She kept her consciousness
in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual. Thus she individualized
infinite power. She knew “the midnight call” was the unexpected call
to demonstrate Christ in the midst of total darkness.
Seven Plus Five
Stars
Rookie: What are the twelve stars in
the crown of the woman of the Apocalypse? (562:11)
Moderator: The twelve stars represent
the completeness of her being, since she is Love wedded to her own spiritual
idea. She symbolizes the composite idea of both the masculine and feminine
nature of God and man in His image and likeness.
The twelve tribes of Israel which stand for
the whole human race must rise to oneness with this bridal consciousness that
the woman of the Apocalypse represents. In other words, all mortals must
assimilate the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy as found in her writings. God is
speaking to the human consciousness through Science and Health.
As we have been learning, the God-crowned
woman has two phases, and Mrs. Eddy speaks of her second phase (the wilderness
woman or mother-phase), saying: “Also the spiritual idea is typified by a
woman in travail, waiting to be delivered of her sweet promise” (562:25).
The first seven stars on her crown stand for or symbolize her manhood or
wilderness-Mother phase; and the other five stars symbolize her God-crowned or
bridal phase.
Thus the God-crowned woman, despite the
fullness of her God-crowned being, says Mrs. Orgain, dividedly brings forth her
“man child.” “Dividedly” because the indivisible
completeness of the God-crowned woman has a Mother-phase, which Mrs. Eddy
presents as: “Also the spiritual idea is typified by A woman in travail, .
. .” (562:24). So she dividedly brings forth her “man child” as
Truth, against the resistance of the dragon who is “the sum total of
error.” This she does in order to provide a saving pattern for all mankind
by which it might reach her initial fullness of joy. Each and every
consciousness must bring forth its own “man child” within its own
consciousness. When the mission of the Woman is complete, the collective
calculus of Spirit and Truth is born of the immortal matrix of Life and Love
(517:10). (See Alice Orgain, Angelic Overtures of Christ and Christmas,
p. 384.)
When Mrs. Eddy uses the term
“woman” or “womanhood” she is referring to the composite
idea of male and female as one. But when she refers to the ascending concept of
woman as in the sixth day of creation she calls it “female,” not
woman. When “woman” was discerned, time (as we have it in the
“days” of creation) was encompassed, finished. And the prophecy was
fulfilled that there would be “time no longer.” Time is the dragon
which Mrs. Eddy annihilated when she exposed his time-related wares of human
birth, growth, maturity, decay, and death, as pure illusion.
Christianity Lifted To
Science
Grace: In the first twelve chapters
of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy gradually lifts Christianity to Science. In
Christian Science the crucified Jesus of Christianity has been replaced with
the glorified Jesus of Science. The first twelve chapters in Science and Health
are the processes by which the travelling Mother or wilderness woman lifts her
“man child” step by step to reach the complete fulfilment of
“the spiritual idea,” namely, this God-crowned Woman, to which her
“man child” is finally indissolubly wed through like-mindedness.
Through the 432 editions of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy was gradually leading
mortals to give up the “spectral” at all points and adopt the
spiritual point of view, and be Life, Truth, and Love.
Rookie: What do you think Mrs. Eddy
means by: “We shall be Love, Life, and Truth because we understand
them”? (first ad. p.77)
Moderator: Who would like to explain
that?
Anna: When the “ I” goes to
the Father, to God, to Life, Truth, and Love, it becomes the only “I”
there is. Then I no longer have an “I” of my own. In absolute
Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy states, mine and thine (my and yours) are obsolete
terms. (See Mis. 318:2.) If God is All, there can be no personal
“I” apart from God. The one divine Person called God is Life, Truth,
and Love. This one infinite Person is the outcome of the divine Principle. This
divine Principle is constituted of Mind, Spirit, and Soul as one operation.
When we understand the Principle of our being, we are the one divine
“I” that is Life, Truth, and Love, or Love, Life, and Truth that Mrs.
Eddy states we shall be because we understand Life, Truth, and Love.
But as long as we are in bondage to the
belief that we have a little “I” of our own we will never find our
true being—our selfsameness with Life, Truth, and Love. If the little
“I” bears witness of itself that witness is not true (John 5:31).
Like Jesus, we each must see that there is none good but One, and that One is
God who is the Self of each one of us since there is but one “I” or
Ego which Mrs. Eddy defines as “divine Principle; Spirit; Soul;
incorporeal, unerring, immortal, and eternal
Mind……..”(588:9). This true “I” or Ego becomes our
“I” as we drop all sense of having a little “i” or ego of
our own or selfhood apart from God.
The “stupendous Life-problem”
(S&H ix:30) that faced Mrs. Eddy was how to lead humanity out of its
fundamental error of believing in a corporeal, personal “I” that
lived in matter—a selfhood in matter, that “I, I, I, I, itself,
I,” that remained on the flyleaf of Science and Health from 1878 until
1908. In 1908 it was replaced with her paean of praise and thanksgiving that
her prayer for the solution to this sense of a mortal “I” in matter
had been answered.
Of the real “I” of man we read
(first ad. p. 65:15):When we are Spirit we shall have gained the high import of
this Scripture, “I and my Father are one,” and shall find too, this
oneness occasions no loss of identity, but that “I” signifies Spirit
and not matter, Principle and not person, Soul and not body, even the
Intelligence represented by all ideas, symbolizing harmony from the blade of
grass to a star. The question at present is, whether this “I” is
Principle or person, Soul or body, yea, God or man? Principle is Soul,
Intelligence, the “I am,” but where do we place the “I”? Is
it Spirit in matter, Soul in body, Life in the flower, or the outside
Intelligence and Life, that form these; is it man or the Soul of man, outside
of matter? The Science of being reveals God not in matter, therefore this
“I” not body, nor in body, but Soul outside of matter, the Infinite,
and not finite, yea, Spirit and not person, and through this reckoning, man
gains eternal identity.This means we are always the father and mother of every
thought we have. In other words, when we understand Life (Father), Truth (Son),
and Love (Mother) we shall be the triply divine Principle, Love (331:27).
Moderator: Thank you, Anna. So, the
bridal consciousness is the perception that we are the Principle forever wedded
to the Lamb of Love, the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and
divine idea.
But this wasn't understood. Therefore the
wilderness-woman was needed. She symbolizes the fact that Mrs. Eddy had to show
humanity how to use the Principle. She had to demonstrate the Principle and
show the way we could all attain the same Bride consciousness that had been
revealed to her—that consciousness that beholds “in Science the
perfect man,” that sees “Principle and its idea is one, and this one
is God.”
Mrs. Eddy was both Revelator and
Demonstrator; she was both Discoverer and Founder. As Revelator,
Discoverer, Founder, we find her in our textbook. In her life experience we
find her as Demonstrator. Mrs. Eddy practised her revelation, and because she
proved that her revelation could be demonstrated it becomes possible for all of
us to follow in her footsteps, and receive revelation direct from God in the
same way she did. Mrs. Eddy practised what she taught and so became our living
example.
Rocky: What empowered Mrs. Eddy to
have such a great revelation?
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy tells us (107:7)
that is was the fact that God is ever with us. There is only one source
of revelation, and that is God revealing Himself to Himself, as Himself. As we
just saw, there is no selfhood apart from God. Revelation, therefore, comes to
all receptive to it. It comes to you and to me, and thus “fresh pinions
are given to faith and understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselves
intelligently with God.” This is the way Mrs. Eddy got revelation, and it
is also the way we get revelation. There will be no secret about either Mrs.
Eddy's ability or our ability to receive revelation once we realize and accept
that God is the only Mind and is the Mind of man.
Rookie: Would you say that the
twenty-first chapter of Revelation pertains especially to Mrs. Eddy's bridal or
God-crowned woman phase and the work Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures is destined to do, in identifying all humanity with the God-crowned
Woman, the Bride? And would you also say that the twelfth chapter of Revelation
relates especially to the “wilderness-woman” or motherhood phase of
Mary Baker Eddy's mission to complete the work of Jesus Christ on earth?
Over Half of 432
Editions Published in 20th Century
Grace: Yes. On page 559:32 of Science
and Health Mrs. Eddy states that the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, or
Revelation of St. John, has a special suggestiveness in connection with the
nineteenth century. In the opening of the sixth seal, typical of six thousand
years since Adam, the distinctive feature has reference to the present
age. It was in the nineteenth century that Mrs. Eddy, fulfilling the
prophecy of the motherhood-phase of the God-crowned woman, lifted her “man
child” (Science) step by step to reach the complete fulfilment of the
spiritual idea. Mrs. Eddy shows us how to become one with God divine Principle,
Love, through like-mindedness.
Sally: But the nineteenth century was
only the “wilderness Mother” or woman's manhood-phase of her
mission, wasn't it?—and wasn't it around 1890 that she said, “My work
for The Mother Church is done?”
Moderator: Yes, the nineteenth
century saw the fulfilling of the manhood phase of Mrs. Eddy's mission. In the
nineteenth century Mrs. Eddy laid her foundations. But her last twenty years
with us were devoted to bringing the Bride into Science and Health. And
actually more than half of her editions of Science and Health were produced in
the twentieth century. According to Mr. Geradi of Rare Book Company, there was
a total of 432 editions of Science and Health. Three hundred and eighty-two of
these editions followed the fiftieth edition which was called the bridal
edition because it revealed the city foursquare, the Bride-state of
consciousness—spiritual, divinely scientific consciousness—as man's
true identity. The fiftieth edition presented the infinite perfection that in
reality is our present state, only hidden from us by a veil of ignorance of our
actual God-being.
Diane: Why did Mrs. Eddy have to put
out so many editions?
Moderator: As we have said before,
Christian Science is as old as God (146:25, marginal heading); only to mortal
thought does it appear to be something new.
On page 361 of the textbook Mrs. Eddy says:
“I have revised Science and Health only to give a clearer and fuller
expression of its original meaning. Its original meaning was God, because God
is the only ORIGINAL. God was the original source of the textbook. Mrs. Eddy
was one with that original source, and she wrote in the best human language
she could command, but as we know, human language is very limited. So she
had to keep unfolding it. As the students advanced and were able to comprehend
higher and higher revelations, Mrs. Eddy continued her work of unfolding and
revising, and hiding what students were not ready for.
Jesus and Mrs. Eddy Links
In Being's Chain
Juliann: Could we discuss Jesus and
Mrs. Eddy and how she took over where Jesus left off?
Moderator: Yes, we could begin by
saying that since the dawn of recorded history Jesus was the greatest, the
best, the most scientific man to tread this planet. He had a divine origin,
being born of a virgin. This spiritual origin, partially showing forth the
Science of creation, gave him more than human power to demonstrate the one Mind
which makes and governs the universe.
Jesus was the Way-shower; he showed the
ascending way—that is, the laying down of the mortal, the
separation from all materiality. This was his mission as the masculine
representative of God. Mrs. Eddy, because she began where Jesus left off, began
in the ascension era. Hers was a descending mission, where she started every
thought from God, and never left the standpoint of God in bringing Truth to
earth. Mrs. Eddy made the ascending and descending, one operation.
This descending mission as we have it in the
writings of Mary Baker Eddy which encompass manhood or the teachings of Jesus,
showed the masculine and feminine Principle, the masculine and feminine of
God's creating. Mrs. Eddy wrote:Every loyal Scientist understands that the
second coming of Christ is the next higher, hence more spiritual revelation of
God's character. The Christian era presented the first tangible idea of God's
character by its inspired man, Jesus. The era of Christian Science ushers in
through woman the second appearing of His character, and this from the
necessity of God's nature as the Father and Mother of all, the creator,
even the complete and ever-present idea of God. Therefore, this era comes not
through Jesus but through Mary, the type of womanhood and mother of its first
and forever appearing which divine Science alone can give. The third appearing
of the spiritual idea of the character of God will present but the disappearing
of all else, and establish the supremacy of Spirit which obliterates the human
sense of the divine, takes away all sense of matter and reveals the final fact
that the idea, Christ, is not a materialized or finite man or woman, but is the
infinite concept of infinite Mind…The on-rushing centuries are declaring
this idea higher and higher in the scale of being and will ere long yield to
the sense of its ascendant glory. (EOF. 48)
Margie: Jesus as the Way-shower
taught the healing truth of God, and his disciples recorded it. Jesus provided
that link in the chain of being that was so necessary to spiritualize world
consciousness until a woman, chosen by God, discovered the Science of it that
would interpret to mankind the Principle lying behind the words and works of
Jesus. Mrs. Eddy discovered the Science that explained what God is and does.
She expounded the Principle of our being in such a way that all who hunger
after spiritual things and dedicate themselves to the study of this Science can
learn their relationship to the Principle of their being. Mrs. Eddy gave us the
language of Spirit and with this language of Spirit we can know God as God,
Principle, knows Himself. God's declaration of what He is, is called the Word.
Rocky: How does God declare Himself?
How can we know God as God knows Himself?
Margie: God declares Himself through
every sentence in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which is the
“inspired Word.” As we assimilate Mary Baker Eddy's teachings we
begin to know God as God knows Himself since God dictated the textbook and
revealed Himself in its pages.
The textbook and Mrs. Eddy's other writings
reveal the language of Spirit which leads us step by step to see that we don't
have a material body at all. What looks like a matter body is pure illusion.
Recess
Juliann: Returning to St. John, what
would be the meaning of such cryptic symbols in the Book of Revelation as
“a lamb ... slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes?” (Rev. 5:6)
Anna: Horns usually stand for power.
The passage Juliann mentions says that the seven eyes are the seven Spirits of
God, meaning that Jesus always looked out from Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle,
Life, Truth, Love, and therefore judged according to what he saw when using the
Christ Mind. The horns were a symbol for the perfect strength Jesus manifested
in resisting all that the five physical senses testified to. The seven eyes
stand for perfect vision—he looked with God's eyes, according to the seven
synonymous terms for God.
In this reference (Rev. 5:6) the Lamb
“slain” is a symbol of perfect purity. Nothing else could have so
fully demonstrated his oneness with God. Mrs. Eddy tells us it was divine
Science (the Virgin Mary's glimpse of God as the only creator) that ushered
Jesus into human presence and that this is why he could give a more spiritual
idea of Life than other men, and could demonstrate the Science of Love, his
divine Principle.
Jesus hated the lie and the iniquity that
tried to keep alive the delusion that man is a matter proposition, that he is
born of a woman. To Jesus, the “murderer” (John 8:44) was the
cruel delusion that mortal mind's sensations can reproduce man, can form blood,
flesh, and bones (372:6) which then mature, sicken and die in endless
cycles of frustration and agony. Jesus' submission to death on the cross, his
resurrection, followed by “his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and
triumphant exit from the flesh” (117) was for humanity's sake, not for
his own or for God's.
Moderator: Yes, Anna, I am glad you
mentioned that Jesus hated iniquity. Tomlinson recalls an explanation Mrs. Eddy
made when he lived in her home: “What was it,” Mrs. Eddy asked the
members of her household, “that made Jesus the Messiah?”
When someone answered, “His spiritual
understanding,” Mrs. Eddy's reply showed she apparently saw something
more, as the following account implies:'I will give you the answer, the true
answer in the language of the Bible: he “loved righteousness and hated
iniquity.”' Then she proceeded to explain that the true Christian not only
loves the right but that he hates iniquity and is willing to uncover the evil
in himself and in others. She made it clear that he was not a true disciple who
closed his eyes to wrong-doing and took no steps to unmask the wrong-doer and
bring to an end the evil-doing. She further commented that in Christian Science
we are not to draw back from our duty of exposing error and thus causing it to
be destroyed, from fear of adding fuel to error's flames, whether it appears
likely to harm us or the Cause of Truth. We are to do right and leave the
consequences to God ....
“One of the hardest things I have had
to do was to deal with this very question. I would rather at any time dwell on
love alone and get away from error, but that would not do; it would allow error
to increase. Jesus rebuked sharply; I must do so until I arrive at that place
in Mind where I cannot see error, where God, Spirit, is All-in-all. The
omnipresence of good involves the nothingness of evil, but the mental argument
must be used until you can heal instantly without it.'
In this connection, she spoke of the
Christian Science work at one of the jails and of the interest which the
prisoners took in the Sunday services regularly held there. She said that she
would have more hope for one of those prisoners than for a jealous,
self-satisfied Christian. Indeed, she had more hope for a pagan, for one who
has never heard of Christ, than for one who knowing the divine law yet
persisted in breaking it. (Irving Tomlinson, Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy,
p. 75-77).Mrs. Eddy had found in dealing with students that “the head
instructed before the heart is ready” was dangerous and it had cost her
and the Cause perilous difficulties and sore defeats.
The central message of Science and Health,
from its opening statement in Preface to the last testimony of its final
chapter, Fruitage, is that man is the reflection of God, our true Mind and
Principle and is therefore not subject to birth, growth, maturity, decay, and
death. It is our gross materiality that perpetuates the dream of human birth,
and thinks human birth has something to do with God. Error always says,
“God made you.” The first effort of error, says Mrs. Eddy, has always
been to impute to God the creation of whatever is sinful and mortal (554:16).
Science and Health recognizes God as the only creator, and as the divine origin
of man, and never allows matter and material law to usurp the prerogative of
Spirit. It teaches us the falsity of material sense and urges us to assert our
prerogative to overcome belief in sin (human procreation), disease, and death,
and not to feel the standard of Christian Science is too high for us.
Florence: What is actually happening
is that the world (in comprehension and practise) is passing the Christian
Scientists by. The leaders in the Christian Science movement have been so weak
in teaching the obsolescence of human birth that, far from being out in front
of the people, they have had to be led, kicking and screaming, to go in the
direction humanity needs and wants to go. Many of us know and firmly believe
Mrs. Eddy is right in vindicating Jesus' teaching on the subject of marriage,
legalized lust, and human procreation, but we are quite capable of
disengaging ourselves from those beliefs when we are disposed to do so. In so
doing we merit the sharp censure our Master pronounced on hypocrites. It is
indeed a tragedy that otherwise loyal and progressive Christian Scientists will
hide their heads in the sand and never face up to this most basic and
fundamental teaching in the Christian Science textbook.
The world is weary of its self-imposed
burden of materiality. It is eagerly reaching toward divine Science which
“rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the
curtain on man as never born and as never dying but as coexistent with his
creator” (557:20)—the message the Bride brings.
Starting From Jesus'
Ascension
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy began where
Jesus left off, so she naturally had to begin in the “ascension”
period, since Jesus had ascended; and this is why it says: “The moon is
under her feet”—she is standing on the demonstration Jesus made.
Jesus had proved that there was no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in
matter; he had pronounced the lie—that said there was life, substance, and
intelligence in matter—as finished. It was finished: “When Jesus
therefore had received the vinegar [had fully proved there is no life, truth,
intelligence, nor substance in matter], he said, 'it is finished,' and he bowed
his head and gave up the ghost [he gave up all illusions that matter as
substance is real (see Glossary (587:1) for Ghost)]” (John 19:30).
It is at this point that the wilderness
woman of the Apocalypse had to begin. The belief that there was life,
substance, intelligence in matter had been thoroughly disproved. So the
wilderness woman, in founding the God-crowned woman's message could stand on
Jesus' demonstration: “the moon was under her feet.” She was
“clothed with the sun,” the light of spiritual understanding; and her
head (intelligence) was crowned with twelve stars: she was to bring the
revelation of man's present perfection and completeness, namely, that “All
is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation for God is All-in-all”
(468:10). She would bring the Science and the “system” that would
enable each individual to learn the facts of being for himself, thus enabling
him to receive perpetual revelation direct from God.
In this way Mrs. Eddy fulfilled her mission
to complete the work of Christ Jesus on earth.
Rocky: Does St. John make a
distinction between the manhood and womanhood phases of Jesus' second coming?
Moderator: Yes, St. John indicates
Jesus' second coming in his scientific manhood (the manhood of Woman) in
Revelation, chapters 10 to 12, inclusive. He indicates Jesus' second coming in
his womanhood in chapter 21 of Revelation. Further explaining, we can
say, Woman's manhood is Truth; Woman's womanhood is Love. They are one.
Anna: We should remember that Mrs.
Eddy says, “The starting point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is
All-in-all, and there is no other might nor Mind” (275:6). This is not
where Jesus started in his first coming. It was his mission to prove there is
no life, substance, or intelligence in matter, since the whole world at his
time was in bondage to matter-beliefs. Furthermore they could not have
understood a Science that deals with ideas only.
But Mrs. Eddy—beginning in the
ascension period—knew that to grasp the reality and order of being in its
Science, we must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that
really is. (275:11) Man, she taught, was God's (Mind’s) spiritual idea,
individual, perfect, eternal, as an image in Mind. Since man is the divine
reflection of God, there is nothing between man and God, so man as idea is the
immediate object of understanding. (115:12-18)
Margie: According to historians, it
was approximately sixty years after Jesus ascended that he received the
revelation of the “little book”—i.e. Jesus saw the mighty angel
who had in his hand a little book open. Jesus had had his whole so-called
earthly experience in addition to sixty years in his ascension era, at the time
the vision of the “little book” containing Divine Science came to him
and he revealed it to John who recorded it. This fact alone bears witness to
the magnitude of Mrs. Eddy's revelation. It is an awesome tribute to the power
of the Christ Mind that she reflected and which God had graciously prepared her
to accept and use. It was her flawless reflection of the Mind of Christ that
enabled her to be at that point in the spiritual realm of thought where Jesus
was sixty years after his ascension.
What divine Love enabled Mary Baker Eddy to
write must be made our own. It must supplant the erroneous conceptions that
hide the kingdom of heaven that is within us.
The woman of the Apocalypse symbolizes each
one of us as we travail in birth to be delivered of our Christ self-hood, and
simultaneously delivered from the mortal dream of life in matter which is no
more real than the dream we have in sleep. When we wake from the night dream we
see its unreality. The day dream of pain, disease and discord is no more real.
Science, Mrs. Eddy said, is here to show us the way to attain the image of God,
not through suffering, as Jesus did, but through spiritual understanding.
Tina: When St. John recorded Jesus'
prophecy of Mary Baker Eddy's discovery of the Science of being, symbolized as
the God-crowned woman, he was foretelling “the second appearing in the
flesh of the Christ, Truth.” Could anyone explain that further?
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy demonstrated
the Science of being; this is the Word made flesh—the life-link
through which Truth destroys error. It was Mary Baker Eddy's life that
was the life-link and spoke the language of Spirit. It was her spiritual
understanding of what Principle and idea (God and man) are, that enabled
her to “make the Word flesh” on a universal basis. It is the unseen
Spirit behind the words that gives us her Christ message, that “breathes
His presence and power, casting out error and healing the sick. And woman [our
spiritual sense], the spiritual idea, takes the things of God and showeth them
unto the creature, until the whole sense of being is leavened with Spirit”
(Mis. 175:1). The spiritual teaching in the textbook is the
“woman” (the spiritual idea) that “takes the things of God”
and shows them to the human mind and transforms the human mind, so that the
kingdom of heaven within comes to light.
Dragon Fighting For
Life
Francie: The spiritual idea Mrs. Eddy
unfolds in Science and Health leads us to the bride-consciousness, Love, as
both the underlying and overlying Principle of all being. The
“wilderness” woman or Mother-phase of the God-crowned woman (Rev.
12:6-14), who corresponds to “conceiving IN MAN the idea of
God,” was Mrs. Eddy's work in lifting the students to Life in and of
Spirit, through teaching, counseling, correction, admonition, encouragement.
But Mrs. Eddy, as Bride, showed forth the absolute Word of Principle—the
Motherhood of God—which is always conceiving MAN IN the idea of God
(582).
Divine Principle, Love, shows that man never
germinates from anything except the whole Word, Bride. (My. 125:26) This
teaching collided head-on with the dragon, who could only survive as long as it
was accepted that there is life, substance, and intelligence in matter.
Bill: We could say, then, that the
seven visions in the Book of Revelation concern the warfare between “the
spirit of Truth” (John 14:17) and the “liar” (John 8:44). This
also answers Marie's question as to why both Jesus and Mrs. Eddy were so
cruelly persecuted while carrying out their missions on earth. They were
persecuted because their teachings signaled the end of human procreation.
In her chapter, Marriage, Mrs. Eddy says
“marriage is the legal and moral provision for generation among human
kind” (56:7), and then she adds… ”in the vision of the
Apocalypse, where the corporeal sense of creation was cast out…”
(56:8-12)—note: the corporeal sense of creation is the dragon that is
“cast out” (see 567:21-22 for what is “cast out”). We again
see the reason for the warfare between the dragon and the woman. It is a fight
to the death. Mrs. Eddy says that in warfare with error we fight with the
intent to kill—to wipe out the illusion, the spirit of deceit. Through the
spiritual education gleaned from Mary Baker Eddy's writings we discern the
spiritual creation intact. Then it is understood, and His Kingdom is come as in
the vision of the Apocalypse where the corporeal sense of creation was cast out
(See chapter “Marriage,” p. 56:8-12).
Without the corporeal sense of creation the
dragon has nothing through which he can operate. His warfare with the woman is
therefore a life-and-death struggle, and he seeks “to devour her
child”—the message of Science and Health—as soon as it is born,
because Science and Health exposes the dragon as pure illusion, as the spirit
of deceit, a liar and the father of itself.
Since all this struggle is going on in each
individual consciousness after we learn the truth about ourselves, the remedy
is to accept consciously what Science and Health reveals to us as our true
being. If we just affirm what we are as God's own likeness, that will
automatically include the denials of what we are not. If we more and more
realize our present perfection as one with God, infinite good, we
proportionately put the dragon out of business. It is the dragon's business
(the drag on of Old Theology) to whisper insistingly that we are sinners in
need of purification, when all that is ever needed is for the scales to fall
from our eyes. Isaiah prophesies that the veil that is cast over all people and
spread over all nations shall be destroyed, and God (perfect understanding)
will swallow up death in victory, and will wipe away tears from off all faces.
(Isa. 25:7,8). 11 Corinthians 3:14-16 speaks of this veil that shall be taken
away when we turn to Christ and realize that we are God: We are
“incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle,
Life, Truth and Love.”
Messages To
Churches
Rookie: What might the messages to
the seven churches that make up the first part of the Book of Revelation stand
for?
Jackie: The letters or messages try
to counteract the errors which hinder the manifestation of Christian Science in
our life. The Revelator expresses his love for the church members in these
letters in which he counsels them in a heart-to-heart talk. He shows them what
it is that hinders the Christ-consciousness from supplanting their material
viewpoints. He knows their metaphysical needs. He knows the error that is
threatening to obscure their spiritual understanding. The seven erroneous
conditions he points out are: (1) faith without works, (2) hypocrisy, (3)
sensuality, (4) mental malpractise, (5) lack of watchfulness, (6) lack of love,
(7) neutrality.
Each letter is to the individual,
“to him that overcometh.”
Each letter begins with: “These things
saith . . .” and states that the message is from the incorporeal Christ,
the omni-active Principle.
Each individual is admonished to spiritually
perceive the revelation of Christ, to understand and to demonstrate the truth
of being as an ever-present reality. (See The Revelation of St. John,
Irving C. Tomlinson, p. 125-126.)
Each message rebukes a specific error
hindering spiritual progress. The Revelator's rebuke to the Laodiceans who
would not obey the command to “come out from among them, and be ye
separate,” was perhaps the severest of all: “because thou art
lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth”
(Rev. 3:16). People's fear of incurring society's frown and ridicule keeps them
from rising above worldly weakness, and prevents them from taking a stand for
Truth. But “in a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a greater
development of power, it is wise earnestly to consider whether it is the human
mind or the divine Mind which is influencing [us]” (82:31). In so doing,
the universal insanity—that which sanctions paganism and lust, that which
sees matter as the creator of man—is uncovered. Thus the fundamental
error, the supposition that man is a material outgrowth is dealt its death
blow.
A right apprehension of all that Jesus and
Mary Baker Eddy have said on this subject of creation and man's real source
“would despoil error of its borrowed plumes, and transform the universe
into a home of marvelous light” (Un. 17:15).
Grace: The seven messages also stress
the importance of being faithful under persecution. They show what happens when
people organize a material church. Jesus achieved an individual victory. The
promise in Revelation is to the individual who overcomes the world, the
flesh, and the devil-the dragon, the spirit of deceit. The victory is to the
individual who gains the understanding that Principle and its idea is one and
this one is God (465). The victorious individual finds that existence separate
from divinity is impossible. (522:10)
Tommy: St. John stresses the point
that the promise (in Revelation) is to the individual. What would there
be without the individual? Is there any accomplishment without the individual
effort? Did Jesus as an individual found Christianity? Did Mary Baker Eddy as
an individual found and establish Christian Science in human consciousness? The
answer to these questions shows why Mrs. Eddy states in the Platform: God is
individual, incorporeal (331:18); also, “man, God's spiritual idea, is
individual” (115:15); in fact, “in Science all being is individual,
for individuality is endless in the calculus of forms and numbers”
(Mis. 104:9).
Tina: When you say man is
individual do you mean each one of us is an individual and that all of
us together make up the whole?
Tommy: No. Mrs. Eddy said (recorded
in Collectanea) that man is as big as God. Elsewhere, as we have quoted
before, she stated that one infinite God can have but one infinite reflection.
Each one of us is the WHOLE in absolute Christian Science. Each one of
us can say, I am Mind infinitely individualized but still remain the one Mind.
I am Spirit infinitely individualized but still remain the one whole Spirit. I
am Soul infinitely individualized but still remain Soul, remain the full
identity of God's image and likeness, and so on through the seven synonyms for
God.
Those of us who know the ideas constituting
the seven synonymous terms can infinitely expand on what it means in absolute
Christian Science to be Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love
infinitely individualized and yet remain the whole of each of those seven
synonyms.
Sally: Jesus won an individual
victory over the dragon. When he said, God is light, and in Him is no darkness
at all (I John 1:5), no corporeal sense of creation, no sin, sickness, discord,
death, he is showing knowledge of a perfect God and His perfect manifestation.
It was this knowledge that brought him victory over the dragon. This is why he
is the Way-shower. Mrs. Eddy wrote the textbook to show humanity how it could
attain the same sense of and oneness with Love that Jesus had.
Florence: We referred briefly to
Revelation 5:6 which speaks of the Lamb that was slain. “Lamb”
here is a reference to the immaculate purity of Jesus' mind, and also to the
fact that he sacrificed his earthly life to prove what he had said, namely,
that God was his Father and the Father of all.
Juliann: Revelation 13:8 again refers
to “the Lamb,” this time as “slain from the foundation of the
world.” What do you think that means?
Florence: It is a reference to that
“paganism and lust” we talked about earlier, which men and women
alike have sanctioned through ignorance of their God-being and innate purity.
In Divinity Course there is an entry by Laura Sargent
which spiritually interprets this cryptic quotation from Revelation:Mother
explained the difference between a material sense of love and a spiritual
sense. A material sense of love dishonors the one it professes to love, through
lust, as in marriage the man dishonors the woman he claims to love by taking
away her virginity, thereby exposing the falsity of such a sense and showing it
is not love, but lust, i.e. hate. Mother said this is 'the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world,' that is the spiritual sense of Love that is slain
from the foundation of a material sense of sexuality. (DCC. 101)Either
God or the sex-act is the Father of man, but not both, for one is the specific
opposite of the other.
St. Paul's Emphasis on
Total Virginity
Marie: What do you think Revelation 14:3 and 4 mean?
Florence: Revelation 14:3 speaks of a “new
song”—a totally new way of looking at the relationship between God
and man. “They sung as it were a new song before the throne [the divine
Principle of our being] and before the four beasts and elders: and no man could
learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed
from the earth [those that have the Bride consciousnes of purity and innocence
and conceive man in the idea of God (582:14)]. “These are they which were
not defiled with women; for they are virgins.”
St. Paul said, “Now concerning virgins...I say that it
is good for a man so to be [namely, to be a virgin]. Art thou bound unto a
wife? seek not to be loosed…But this I say, brethren, the time is short:
it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none. [Paul
is counseling them to remain virgins even though they are married.]” (I
Cor. 7:25, 27, 29).
Bessie: Isn't that asking a bit much? Isn't that
asking people to build a marriage without the cement that will hold it
together?
Moderator: Maybe, but isn't that precisely the lie
with which we have been hoodwinked over the centuries by animal magnetism? One
of the most harmonious marriages I know of was between a devoted couple of
Scientists, both of whom had been through the Board of Education in Mrs. Eddy's
day. When the partnership was broken after fifty years by what is called death,
there was total virginity on both sides.
Elsie: Doesn't Paul say: “Wives submit
yourselves to your husbands, as is fit in the Lord?” (Col. 3:18)
Florence: “As is fit in the
Lord” could mean a lot of things. But in any case, Paul could have said
this as a concession to the ignorance of the times, in an effort to promote
harmony, as Mrs. Eddy also counseled when she said those who enter into a
matrimonial contract are honor-bound to keep the obligations they assume in so
doing. Chapter 7 of Corinthians makes it clear that St. Paul was counseling all
such as were ready, to remain virgins—both men and women—that this
was much the preferred state.
Paul and
Thecla
In The Apocryphal New Testament
considerable space is devoted to “The ACTS of PAUL and THECLA,”
which has the ring of truth, and which gives unmistakably the reason why Paul
was driven out of every city in which he taught, and why he was so unmercifully
persecuted: .” . . in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in
deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes ... thrice was I
beaten with rods ... once was I stoned, . . .” (II Cor. 11:23-25). Only
someone who has a message from God and from Christ Jesus perseveres in
delivering his message in spite of such deadly opposition.
Sally: What does it say about Paul
and Thecla?
Florence: It covers many pages, but
the reason for the turmoil Paul stirred up everywhere he went concerned his
statements on sex and marriage, such as, “Blessed are they who have wives
as though they had them not; for they shall be made angels of God...We ought to
live in chastity.”
Thecla is completely persuaded that Paul is
right, as are many other young women and men. But
Thecla's fiance Thamyris is enraged, as are
the betrothed of other men and women.
Thamyris rushes into the street and accosts
the two hypocrites who had been seen with St. Paul, asking: “Sirs, what
business have you here? and who is that man [Paul] within, belonging to you,
who deludes the minds of men, both young men and virgins, persuading them, that
they ought not to marry, but to continue as they are?
“Demas and Hermogenes [traitors who had
attached themselves to Paul] replied, We cannot so exactly tell who he is; but
this we know, that he deprives young men of their (intended) wives, and virgins
of their (intended) husbands, by teaching: There can be no future resurrection,
unless ye continue in chastity, and do not defile your flesh.”
Thamyris stirs up the people. “Rising
early in the morning [Thamyris] went to the house of Onesiphorus, attended by
the magistrates, the jailor, and a great multitude of people with staves, and
said to Paul: Thou hast perverted the city of Iconium, and among the rest,
Thecla, who is betrothed to me, so that now she will not marry me.... And the
multitude cried out, Away with this imposter [Paul], for he has perverted the
minds of our wives, and all the people hearken to him.”
Paul is jailed and tried before the
Governor. He is accused of teaching “that matrimony is unlawful.” The
Governor allows Paul to defend himself. “Paul spake with a loud voice,
saying: God ... has sent me to reclaim [his creatures] from their wickedness
and corruptions, from all sinful pleasures, and from death; and to persuade
them to sin no more . . . . I only teach those things that I have received by
revelation from God.”
The Governor then orders Paul to be bound
and put in prison “till he should be more at leisure to hear (Paul] more
fully.”
In the night, Thecla, using expensive jewels
and other gifts “was allowed to go into the room where Paul was; then she
sat down at his feet, and heard from him the great things of God. And as she
perceived Paul not to be afraid of suffering, but that by divine assistance he
behaved himself with courage, her faith so far increased that she kissed his
chains.”
Tina: What finally happened? Did the
Governor ever find the leisure to listen “more fully” to St. Paul?
Florence: Yes, it was found out that
Thecla had visited Paul in prison. This called for an immediate trial of Thecla
and Paul. Thecla's mother, a strong advocate of marriage and progeny, was
galled at her daughter's adoption of Paul's viewpoint. At the trial she
screamed, “Let the unjust creature be burnt; let her be burnt in the midst
of the theater, for refusing Thamyris; that all women may learn from her to
avoid such practises.”
“Then the Governor was exceedingly
concerned, and ordered Paul to be whipt out of the city, and Thecla to be
burnt.”
Billy: Was Thecla actually burned
alive?
Florence: No, she was miraculously
saved by an earthquake and torrential rains that put out the fire. Later she
was again saved when she was thrown to wild, hungry, beasts.
Diane: Was Thecla an actual
historical figure like Paul and Jesus?
Florence: Yes, Euseblus, Epiphanius,
Austin, Gregory, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Cyprian, and Severus Sulpitius, who all
lived within the fourth century, mention Thecla, or refer to her history. Basil
of Seleucia wrote her acts, sufferings, and victories in verse. Also Euagrius
Scholasticus, an ecclesiastical historian, about 590, wrote of her. She is also
mentioned by many other early historians.
Moderator: Thecla, like Paul, was one
of the those great spiritual luminaries who saw that the spiritual requirements
of Truth not only are imperative in their nature, but always bring a blessing
in their obedience. This blessing shows itself upon our bodies and in our
affairs in harmony and health, just as the science of mathematics shows itself
upon the figures if they are controlled after a principle of truth, instead of
being controlled according to a belief that cannot be understood through
demonstration, and will result in some sort of error.
Barnabas and Heavenly
Vision
Bill: Apropos of this subject
concerning the total virginity recommended by St. Paul, is an article in the
Christian Science Journal which states:It is not so much freedom from
pain and struggle that we should desire, as freedom from a false sense of
pleasure. Many accept the healing power of Christian Science. If we admit also
its reforming power into our beliefs of pleasure, we shall behold the
“heavenly vision.”
There is a forcible illustration of this thought in the
apocryphal book of Barnabas, who was companion to Paul in many of his labors.
He refers to the custom of the Jews, under Moses, of abstaining from the flesh
of certain animals. They were forbidden, among other commandments, to eat of
swine. This law, having but “a shadow of good things to come, and not the
very image of those things,” is thus explained by Barnabas: “Moses
forbade them to eat of the sow, meaning thus much: Thou shalt not join thyself
to such persons as are like unto swine, who, whilst they live in pleasure,
forget their God; but when any want pinches them, then they know the Lord; as
the sow when she is full knows not her master, but when she is hungry she makes
a noise, and being again fed is silent,” Let us watch! for if our
pleasures are such that in them the omnipotence of Spirit is forgotten, then
they are not of God, but are of mortal belief; through Christ we must now cast
out, or reverse them, or through suffering we shall be driven to it later, and
learn what it is to hunger and thirst. . . . But blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness. (Vol, VIll, p. 6)
Elsie: Do Christian Scientists credit the apocryphal
writings and translations of the Scripture other than the King James version?
Florence: I understand that Mrs. Eddy used other
translations. In the Journal, which was under Mrs. Eddy's supervision, the
question is asked: “Why do you recommend the Rotherham translation . . .
since Science and Health is based on the common version?
The reply was, in substance:Would it not be
too material a view to think of Science and Health as based on any
“version” of the Bible? The Scriptures have been translated from the
original tongues by men who were blinded by material sense.
“The Chosen One” always speaks with God in the
mount, face to face. Only idea that reflects Principle can report of the things
of the Father. These reports are not “based on” versions but are
expressions of the eternal and immutable. Versions are the work of men's
hands—those we have at present. It is Truth that is the Word of God, not
the version [apocryphal or any other]. A Scientist is supposed to bring to the
reading of the Bible the inspired understanding gained from Science and Health.
(See C.S. Journal, Vol. 8:319.)
Moderator: Returning to Juliann's question
regarding Rev. 13:8, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world,” Mrs. Eddy tells us that “ever since the foundation of the
world, ever since error would establish material belief, evil has tried to slay
the Lamb” (568:1).
Rocky: How does Science destroy this error'?
Grace: Through innocence, purity, and Truth. The
dragon, corporeal sense, the father of lies and the “murderer from the
beginning,” could only remain in power and deceive the whole world as long
as the Lamb (innocence and purity, the spiritual idea of Love) remained slain.
The dragon could only be powerful as long as humanity was ignorant of its own
identity as the Word, namely the Bride, which embraces the male and female
elements, for “union of the masculine and feminine qualities constitutes
completeness” (57:4). From this divine completeness the dragon is
excluded.
Billy: You've lost me. Could that be said in plain
simple English?
Grace: Coporeal sense, the basis of all
lies and “the murderer from the beginning,” can only remain in power
and deceive humanity as long as humanity is ignorant of its identity as God's
reflection, as God's image and likeness. Since there is only one God, there is
only one reflection or image and likeness which is both masculine and feminine.
And since the “union of the masculine and feminine qualities constitutes
completeness” the drag on of Old Theology, that says men and women have to
marry in order to be complete, is forever shut out.
The Two Witnesses and
Mrs. Eddy's Successor
Marie: Revelation 11:3 speaks of God's “two
witnesses,” and Mrs. Eddy speaks of the two witnesses in connection with
her “successor” (My. 346:29). Could someone explain the connection?
Moderator: Yes, Mrs. Eddy tells us
“Science and Health makes it plain to all Christian Scientists that the
manhood and womanhood of God have already been revealed in a degree [they can
only be revealed in a degree as long as they are two] through Christ Jesus and
Christian Science, His two witnesses.” As long as they are two they can
only witness in sackcloth. As long as they are two they cannot be Mrs. Eddy's
successor. The only thing that can be her successor is “man in the image
and likeness of the Father-Mother God [the masculine and feminine qualities in
one]” (My. 347:4). Father is divine Mind (586:9); Mother is divine Love
(592:16). Starting with Father (Mind) one cannot arrive at Mother (Love)
without encompassing the entire range of the seven synonymous terms. Therefore,
man as the reflection of the Father-Mother God is the encompassment of the
entire range, so he is all that Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and
Love stand for. “The Christian Scientist is alone with his own being and
the reality of things.” Each reflects the whole.
Sally: Does that mean that the
textbook, Science and Health, is Mrs. Eddy's only successor? I mean, as we
assimilate the teachings of the textbook and gain Life in and of Spirit, we
would be her successor?
Johnny: Yes, definitely. The textbook
teaches us how to be God—how to be incorporeal divine supreme infinite
Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life and Love, how to be a law unto ourselves.
As we learn the Principle and rule we educate ourselves spiritually, and each
one of us becomes her successor in proportion to his spiritual understanding of
what is in the textbook. We each become a divine mother to ourselves.
Rookie: While we are on the subject
of the two witnesses could we have an explanation of Revelation 11:7 which
concerns the death of the two witnesses?
Moderator: In his prophecy concerning
the two witnesses (Rev. 11:3-12) who were to testify clothed in
sackcloth—the sackcloth of duality and rejection—verse 7 states that
“when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast [a symbol for
material law] that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against
them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.”
The two witnesses—Christ Jesus and
Christian Science—are “the two olive trees and the two candlesticks
standing before the God of the earth” (Rev. 11:4), meaning that the
two witnesses are concerned with bringing the truth to earth—to
manifest itself visibly, on earth. They are standing before the God of the
earth, not the God of heaven. They represent the power of Spirit, the power of
the spirit of Truth. Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy were concerned with
bringing the truth about God and man to humanity, to “earth.” They
demonstrated the ability of the spirit of Truth to manifest and prove itself
visibly.
Rookie: I'm still not clear on what
is meant by “the death of the two witnesses” (Rev. 11:7).
Tommy: Material law and the testimony
of the physical senses is symbolized by the beast that rises up out of the pit
and kills the two witnesses. After Jesus testified “with power” to
the truth of man's oneness with God, he was crucified. After Mary Baker Eddy
wrote the first edition of Science and Health, and taught and practised with
power, her second edition met with great difficulty. It was practically killed
by the persecution Mrs. Eddy met with from her men students. Sibyl Wilbur says,
“When the second edition did come out it was found to be a slim book,
labeled Volume 11, though there was no Volume 1. It was a complete failure; its
typographical errors were legion” (Life of Mary Baker Eddy, p.
237).
Billy: Why do you say “her
men students”?
Tommy: One has to be familiar with
the history of that time to understand God's working. Mrs. Eddy had up to then
made no distinction between the mission of Jesus (man's mission) and her
womanhood mission. The trouble she had at this time—her husband
being accused of murder, Richard Kennedy causing mass defections and endless
discord, etc.—awakened her to God's higher mission for her.
Moderator: Returning to the “two
witnesses,” they could not stand together; there cannot be two
cornerstones; one must embrace the other, because as long as there are two they
witness against each other in sackcloth. (Rev. 11:2) Holy warfare (Michael,
manhood) (Luke 12:49-53), must be embraced in Love (Gabriel, womanhood) else
one destroys the other. This oneness, as we have seen, fulfils Jeremiah's
prophecy: 31:22. “Union of the masculine and feminine qualities
constitutes completeness” (57:4) because then “white-robed purity
will unite in one person masculine wisdom and feminine love, spiritual
understanding and perpetual peace” (64:22).
The two witnesses could not stand together
as long as one was denying error and the other was affirming Truth. However
when the affirmations embraced the denials, it was found that the two witnesses
had the seed within themselves, and “the spirit of life from God”
entered into them. This brought their resurrection and their ascension. (Rev.
11:11-12)
Tina: You say when the two witnesses
become one, that is, when the affirmations of Truth embrace the denials of
error, and the two become one, they have the “seed within
themselves.” Would this mean that we must understand the divine Principle,
Love (which alone is capable of embracing all the denials of error) in order to
have the seed within ourselves?
Moderator: Yes, it is only as we are
Christian Science that we have the seed within.
Rookie: Since the two witnesses could
only testify in sackcloth as long as they were two, was it Mrs. Eddy's
mission to lift Christianity into Science, thus making Christianity and Science
one? And what does that mean?
Margie: It means that when Mrs. Eddy
lifted Christianity into Science, mankind, for the first time in human history,
was being taught that evil is UNREAL; there is no error. Evil, she saw, was
just an illusion parading as a reality. Mrs. Eddy uncovered it as being nothing
other than aggressive mental suggestion or animal magnetism. Thus “the
beast ... fell before the womanhood of God” because Mrs. Eddy discerned
that God, good, has but one side; it has no evil side. (Hea. 10:5)
It was Mrs. Eddy's job to regenerate the
“dry bones” of the Bible (see Ezekiel 37) into living ideas, which
she did in giving us the Glossary (579-599) as well as the entire inspired
Word. This “inspired Word” included Jesus' manhood mission of laying
down the mortal through crossbearing, and sacrifice of the whole material
viewpoint. Once we lay down the mortal viewpoint, namely, that error or evil is
something that must be fought, we come into the realization that God, Love, is
All-in-all, and there is nothing that needs to be either healed or saved. Thus
the two witnesses become one.
Successor
Revealed
Anna: Mrs. Eddy never lacked courage
and never missed an opportunity to spread abroad her God-ordained message. For
instance, her address to the World's Parliament of Religions was presented to
every religion on earth when every nationality and religion in the world was
represented at this Parliament. In this address she said:
Christian Science solves the problem of the
relative rights and privileges of man and woman on their diviner claims. It
finds in Scriptural Genesis that Eve, recorded last, is therefore first; she is
a degree higher than Adam in the ascending intelligence of God's creation.
[Remember, Adam, Eve, woman, are symbols in Science.] Woman neither sprang from
the dust of which adamah was formed nor from an ovum…It is a woman that
discovered and founded the Science of Christianity [in which Christianity
(manhood) and Science (womanhood) are one]. (The World's Parliament of
Religions, Vol. 11, p. 1422).
Bessie: What do you think the deeper
meaning was of what Mrs. Eddy said?
Moderator: That God is one God,
Principle, and one God or Principle can have only one infinite reflection. God
can't have a manhood expression, and separate from it a womanhood expression.
In Science, man and woman are symbols for explaining the spiritual idea so that
the spiritual idea becomes the immediate object of understanding (115:17) As
symbols, manhood and womanhood are incorporeal idea in which “the ideal
man corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth [and] the ideal
woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science,” Mrs. Eddy says,
“we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have
for considering Him feminine, for Love [which “woman” is the symbol
for] imparts the clearest idea of Deity” (517:8).
Francie: Mrs. Eddy didn't believe in
loading down the World's Parliament of Religions with anything but the barest
minimum. She knew the world at her time was not prepared for the deeper message
in her textbook.
Tina: Why is there so little interest
in the textbook even though millions of copies have been sold and it has been
in the world for over a century?
Francie: It is because, as Kappeler
has pointed out, people have not yet realized that they do not know how to read
the textbook. It cannot be read in the way a novel is read. John Doorly was the
first to realize that reading the textbook was a unique and very special art.
Few students realize this, so they are not looking in the right direction for
help in understanding what Mrs. Eddy has written. To be Mrs. Eddy's successor,
we need only to know how to read the textbook and then lovingly and
conscientiously abide by the Principle and rules she has laid down in her
Science.
Rocky: Lovingly and conscientiously
abiding by the Principle and rules would be the “spirit” of it, the
Christianity part of it, that makes Science and Christianity one.
Francie: Yes, that is the meaning of
the “wedding” of Christianity and Science, or of manhood and
womanhood. Only as manhood and womanhood are wed—only as “Love is
wedded to its own spiritual idea,” which is man's true estate or being,
can man be Mrs. Eddy's successor.
Moderator: Since Diane is new in the
class will someone explain to her what we are finding is necessary in order to
understand what Mrs. Eddy has written?
Tommy: First it needs an
understanding of Mrs. Eddy's capitalized terms. Many of us have spent years on
the study of her seven synonyms for God. (There are many books and cassettes
available for this study. See Appendix.)
Diane: Why is that so important?
Tommy: It is super-important because
this in-depth study of the seven synonymous terms for God brings us to the
point where Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love become
TONES to us. When they are tones we are independent of terms. We see
certain sentences or paragraphs as having the tone of Mind, or the tone of
Spirit, etc. This is also true of the Word, Christ, Christianity, and Science
through which the seven synonyms operate. And it is also true of the four
levels of spiritual consciousness: Science itself, divine Science, absolute
Christian Science, and Christian Science—these too must become tones, in
order to make us independent of terms.
We must see how the seven synonymous terms
all blend with each other. Unless we gain an understanding of how Mrs. Eddy
blended the capitalized terms and what they stand for, the textbook will not
yield up its treasure.
Even after we know the meaning of the seven
synonymous terms, and of the Word, Christ, Christianity, and Science, and are
familiar with the four levels of spiritual consciousness on which they operate,
we still have to learn to read the textbook as a SCORE, as a conductor would
read a Beethoven symphony. We can never fully understand what Mrs. Eddy is
saying until we learn how Mrs. Eddy has scored her message in the textbook.
Diane: Then our tools for
understanding the textbook would be to first gain an understanding of the seven
synonymous terms, and second to learn how they blend with each other—how
every idea reflects every other idea?
Tommy: Yes, then a further point
would be, as we have said, it can't be read as a one-dimensional story, but as
a multi-dimensional story, which we likened to a musical score. We have to
learn to read horizontally or chronologically as well as vertically, at the
same time.
To understand the textbook nothing is needed
but the proper method of interpretation, then as we “wait patiently for
divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind and form the perfect
concept” and divine Love becomes continually nearer and dearer to us, we
find we are beginning to reckon with the numerals of infinity that “reveal
eternity, newness of Life, in which all sense of error forever disappears and
thought accepts the divine infinite calculus” (520:10).
Once we understand the system embodied in
the textbook we will be able to learn as much in a year as we formerly learned
in forty years.
Sally: Returning to Mrs. Eddy's
statement that Christian Science solves the problem of the relative rights of
man and woman, doesn't picture No. 9 in Christ and Christmas symbolize
this point of unity between the manhood (Christianity) teachings of Christ
Jesus, and the womanhood (Science) teachings of Mary Baker Eddy—the latter
being “a degree higher”?
Moderator: Yes, and in the tenth
picture of Christ and Christmas we see the outcome of the long struggle.
The whole savage force of material law has been hurled at the two witnesses and
has achieved nothing other than giving them a chance to prove the reality of
their message. In the end the seeming victory of the beast (material power)
served only to testify—after a period of testing—to “the Spirit
of life from God” (Rev. 11:11).
The verse for the tenth picture away from
sin [away from all fleshly concepts] Christ summons thee” speaks of the
purity resulting when masculine wisdom and feminine Love are combined in one
consciousness. Heaven is seen to be here, and the struggle is over. What has
been acknowledged in heaven has been proven equally true on earth. But without
the struggle there would have been no victory, no proof, no becoming aware that
“the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his
Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). The Christ
that shall reign for ever and ever is the “Christ Science” which Mrs.
Eddy unfolded in Science and Health; thus Science and Health is the Bride of
Spirit that supersedes Mary Baker Eddy (as Leader) and becomes one with the
Lamb (purified human consciousness).
It is Science and Health—Mrs. Eddy's
“man child”—that will be her successor. Mrs. Eddy speaks of her
successor as a revelation; note: “what remains to lead on the centuries
and reveal my successor. . .” (My. 347:2). What reveals man in the image
of “the Father-Mother God” is Science and Health, her
successor—divine Science, the Comforter.
Tommy: When we consider her role as
wilderness-Mother under whose regime The Mother Church was established, we
could say her successor to her personal government of The Mother Church was the
Manual of The First Church of Christ Scientist—the
unamendable Manual.
Moderator: Yes, definitely. Since the
subject of Mrs. Eddy's successor is an important one, and one that has aroused
considerable interest and speculation since her comments were given to the
Associated Press, May 16,1901, 1 will ask Francie to review what we have just
seen on this topic.
Francie: Well, we saw that Mrs. Eddy
said the manhood and womanhood of God had already been revealed in a degree
through Christ Jesus and Christian Science, His two witnesses. As long as they
are two, they cannot be Mrs. Eddy's successor. It is only when they become one
divinely-united spiritual consciousness in which there is no impediment to
eternal bliss (577:9) that Mrs. Eddy's successor is revealed. It is the
compounded spiritual scientific individuality that reflects God as
Father-Mother (One) that is Mrs. Eddy's successor and will lead on the
centuries. It is the Bible in the embrace of Science and Health, assimilated as
our divinely scientific consciousness, that becomes her successor.
We make ourselves the Lamb of God and wed
our Bride of Spirit, Science and Health, as we purify human consciousness
through the study of the textbook. Then “we shall be found Love, Life, and
Truth, because we understand them” (first edition, S. & H. 77:17).
Moderator: Thank you, Francie.
Mrs. Eddy definitely relinquished her
personal Leadership when she said, “Christian Scientists, be a law unto
yourselves” (442:30). It is also a matter of revealed fact that Mrs. Eddy
relinquished her personal Leadership to her Manual and her written Word
in 1909 (My. 359:6-12).
Mrs. Eddy's living presence, as Bride, Word
(from which she personally is inseparable) is an active factor in the spiritual
advancement of our Cause, and she is vitally concerned with it. She was the
channel for what came directly from God, so she will have to remain with what
came from God to the end of its fulfilment. Jesus said to his disciples under a
like necessity: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world,” and proved it with his prophecies to John on the Isle of Patmos,
and in the case of Paul's conversion. (Acts 9:3-16)
Jesus' prophecies, 10th, 12th, 19th, 21st,
and 22nd chapters of Revelation, and Mrs. Eddy's fulfilment of them are
responsible for our Cause, and Jesus and Mrs. Eddy will never complete their
total work until we complete ours. Therefore she is her Word as a living
presence to the point of its fulfilment.
Mrs. Eddy is with us as her writings, her
Word. “The structure of Truth and Love” was the united Church of
Jesus and Mrs. Eddy.
Also we must remember The original Mother
Church was built as a testimonial to Mrs. Eddy's Motherhood regime (C.S.
Journal Vol. 12, p. 495) and the Manual was the instrument of her
personal direction thereof under the inspiration of divine guidance. The
Manual forbids a successor to her Motherhood functions.
Elsie: How?
Francie: By its estoppel clauses.
Juliann: I know this is a digression
from the subject under consideration, but why does Mrs. Eddy say (My. 141:28)
that The Mother Church has blossomed into spiritual beauty, communion universal
and divine”?
Francie: Mrs. Eddy wanted her
followers to subordinate their fellowship and “obedience” to the idea
symbolized by The Mother Church. Except for their arrested progress, caused by
their materiality, they could be following Mrs. Eddy for she had revealed the
Bride, Revelation 21st chapter, while The Mother Church only symbolized
the 12th chapter of Revelation. Remember, over half of Mrs. Eddy's 432 editions
of Science and Health were written in the 20th Century; and only 49 before the
Bridal Edition of 1891.
Mrs. Eddy commanded us to “abide in
Truth,” and to abide in Truth can't be limited to the 12th chapter of
Revelation when Mrs. Eddy had already revealed three steps beyond, namely, the
19th, 21st, and 22nd chapters of Revelation. Mrs. Eddy consigned us into the
active hand of Truth, which forever unfolds.
Mrs. Eddy revealed the whole Truth (the
system of Christian Science). This is why she could say, “Truth is
revealed, it needs only to be practised” (174:21). Mrs. Eddy saw clearly
that matter as a limiting concept cannot exist in pure Mind; she perceived that
the relinquishing of a material sense of things was a process, a discipline, it
was not just a verbal declaration. Because Science was precise in its
statement, Mrs. Eddy wanted it also to be precise in its application. This is
why so much of the textbook is written in the relative, in order to instruct
the student how to reach the absolute.
Billy: What do you mean by
“written in the relative”?
Francie: It means written from the
standpoint where Truth conquers error, namely, the Christian Science level. On
the Science itself level and on the divine Science level error is not taken
into consideration.
SESSION XIV: MOTHER
BLOSSOMING INTO BRIDE
Moderator: We have been seeing how
the prophesied God-crowned woman and the wilderness woman symbolized Mrs.
Eddy's twofold mission. Who will give us a brief summary of what we have
found?Mrs. Eddy the Mental Mother of Jesus
Anna: The woman crowned with twelve
stars was a heavenly wonder, meaning the revelation was clear to Mrs. Eddy, but
not to humanity. To the human mind it was still in the distance, so the woman
in the wilderness was the God-crowned woman's human vehicle for intelligently
completing the work of Christ Jesus on earth.
As the mental mother of Jesus, Mrs. Eddy
declared his higher mission. Mary Baker Eddy's child was not an infant; it was
a “man child.” The “wilderness woman” could never
have conceived the fleshly concept the Virgin Mary conceived, since the
wilderness woman says of her child, “Manhood is its eternal
noon”—manhood is life's eternal noon. (246) Mrs. Eddy did with Jesus
just what she did with the chapter Genesis, she dematerialized Jesus and
conceived him as idea. (Rev. 12:5). Jesus says of himself in this connection
(Rev. 1:17, 18), 1 am he that liveth, and was dead [not understood]; and
behold, I am alive forevermore [Science has explained me]” (334:26). When
Mrs. Eddy dematerialized Jesus and conceived him as idea, as her man child, she
had the idea in her own thought, and when it was in her own thought she
was “wedded” to it. This is what is meant by the marriage of the
bride and the Lamb (purified human consciousness), which took place in heaven
(the Mind of “woman”). The marriage of purified human consciousness
with the teachings of Science and Health (the Bride) took place in the
“wilderness” of detachment from material conceptions of good
and evil. “Wilderness” is defined as: “the vestibule in which a
material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great
facts of existence” (597:17). Our wedding to divinity takes place as we
detach mortal thought from its material conceptions. (See Alice Orgain, The
Detached Branch, page 365.)
Moderator: So, when we look for Mrs.
Eddy in her Word, we find her as Bride, and not as Mother, and this
necessitates a discriminating choice, Mrs. Orgain tells us, between her
motherly apparel and her bridal garments, for the Bride is clothed
“with the righteousness of saints” (Rev. 19:7-9), and not with
“garments of salvation.”
The Bride might be defined as the heavenly
expression of “woman,” and Motherhood as earth's conception of the
Bride.
This distinction between Bride and Mother is
in accord with Mrs. Eddy's statement that “the eternal Elohim includes the
forever universe,” which was changed in 1907 from “the eternal Elohim
has created the universe,” after Motherhood in the Word had yielded to
Bride. The Bride consciousness is the kingdom of heaven within us.
Elohim being “plural” (515:16) is
typed by the Bride as “two individual natures in one” (577:4-7). In
the sixth day, as compared with the third day (518:5), the tree embraces its
fruit, yielding its seed within itself for further unfoldment because the seed
is within the fruit. (See Gen. 1:29.)
“Mother” was basically
“woman” as the full trinity of Life, Truth, and Love before she
assumed the medial mission of Mother. Mary Baker Eddy therefore retained the
full consciousness of the subjective Bride as Life, Truth, and Love, which she
finally regains as objective Bride after her motherly mission is complete.
Remember we find her only in her writings. (My. 120:1)
So, while “Mother” never reaches
beyond Truth, because her “man child,” as Truth, was her full
expression as Mother, yet her potential bridal consciousness is always
subjectively and objectively Love. Seven years before the formation of The
Mother Church, Mrs. Eddy said, “I know not what the person of omnipotence
and omnipresence is, or what the infinite includes; therefore I worship that of
which I can conceive, first, as a loving Father and Mother; then, as
thought ascends the scale of being to diviner consciousness, God becomes to
me…Love—divine Principle” (Mis. 96:8) or composite Bride.
She is telling us that when
“creation” emanating from the motherhood of God reaches—through
the process of spiritual evolution—“the female idea,” that is
last in the ascending order of “creation,” then the work of
motherhood is completed, because “the female idea” and “the male
idea” become one in heaven or in spiritual scientific consciousness. Then
this united feminine and masculine idea, as Bride, descends to earth to dwell
among men. This brings heaven down to earth in fulfilment of prophecy. Heaven
is found to be here and ever-present.
God Plus Man
Kathleen: Because Mrs. Eddy defines
“Mother” in the Glossary as the full trinity of Life, Truth, and
Love, many feel that “Mother” is the highest definition of God; but
from the Bible and Science and Health, as well as Mrs. Eddy's other writings,
we learn that “Bride” is the highest symbol.
Moderator: We broached this subject
earlier when we pointed out that in the “Glossary,” Mother is defined
as but the Trinity of forces, “Life, Truth, and Love,” while the full
definition of God is given as “Good” in the “Glossary”
which adds to the Trinity of forces—expressed as “omnipotence,
omniscience, and omnipresence”—a fourth force, namely,
“omni-action,” corresponding to man. So, it is completed Mother that
is Bride, because, as Alice Orgain explained, “the Word is God” (John
1:1), and as Mrs. Eddy said, the Word is Bride. (My. 125:26) God plus man is
the full God, or Word, Bride.
Word Wedded to Human
Thought
Florence: It was also brought out
that until man, or expression, is added to God, or found to be one with God,
God is merely a compound of heavenly hopes and aspirations of man, typed by the
Woman crowned with the twelve stars, signifying distant heavenly light which
comes down to earth only as man weds it, or assimilates and understands it. We
saw the Bride or city foursquare is “the Word and the wedding of
this Word to all human thought and action” (My. 153:28)
Grace: To put it another way, Mrs.
Eddy says the Lamb's wife is Love (Bride); therefore Love, wedded to its own
spiritual idea, is the Bride. This state of consciousness is called, in the
Bible, the city foursquare, representing the light and glory of divine Science.
So the Bride represents divine Science. On page 576:8, we read: “in
Revelation xxi, further describing this holy city (for divinely scientific
spiritual consciousness), the beloved disciple writes:
“And I saw no temple therein: for the
Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.” Here the Revelator
equates the Lord God Almighty with the Bride, the Word of God. Mrs. Eddy as
found in her writings is Bride because she is one with the Word, with Science
and Health.
Bill: “Life is the spontaneity
of Love,” and the Tree of Life is the living Word in each individual
consciousness, A “mother” can never live for her child.
“Mother” always presents two-ness. A statement previously quoted
(Mis. 96:8) explained the limits of even God's motherhood.
Tina: Could you explain that? How did
Mrs. Eddy “blossom” from Mother into Bride? How is this shown in the
text?
Bill: When Mrs. Eddy wrote “The
eternal Elohim includes the forever universe” (515:16) instead of
“The eternal Elohim has created the universe” as formerly, it was a
change of greatest magnitude. The new wording entirely eliminated any sense of
a Father and Mother God. It evidenced the fact that Mrs. Eddy was ready to
demand the higher step where thought ascends the scale of being to diviner
consciousness, to spiritual scientific consciousness. Here, in this higher,
diviner consciousness, God becomes divine Principle, Love (Bride).
Then, in this higher sense, Father would
stand for Mind as the only cause, and Mother would symbolize Love. This then
means that supply and demand coincide. It means there is no such thing as an
unfulfilled desire, or a desire that doesn't coincide with fulfilment.
What Mind brings forth, Love fulfils. This
is Love wedded to its own spiritual idea. Thus the twoness implied by Mother
and child becomes one. So, we see it is only when Father and Mother has in some
way a humanized concept that it must be replaced with a higher concept. But let
us think of Father as it is defined in the Glossary (586:9), namely, as
“the one Mind,” and let us think of Mother, defined in the Glossary
(592:16-17) as Life, Truth, and Love, then we can refer to the infinite range
of the seven synonymous terms, and all they include, as being our own being, as
we indicated in a former Session.
Tommy: It could also be what Isaiah
(56:5) was referring to when he said, “Even unto them will I give in mine
house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and daughters:
I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.”
Zechariah (6:12) tells us that only the individual consciousness—the
spiritual scientific consciousness—can build the temple of the Lord,
or become the Bride, namely, Principle and idea as one. This spiritual
scientific consciousness obliterates all sense of a dragon or animal magnetism,
since it is a closed system where error does not enter. No one can learn the
multiplication table for you or for me. Each must learn it for himself. In the
same way, individually, we build the temple of the Lord.
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy uses the Bible's
symbolism of the twelve tribes and the twelve stars to illustrate this point.
She says they show the workings of the spiritual idea, and how the “man
child” (the evangelization of the human self) is lifted step by step to
reach the complete fulfilment of the spiritual idea, to which he is finally
indissolubly wed through like-mindedness.
In a certain way it is the same with any
subject. For instance, the more we study mathematics or music, the more we are
wed, through understanding, to the principle of mathematics or music. In
Science we can wed ourselves to divine Principle, Love, through studying and
willingly practicing every statement laid down.
If we don't adopt this scientific method,
Love has other ways to force us to accept our unity with God. Suffering is
often the divine means that drives us to seeking a higher realm of
consciousness. In one way or another divine Love will force us to accept what
best promotes our growth. We may think it is animal magnetism that is attacking
us, when all the time our gloom is but the shadow of God's right hand
outstretched caressingly, saying, Child, come up a little higher, rise above
the misconceptions of mortal mind.
Rookie: When you say the
misconceptions of mortal mind, what do you mean? Could you be more specific?
Moderator: Well, one of the
misconceptions of mortal mind that “the spirit of deceit,” the
“murderer,” has fastened on us, is the belief that those first degree
or “depravity” qualities, which Mrs. Eddy sets forth on page 115:21
of Science and Health, largely constitute our mental make-up. These depravity
qualities are evil beliefs such as passions and appetites, fear, depraved will,
selfjustification, pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge, etc. Jesus and Mary
Baker Eddy saw through this lie, and beheld in Science the perfect man. But the
“drag on” of Old Theology has always seen these “unreal”
qualities as really belonging to man and hence as something he must be
purified of. Old Theology does not accept the omnipresence of present
perfection as the fact. It doesn't see that those first-degree depravity
qualities are only part of the Adam dream, and no more real than any dream we
have in our steep,
The wilderness woman has to war against all
the old theological views that man needs purification. She gradually lifts
mankind's concept of itself to approach the pristine purity and completeness
indicated by the God-crowned woman's revelation. The twelve stars on her crown
indicate man's completeness. Prophecy cannot be broken. Therefore each one of
us is destined to realize his identity as the spiritual idea, his Christ
nature and complete oneness with God, with his Principle, Love.
Tina: What would be the big steps
necessary to reach Mrs. Eddy's discernment of man's oneness with God?
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy says that
Womanhood, through Eve, saw error was no part of herself; Womanhood, through
the Virgin mother, saw the saving light; Womanhood, through Mary Magdalen, rose
above error; but only through Mary Baker Eddy did Womanhood realize the
spiritual origin of man, and the even higher view that man never had an origin,
anymore than God had an origin. 2x2 = 4 never had an origin. In order to
rise above the mist of the Adam-dream illusion we must see man as “never
born and never dying.”
Each one of us must journey through these four stages to
realize our present and forever absolute unity with reality. Life in and of
Spirit, where divine Love has already anticipated and fulfilled every need of
man.
Transitional Lesson
of Motherhood
Sally: Why does a Science present God's motherhood?
Moderator: That's a good question.
Only a Science could present God's motherhood. I would say Science presents
God's motherhood because it is something we can each get hold of; it can be
universally learned Iike mathematics or music. Science is a mother because it
can feed all who come to it sincerely and are willing to learn, who are glad to
leave the false landmarks and rejoice in their disappearance. It is the
purification of sense and self that does the mothering. When Science shows us
what we really are, we drop the false sense of ourselves,
Mrs. Eddy, with her great understanding of
God's Science, was able to reach out, to help, teach, explain, guide, and
nurture this virgin conception in the consciousness of all who came to her for
her leadership. In her classes her impartations transcended the medium of
words. Words served only to convey her revelations. She gave both the letter
and the spirit, but she took away the letter (by not letting the students take
notes) lest they should substitute the letter for the wine of the Spirit. To
Mrs. Eddy there was nothing besides God, infinite good.
Anna: Mrs. Eddy wanted them to see
that the Bride is the Word, the divine Principle, Love; and that from this
infinite One—this divinely united spiritually scientific masculine and
feminine consciousness—“comes one Principle, and its infinite idea,
and with this infinitude come spiritual rules, laws, and their demonstration
(112:16). The Bride consciousness beholds in Science the perfect man; she knows
that all is infinite Mind infinitely manifested.
Juliann: This would mean the
Bride-consciousness only knows the language of Soul, of spiritual sense,
wouldn't it?
Moderator: Yes, the
Bride-consciousness speaks the language of Soul only, and so automatically
translates matter back to its original language which is Mind (Hea. 7:8). We
saw earlier this is what Mrs. Eddy did when she touched Adam Dickey's arm and
said, “Adam, this is Spirit.” Her bridal consciousness was one with
the divine Principle she demonstrated. Because Adam had not reached her level
of consciousness he failed to comprehend her statement. He answered, “I
don't understand that, Mother.”
When Mrs. Eddy wrote Science and Health she
stepped out of the picture—got Mary out of the way—and wrote down
what God dictated. That is why she could state with authority that what God had
spoken to this age through her is the way, and the sure foundation, and
that no man enters by any other way into Christian Science.
Thus, when we study Science and Health it is
our own being we are learning; and as we give birth to this “man
child” we are at the same time wedding it. We are finding our union with
God, Principle, Love, that needs no temple (body) “for the Lord God
Almighty [Word] and the Lamb [purified human consciousness] are the temple of
it” (Rev. 21:22). Our attainment to this understanding has been made
possible through what God enabled Mary Baker Eddy to discover and make known on
earth, because it is a Science that can be learned through a spiritually
scientific method.
Virgin
Motherhood
Florence: In connection with this
subject of the woman of the Apocalypse and her “child,” I once heard
a teacher of Christian Science talk as though he thought at some future day
children will be born who are only spiritually conceived and this will become
the usual method of generation. I insisted this was the exact opposite of what
the prophecy of the Apocalypse woman and her “child,” Divine Science,
implies and teaches.
Anna: Mrs. Eddy answers this false
argument in Retrospection (70:8) where she states: “We do not question the
authenticity of the Scriptural narrative of the Virgin-mother and Bethlehem
babe, and the Messianic mission of Christ Jesus; but in our time no
Christian Scientist will give chimerical wings to his imagination, or advance
speculative theories as to the recurrence of such events.” There was
one Virgin Mary, and one virgin birth in human history, just as there was one
Jesus Christ, and one author of Science and Health, the Discoverer and Founder
of Christian Science. Christian Science is the second appearing of
Jesus—the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God (in order to show
God's feminine nature in addition to his masculine nature). It is the
“second advent,” and it will be the last, since the “third”
baptism will only be the disappearance of all else—the final immersion of
human consciousness in the infinite ocean of Love. This takes place when we
each, as an individual virgin-mother, give birth to our own divinity and
oneness with God. By so doing, we drop the curtain on material man and
mortality.
Moderator: Proportionately as the
dragon is unmasked, human generation will cease, and the unbroken links of
spiritual, eternal, harmonious being will be discerned. The man coexistent with
God will appear. (68:30) This is the child of the regeneration Mrs. Eddy speaks
of on page 167 of Miscellaneous Writings.
The dragon, of course, doesn't want to be
unmasked. Those listening to the dragon's arguments advanced devious ways to
circumvent the teachings of Science and Health. They suggested, for instance,
that “sufficient spiritual understanding makes it possible to experience a
'virgin birth' today.” Mrs. Woodbury, for instance, taught that
“women may become mothers by a supreme effort of their own minds”
(Arena, May, 1899). Mrs. Eddy wrote, “the time cometh of which Jesus
spake, when he declared that in the resurrection there should be no more
marrying ... but man would be as the angels” (64:18). Bates and Dittenmore
twisted this statement to make it seem natural that Mrs. Eddy's students
thought of themselves as angels and could have children without intrusion of
the sex element. They did not stop to remember that angels do not give birth to
physical children, virginally or otherwise.
The human passes through many states and
stages as its concept of a material body yields progressively to a spiritual
sense of man's being.
Jackie: Is there a further reason why
Mrs. Eddy regarded the virgin-birth with such obvious reverence and why she
laid such great stress on its significance, teaching her students that it was a
crucial point in Christian Science?
Moderator: Yes. Truth and Love in
Christian Science have the meaning that everything already exists as a fact,
and as completely perfect. God's work is done. Need man or woman reproduce
materially what has been completed spiritually, and pronounced good? Mrs.
Josephine Curtis Woodbury claimed her son was “spiritually
conceived,” but Mrs. Eddy wasn't fooled. She called it an “imp of
Satan.” Jesus said, “Woe unto them that be with child!” We have
seen that Mrs. Eddy taught advanced students—those in her home—that
bringing a child into the world was “a crime, just as much a crime as
murder would be” (DCC. 256). She wrote the Board of Directors of The
Mother Church that there was “nothing jubilant about the birth of a mortal
that has to suffer and pay the penalty for its parents' misconception of man
and of God's creation” (DCC 128).
Fearlessly she stated, “When God bids
me uncover iniquity, in order to exterminate it, I shall lay it bare”
(Mary Baker Eddy, C.S. Journal Vol. 6, p. 319). And also, “When anyone
tries to argue in justification of error to cover it up against their honest
convictions it fills me with righteous indignation beyond any other form
of error” (Collectanea, p. 120).
In 1787 when the great debate was raging in
the British Parliament over whether or not to abolish the slave trade, William
Wilburforce and Thomas Clarkson nobly and eloquently led the fight for
abolition, but the vast majority who found the slave trade a lucrative business
vehemently and vigorously argued that it would be blasphemous to abolish an
institution that “God had sanctioned from the beginning.”
“Will—blind, stubborn, and
headlong—cooperates with appetite and passion. From this cooperation
arises its evil . . .” (490:8). Divine Mind, God, is the only creator; its
creation is finished and perfect. The Virgin Mary, in her communion with God,
had this realization, and her spiritual sense of the perfect idea was
translated into a personal sense, in human form, which was the only way in
which it could have been received by the people of that day. Jesus was the
offspring of “the pure heart that sees God.”
On April 21, 1884, Mrs. Eddy wrote Julia
Field King, “The virginity of Jesus' mother is a cardinal point of
Christian Science” (Precepts, Gilbert Carpenter, Sr., p. 12. See
also DCC. 108). In further explanation of this virginity she wrote:
“No advancing modes of human mind made Jesus; rather was it their
subjugation and the pure heart that sees God” (Mis. 360:32).
Christian Science doesn't show God as acting through history to create man, but
as acting on history to reveal man. Time and history have nothing to do with
the real man. Mrs. Eddy saw in the virgin birth a wonderful symbol of a
creation that was actually revelation. She saw it as an archetypal illustration
of reality breaking through seeming reality or appearance in defiance of
mortal-mind methods of generation. What produced Jesus was the illumination of
Mary's spiritual sense. This illumination put to silence material law and its
order of generation. Mary glimpsed the fact that being is Spirit and God, Mind,
is the Father, Mind, of man. This glimpse was the “seed” that
produced Jesus.
In contrast to the Virgin Mary's conception,
Mary Baker Eddy conceived her Immanuel in the form of a Science. She brought
forth “the Comforter,” Divine Science, in fulfilment of Bible
Prophecy. Here woman's spiritual sense of God's perfect idea was translated
into personal sense in human language as a book—the most mental form in
which it could be understood by humanity. Her child was not a baby. It
was a “man child,” Truth.
It is not necessary that another should ever
conceive as did the Madonna; that has been done so all might know God's idea is
perfect, without sin. The Virgin Mary's child did his work perfectly. Neither
do we need the discovery of another Divine Science. The Science, the
child, that Mary Baker Eddy brought in fulfilment of prophecy is complete
and final, revealing the Principle by which evil is ruled out of consciousness.
It will unfold forever as thought rises higher and higher. Through spiritual
education we will perceive what is in the textbook as it leads us into
“the promised land of Science where fetters fall and the rights of man are
fully known and acknowledged.” (227:1)
Rocky: The Virgin-mother must have
glimpsed the fact that the ideal woman is both Mother and Father.
Tommy: Yes, Mrs. Eddy says “the
ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love,” to both the underlying and
overlying divine Principle, Love, and the “seed” that produced Jesus
must have been the Virgin-mother's glimpse of this divine fact.
Mrs. Eddy realized it was not his human
heredity and environment that enabled Jesus to perform mighty and unparalleled
deeds. Rather it was this seed, this glimpse of Spirit as the only substance
and reality. The virgin birth told Mrs. Eddy that evil could not be counted on
to generate good.
Billy: Why?
Tommy: Because only the Principle can
generate. The Virgin mother had proved it. Evil isn't an entity even though it
tries to control through aggressive mental suggestion. It can never do anything
except suggest to one's mentality that it is a power.
Writing to a student, Mrs. Eddy explained,
“You are not both mortal and immortal mind or body. The Ego, you, is
immortal only. The mortal is the suggestive lie calling itself you when it is
not. You are not two opposites but one entity and individuality. The lying
'you' is likened by Paul to that which was not him, 'no longer I, but
sin'” (Letter to William I. Gill preserved in Alice Orgain Library).
Mrs. Eddy knew that the origin of good must
lie beyond the subtle deceit and duplicity of the temporal world. Her search
led her to the timeless, flawless universe of the divine Principle, Love. Mrs.
Eddy did not say, “Get thee behind me, Satan, as Christianity does;
Science (Woman) faces the problem—the problem of “lust and
hypocrisy.” Science sees the nothingness of these twin devils and
overcomes them.
Moderator: To recapitulate, Mrs. Eddy
realized that revelation had produced Jesus. It was a breakthrough. God,
Principle, Mind, revealed Himself to the Virgin Mary, just as eighteen
centuries later He Principle, Mind, revealed Himself to Mary Baker Eddy. After
interpreting Genesis 1:5, she asks: “Was not this a revelation instead of
a creation?” [504:14]. The virgin birth was an illustration of reality
breaking through the heavy mist of materiality that held Spirit in the grasp of
matter. The Virgin Mary had glimpsed the truth that Spirit, infinite good, is
the only creator. This was the “seed” that produced Jesus. Human
heredity and environment were completely overshadowed by Mary's glimpse that
Spirit alone is the source of all true being; material law and its order of
generation had been set aside—silenced.
Bill: Alice Orgain, in her book The
Detached Branch, throws light on why Mrs. Eddy considered the virgin
birth of such great importance in the theology of Christian Science. Man's
every prophetic step in the growing of his Tree of Life, says Mrs. Orgain, was
through the medium of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil. Its good comes
from Woman (Science) as the quickening spirit thereof, and its evil comes from
contact with the serpent within, since Adam had never put the serpent out of
himself as Eve had done (533:14-17; 26-32). (Remember Adam and Eve are one;
they symbolize the step by step working out of the human problem.) To
Adam's sense, woman literally conceived his fruit, but in spiritual fact she
conceived only her own, as the Virgin Mary proved, being the father
and mother of her child. Mrs. Eddy likewise proved this theory of
conception in unfolding both the manhood and womanhood of her child
(Science)—the first twelve chapters of Science and Health being the
manhood phase of her “child.” Mrs. Eddy gave us the Principle thereof
in the sense of woman's corresponding to both Life (Fatherhood) and Love
(Motherhood) (569:1). She then states: “The ideal woman corresponds to
Life and to Love” (517:10).
Moderator: Here, again, it is
important to remember that the terms “man” and “woman” are
symbols, just as the terms “Adam” and “Eve” are symbols. In
the ascending scale in Genesis woman is created last. In Science terminology
“woman” stands for Science, for Love. Substituting
“Science” for “woman” in these explanations will generally
give a clearer and more impersonal sense.
Tina: If the Virgin Mary's was a
spiritual conception, why does Mrs. Eddy declare that it cannot be repeated?
Johnny: For the same reason that the work Jesus did
on earth doesn't need to be repeated. It was a revelation to the Virgin Mary at
that point in human history when it was needed. Jesus was a corporeal Savior.
Mary Baker Eddy brought an incorporeal savior. What we see at work here is God
acting on history to reveal spiritual man. As the hymn says, “step by
step, since time began, we see the steady gain of man.” It is the step by
step appearing, through revelation, of spiritual reality in all its
pre-existent pristine perfection. Ideas stir in human thought before the moment
of revelation, but the light of Truth must dawn before the ideas can be
understood in their divine logic. The ideas that had been stirring in Mary
Baker Eddy's thoughts presaged her unique spiritual mission, just as the Virgin
Mary's communion with God foretokened her unique mission.
Distinction Between
Jesus and the Christ
Kathleen: Mrs. Eddy makes a basic distinction between
Jesus and the Christ indicating that to confuse them is like confusing
Beethoven with music, or Einstein with mathematics. Can we go into this
distinction a little more deeply?
Anna: Mrs. Eddy teaches that the
Christ has been expressed in varying degree by prophets and apostles. Anyone
who follows the example of Jesus expresses a measure of the Christ, the true
idea of God, because he is going to the same source of inexhaustible good that
Jesus went to for his power and ability. But Mrs. Eddy makes it clear that
while each can avail himself of this same Christ-Mind and Christ-spirit with
the power it bestows, still Jesus embodied this Christ-Mind and Christ-spirit
with such unmatched excellence and perfection that his place as Exemplar and
Wayshower would be assured until the end of error, the end of the
“mist” that makes us believe we are mortals instead of God-beings.
Jesus could hold this unique position for all time because of his virgin-birth,
which enabled him to “demonstrate the Science of Love—his Father, or
divine Principle.” Jesus came as a corporeal Savior because at that time
the world was not ready for an incorporeal Savior; if Jesus had not been born
of a woman—i.e., had his origin and birth been wholly apart from mortal
usage—he could not have shown mortal mind the way out of the flesh. (30)
Moderator: When we were comparing the
missions of Jesus and Mrs. Eddy we illustrated the difference with mathematics
because we could easily see we have an impersonal principle of mathematics, and
its personal representation would be examples written on the blackboard or on
paper. The impersonal principle would be like the Christ, and the personal
written example would correspond to Jesus. The personal or written example only
serves to point to the principle; it has no intrinsic value. But the science of
mathematics teaches us the principle and the rules governing. This is also what
the Science of the Christ does, making it possible for each to do what Jesus
did. Once we understand the Principle, that Principle can be illustrated in
endless ways.
Florence: Jesus in the flesh
impersonated God. He bridged with his own body the difference between his
divine understanding and the people's lack of understanding. On the other hand,
the Christ Science Mrs. Eddy brought wipes out corporeality completely, and
shows the spiritual original of each one of us to be the Christ, to be what God
is as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love.
The manhood which Jesus represented reached
its climax in crucifixion—the laying down of the mortal concept. The
Christ Science reaches its goal in man's glorification as one with God. The
belief in a personal “I” must be transformed. Christ Science begins
by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all, and as the only “I.”
The spirit of Truth is Womanhood that
embraces its own manhood. The Christ therefore is Womanhood that embraces its
own manhood. Spiritual understanding will bring the complete under-standing of
this.
Francie: Mrs. Eddy asserted that
mortals grow into immortals as babes develop into adults. “By putting 'off
the old man . . .' mortals put on immortality” (262:7). The highest
standpoint of being is its Science, and only Truth—the Principle of man,
the divine system—enables man to work out his own salvation through the
gradual fading out of materiality. As earthly desires, possessions and
pleasures are dropped, purity, Truth, and the wedding to Science and Health,
Mary Baker Eddy's “man child,” take their place.
Then the understanding of Life in and of
Spirit will have supplanted the dream of life and intelligence in matter with
its attendant woes and its error ceaselessly producing error.
Bessie: This means that God is a
Principle that we have to understand, doesn't it? Having been a nurse all my
adult life this isn't the easiest thing for me to grasp.
Moderator: Yes, dear Bessie, God is a
Principle we have to understand, because “Principle and its idea [man] is
one, and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Being, . .
.” Then Mrs. Eddy adds: “and His reflection is man and the
universe.” The “I” or Ego of each one of us is God, divine
Principle. “There is but I, or us, but one divine Principle or Mind,
governing all existence; . . . “ (588:9) Note carefully that the
“I” or Ego of each one of us is God, and “His reflection
is man and the universe.” Understanding is the hinge on which all the
doors to the city foursquare swing. Understanding makes the structure of
our consciousness and the structure of God's consciousness, one and
identical.
Mother to
Ourselves
Anna: Mrs. Eddy, whom we have equated
with the God-crowned woman (since we find her only in her writings), had to
fulfil the role of motherhood Love in order to found her revelation in human
consciousness. There is a wide functional difference between
“bridal” glory—the revelation and understanding of man's
present perfection—and the motherhood travail required in lifting
consciousness to the realization of its present perfection. (See 562:24.)
Marie: Is it this Woman in her two
phases that symbolizes generic man?
Kathleen: Her God-crowned woman phase
symbolizes revelation or “generic man.” Her second phase symbolizes
the foundational Mother-phase, the wilderness-woman phase, through which she
established Truth in human consciousness. Mrs. Eddy fulfilled the prophesied
coming of both these women; she typed these two women in one consciousness, so
her motherhood phase cannot be separated from her bridal phase. She represents
each one of us, and in order to realize ourself generic man or all that the
God-crowned woman symbolizes we each have to become a mother to ourself.
“A mother is the strongest educator” (236:12). We each, as a mother
to ourself, educate ourselves out of believing we are mortals with a matter
body, into knowing and realizing what we really are as God as incorporeal,
divine as supreme infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth and Love.
Tina: We mother ourselves by learning
the Science of our being, don't we?—learning “the system that she
denominated Christian Science” (viii:27)—learning we are incorporeal,
divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love, as
Kathleen said.
Anna: Yes, the Science is what
teaches us our wholeness, our complete and total oneness with God so that we
are all that the seven synonymous terms stand for.
What has to be overcome are the false
beliefs we entertain.
These false beliefs are the
“objections” we entertain which Mrs. Eddy refers to in her chapter,
“Some Objections Answered.” She opens this chapter with the
statement, “The strictures on this volume [remember, “this
volume” is our true being, all that the God-crowned woman represents]
would condemn to oblivion the truth which is raising up thousands . . .”
(341:1).
The “objections” that are in us,
because of our mortal viewpoint, must be overcome. They can only be overcome as
we are a mother to ourselves and educate ourselves with the Science of our
being. This lifts us up to God's point of view and we gradually become one with
God. When all mankind educates itself in this way it becomes “generic
man” or what the woman of the Apocalypse symbolizes. But unless the
God-crowned woman had a motherhood phase as well as a bridal phase, she would
always remain a distant wonder.
Marie: Jesus proved that all false
beliefs could be overcome, didn't he?
Margie: Yes, Jesus gave the whole
proof when he proved that God, Mind, was his life, and that God, Jesus' own
divine Mind, could reproduce at will what looked like a mortal body, just as a
mathematician can reproduce figures on a blackboard after they have been
erased. However, while Jesus gave the full proof, his explanations were
fragmentary. Thus it remained for Mrs. Eddy to bring from heaven the
Principle and rule so that every man, woman, and child could learn to do what
Jesus did.
Mrs. Eddy brought us a Science. One of the
characteristics of a Science is that it is not fragmentary. It is whole, and
unfolds infinitely. In her textbook she makes it clear that if the reader
understands the propositions she is putting forth he will find no
contradictions in the textbook. Because the textbook was dictated by God, and
issued from the divine Mind it grows consistently from one grand root. In order
to see this, however, its system must be understood; then each statement
integrates perfectly into the infinite whole.
Rocky: Was Mrs. Eddy's discovery of
the divine Principle of scientific mental healing a full and final revelation?
Anna: It certainly was! But this
doesn't mean that what God dictated to Mary Baker Eddy won't unfold
infinitely, until all error has disappeared from human consciousness. We
have already quoted her statement in Essays and Other Footprints:
“I have not yet reached the ultimate practical proof of absolute Christian
Science, . . . But I have written it and my works teach it.”
Tina: I would like to ask a question
about the “visible” idea. Mrs. Eddy says that without a correct sense
of its highest visible idea we can never understand the divine Principle.
Anna: Understanding the divine
Principle means understanding why the dragon (the sum total of error) was
“wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her
seed” (those who were loyal and faithful to the teachings of Science and
Health). (Rev. 12:17) It was the teaching of Science and Health that brought
the dragon into action. It was the Truth, that God is All and evil is nothing,
that stirred up the dragon. Mrs. Eddy was teaching humanity to stop believing
that an illusion was reality—that nothing was something. Man must leave
his false sense of things his hypnotic sense of things, before he can see the
true.
Naturally, mortal mind, the dragon, resisted
this exposure of its nothingness, because with the understanding of the
nothingness of evil and error, we can understand the divine Principle and can
also understand Mary Baker Eddy as the “highest visible idea.” This
means death to the dragon, Old Theology.
Mrs. Eddy, speaking of St. Paul, says that
abuse of his motives and religion hid from view his character. It is the drag
on of Old Theology, of what Paul refers to as “spiritual wickedness in
high places” that prevents a correct sense of God's highest visible idea,
and consequently an understanding of man's divine Principle.
Bessie: What was this “spiritual
wickedness in high places?”
Bill: No doubt Paul referred to the
teaching of the church that marriage was something “holy” instituted
by God, and that the creation of more mortals was blessed, instead of being
considered a usurpation of God's prerogative.
Florence: Yes, that's right. In
Science we learn that birth and death are both illusions. The only marriage is
our marriage to God, and our offspring is our infinite reflection of
every other idea of God. The “spectral,” the ghostly illusions of
birth and death, marriage and progeny, must be given up.
From the opening sentence in the Preface of
Science and Health to her last statement in the textbook Mrs. Eddy's teaching
is aimed at fulfilling the prophecies of Jesus regarding the obsolescence of
human procreation. Thus she wipes out the last enemy, human birth.
The
Bridegroom
Marie: We have spoken much of the
Bride. Could someone explain what the “bridegroom” symbolizes or
stands for?
Moderator: Jesus called himself the
“bridegroom” (Matt. 9:15). Mrs. Orgain explains that Christianity as
the bridegroom is typed by Science and Health (exclusive of the Key to
the Scriptures) as the manhood of the Word. And when Mrs. Eddy said in 1899
that the bride is adorned and lo, the bridegroom cometh (My. 125:26),
she meant that Science and Health exclusive of the Key to the Scriptures was
still evolving toward the wedding of Christianity with Science. Notice the
bridegroom was merely coming. Christianity, as the manhood of the Word, must
come to Science as the Bride, typed by the Apocalypse as the womanhood of the
Word. The Apocalypse or womanhood of the Word had been completely
“adorned” since 1891 when Mrs. Eddy added the city foursquare to it.
So, Jesus called himself the bridegroom, and
Mrs. Eddy speaks of him as “the visible discoverer, founder, demonstrator,
and great Teacher of Christianity [only]” (My. 338:24). Mrs.
Eddy calls the Word of Science and Health, the bride (My. 125:26), and
she says she is to be found only in her Word, as bride (My. 120:2-4).
She has further declared herself to be “the visible discoverer” and
“founder” of Christian Science. The union of the bridegroom
and his bride in the Word of Science and Health must be at the point where
Christian Science becomes one with divine Science; and at this point divine
Science becomes a gift. We no longer have to work for it, When Christian
Science and divine Science became one, Mrs. Eddy could begin to give promises
in Christian Science, whereas previously all promises had been in divine
Science. (See Alice Orgain, Angelic Overtures of “Christ and
Christmas,” p. 661.)
Marie: Why do you suppose the Bible
used symbols like “bride,” “bridegroom, “dowry,” etc.?
Kathleen: Alice Orgain in (Angelic
Overtures to “Christ and Christmas,” p. 660) gives this
interesting explanation:As is generally known a 'dowry' is the property or
wealth which a bride brings to her husband as a marital gift; and inasmuch as
“every matter belief hints the existence of spiritual reality” (Mis.
60:20), did not the bridal 'dowry' of Hebraic maidens draw its symbolism from
the prophets' prevision of the objective bridal of heaven as 'the female idea'
and earth as 'the male idea,' wherein 'the female idea' would bring down to
earth ('the male idea'), heaven's richest spiritual treasures as earth's
dowry?In other words, as every conception in the human consciousness has its
antecedent idea in the divine Mind, there is no doubt that the 'dowry' which
divine Science as the first true Bride-consiousness brought to Christianity
(bridegroom consciousness)…was prediscerned by the human mind, filled as
it is with symbols of ideas given by leaders on 'mounts' of revelation as the
means of teaching these ideas to their followers. So human brides were required
to bring marital gifts to their husbands in symbolic prophecy of the final
bridal gift of the Bride, divine Science, to its bridegroom, Christianity.
Margie: To the comments on the
bridegroom I would like to add that the main body of Science and Health is the
bridegroom. It was woman's manhood mission to lay heavenly foundations. It was
Mrs. Eddy's goal to make progress heavenward in the main body of Science and
Health so it would unite in perfect spiritual consciousness with the Bride (the
Apocalypse in the Key to the Scriptures) which she spoke of in the fiftieth
edition as being already adorned. As we have seen in Miscellany (125:26)
she speaks of the Bride as already adorned but the bridegroom is only
coming. It means that the bridegroom which “yet cometh” was the
human demonstration of the footsteps of Truth.
Diane: What were the “footsteps
of Truth?”
Grace: The wilderness woman's man
child symbolized the footsteps of Truth as they led to absolute Truth, or
“Genesis,” which is already one with Love, the goal. The footsteps of
Truth symbolized the bridegroom or “man child” still traveling on his
way. We see the progress of this bridegroom or “man child” in the
many changes made by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health. Gradually Mrs. Eddy
lifted consciousness higher through a program of spiritual education that
caused the “spectral” to disappear at all points. Through these
footsteps of Truth all materiality disappeared until reality was reached and
perfection appeared.
Anna: The Bride is the kingdom of
heaven within each one of us. It is there, but unrealized because of the
erroneous and illusory misconceptions that veil its presence. It is the
bridegroom's role to strip away all illusions, to overcome the human with the
divine at every point. The Bridegroom must continue to detach all mortal
thought from its material conceptions until the ever-present Bride conciousness
is unveiled as man's true identity.
Mrs. Eddy was the first Bride of the Word
since the complete Word was wholly her revelation; but it was the masculine
phase, the bridegroom aspect, of her nature that removed the
obstructions enclosing the Bride in the city foursquare. (Remember Mrs. Eddy's
nature as Bride had to include the masculine—the bridegroom—as well
as the feminine.) The bridegroom phase of her composite nature was responsible
for dissipating the walls of obstruction so the “city of our
God”—divine scientific consciousness, the Bride, the kingdom of
heaven within—can only be reached through the squareness of Truth,
through being true, honest, square. After the human consciousness ascends to
heaven through the gateway of Truth, it brings Love to earth.
Wedding God Through
Practise Not Theory
Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, in total
self-effacement, had but one thought: to lay down their lives, if necessary, in
order to bring God's message to men. To carry out their holy God-appointed
missions, they had to be oblivious of human self.
Margie: Both Jesus and Mary Baker
Eddy knew the great importance of healing.
“Theory never taught a class, never
wrote the Christian Science textbook, “ Mrs. Eddy said. “Healing the
sick is done by practise, not profession—by prayer, and fasting from
material sense. Mortal mind claims otherwise, but God is All, and there is no
evil. Love rules, and you know it .... Practicality is needed; theory is not. I
am astounded at the need I find of practical Christian Science.”
In the Christian Science Sentinel,
Vol. 14, p. 1030, we have this message from Mrs. Eddy: “Faith
without works is the most subtle lie apparent. It satisfies the students with a
lie, and it gives them peace in error, [but] they never can be Christian
Scientists without that faith which is known and proved by works. Words are
often impositions, and faith without works is dead and plucked up by the roots.
It is not faith, but a deceiving lie lulling the conscience, and preventing
demonstration. A satisfied sinner is the most hardened sinner.”
Again, she wrote: “Love, Love alone
will found, upbuild, and establish forever both the Christian Scientist and our
Cause. But envy, jealousy, or rivalry will kill the spirit of this Science in
the person who possesses it and will thwart the establishment of it in this
age. Oh, why is not this realized by everyone who has the Cause at heart and
who has labored faithfully in some directions for its advancement? ... The
Principle of our demonstration as Christian Scientists is unity, and our
demonstrations depend on united minds and their at-one-ment with the One
Mind.... This Cause depends upon healing, healing and wisdom. If these are not
added, the salt will lose its savor, and this Cause drop down into the darkness
of oblivion for centuries again.”
Function of Mother
Church
Juliann: Before we leave the concept
of Motherhood (meaning Mrs. Eddy's work of founding Science in human
consciousness) as entirely embraced within Bride (Bride meaning true
God-being), could we see in what way The Mother Church while Mrs. Eddy was with
us, worked to lift thought to the perfect standard of the Bride or
God-consciousness?
Moderator: Yes, the elevating
function of The Mother Church is borne out by the fact that the Manual
was for The Mother Church only. Mrs. Eddy says: “[The Manual]
stands alone, uniquely adapted to form the budding thought and hedge
it about with divine Love” (Man. 104). It instituted control for the
purpose of lifting mankind up to its inherent right of self-government.
Mrs. Eddy states the Manual “is
adapted to The Mother Church only.” When many inquiries came from
the field asking if the Manual also governed the Branch churches, the
clerk of The Mother Church traveled to Concord to get Mrs. Eddy's answer. Mrs.
Eddy seemed surprised by the inquiry and remarked, in substance.
“Anyone should be able to see that the
Manual is only intended for a church that I personally control.”
The Manual contained “laws of
limitation for a Christian Scientist.” This was something that did not
apply to the Branch-idea. But Mrs. Eddy knew laws of limitation would “do
for the race what absolute doctrines destined for future generations might not
accomplish.”
With The Mother Church concept Mrs. Eddy was
showing mortals how to lay down the mortal body. The estoppel clauses make
it clear that material organization, like the material body, was to be laid
off. We discussed this in our seventh Session.
Under Article VIII, Guidance of Members, we
have the wonderful Rule for Motives and Acts; Daily Prayer; Alertness to Duty;
also other admonitions and counsels “adapted to form the budding thought
and hedge it about with divine Love.”
That The Mother Church, as a material
organization, was a symbol for the mortal body is further seen in the By-Law
which states, “This Manual shall not be revised without the written
consent of its author,” and a second by-law which states, “No new
Tenet or By-Law shall be adopted, nor any Tenet or By-Law amended or annulled,
without the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the author of our textbook,
Science and Health.” Mrs. Eddy intended humanity to learn definitely
that the mortal body was a lying concept. From Mrs. Eddy's instruction to
Pastor Gill we learn we are not both mortal and immortal. “The Ego,
you,” she told him, “is immortal only. The mortal [like the material
Mother Church organization] is the suggestive lie calling itself you when it is
not.” By her estoppel clauses she effectively stopped every function of
The Mother Church when she was no longer personally present to guide and
govern.
Elsie: I have never understood how
Mrs. Eddy set up her Church. I have been told she made provision in her
Manual for two entirely different churches.
Grace: That's correct, Elsie. The
First Church of Christ, Scientist, was a legal church to be governed by the
Deed of Trust and its four Directors as set forth on page 128 to 135 of the
Manual. This unique arrangement would take effect when Mrs. Eddy was no
longer personally with us. A vital point to notice is that “the
congregation which shall worship in said church shall be styled 'The
First Church of Christ, Scientist.' “ It was not the material
structure that was The First Church of Christ, Scientist, but the
congregation!
Bessie: Why was that important?
Grace: That made it a living
church. It was the living body of Christ, Scientist, that was the
legal church.
The Mother Church was a spiritual conception
in the mind of Mary Baker Eddy. In The Mother Church “set-up” the
members acknowledged Mrs. Eddy's supreme authority and Leadership. While she
remained with them, they gave up their essentially democratic government and
placed themselves under the jurisdiction of the Christ that Mrs. Eddy
manifested.
Mrs. Eddy's work with The Mother Church was
her way of making practical for the “field” what she was stating in
Science and Health. She was the true mother who never “neglects her
children in their early and sacred hours . . . .” She felt and
comprehended the needs of the whole of humanity. The Mother Church symbolized
that warfare between the flesh and the Spirit, in which mankind is gradually
lifted above all sense of error. Her association with The Mother Church was a
Mother-and-child relationship in which her ardent Mother-heart yearned with
solicitude, endured with patience, waited with hope, and labored with love to
promote the welfare and happiness of her children. Mrs. Eddy saw the necessity
of giving all her hours to those first sacred tasks of implementing her
teachings to the degree where her children could walk steadfastly in wisdom's
ways. (See Ret. 90.) This was the function of “Mother's
Church” as it was at first called.
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy was trying to
show you and me, trying to show each one of us, that we were not opposites, but
one entity and individuality. “The lying 'you'” she told Paster Gill,
is likened by Paul to that which was not him, 'no longer I but sin.'” Just
as the lying concept of a mortal body is sin, so is the lying concept of a
material Mother Church organization, which symbolizes the mortal body, sin, and
must be estopped. Hence the Manual estoppel clauses.
Edward Bates
The Mother Church as a spiritual
monument—even the outcome of men's hearts—was Mrs. Eddy's own
generic consciousness (that consciousness which saw God, Principle, Love, as
the only activity, as All-in-all) because it was the expression of her own
conception. That it had already been built by her before it was symbolically
expressed in its literal edifice can be learned from the first twelve issues of
the Christian Science Journal, also from the Edward Bates'
Reminiscences, as well as from other sources. Mrs. Eddy had mentally reared The
Mother Church as a monument high above the work of men's hands, giving to the
material the spiritual significance of goodness.
From start to finish the actual building of
The Mother Church was Mrs. Eddy's demonstration, not the least of which was her
demonstration in securing the service of Mr. Bates to follow her demonstration
obediently, which resulted in the church being finished on time.
The following is gleaned from Bates'
Reminiscences:
It was the worst winter in Boston's history.
Snow had come in October and remained. Everything was covered with several
inches of ice. What was accomplished in the few short weeks before December
29th, by strict obedience to Mrs. Eddy's directives, is almost beyond belief.
Conventional building rules were all set aside. The mosaic floor was laid in
the auditorium before the roof was on the church. The concrete sidewalk around
the church was laid in bitter-cold freezing weather, in an ingenious way.
On a Friday a letter was received from Mrs.
Eddy. It read: “Finish the Tower and plaster the church.” Mr. Bates'
herculean efforts to obey this directive, which from the human standpoint
seemed impossible, played a key role in meeting the deadline. Every conceivable
obstacle was thrown in Mr. Bates' path. The contractor said the church would
not be ready to plaster for at least ten or twelve weeks. But Mrs. Eddy said it
must be done today! And Mr. Bates was there to carry out her orders. After an
absolutely incredible all-day hassle he succeeded in getting the twenty-four
tons of plaster required. The men had been waiting in the icy cold weather. It
was now five o'clock in the evening. The church was dark, the power was off due
to a raging storm. The contractor said, “My men can't work in the
dark.” Bates replied, “The lights will come on.” The men
remained. Suddenly the lights came on again.
“Boys, to the scaffold!” Bates
shouted, and away they went.
“I went up on the scaffold and watched
the men work. I have never had men that worked as they did. The plaster went on
like grease, and it all stayed where it was put. There seemed to be none
falling to the scaffold or to the floor below. The men worked all night and
applied two coats. They did in twelve hours what every one had thought would
take at the very least several days. Everyone agreed they had never before seen
anything like it.
“When Mrs. Eddy said: 'Plaster the
church,' she provided a way by which it could be done.” And at no time was
it safe to retreat a single inch. No matter what obstacles seemed to be in the
way, or what resistance he met with, Bates knew he must press forward and carry
out Mrs. Eddy's demonstration. He knew she would not have issued that order if
she had not known it could be accomplished. The workmen had applied twenty-four
tons of plaster in twelve hours. They all expressed amazement at this feat.
They had seen it done, but could not understand how it was done! The following
Thursday they commenced painting the green plaster, applying three coats in
quick succession. The results were excellent, contrary to the painters' dire
predictions, and contrary to all rules. From start to finish The Mother Church
was Mrs. Eddy's demonstration.
That Mr. Bates realized this fact is shown
in his conversation with Mrs. Eddy during his visit with her in Concord, after
the church's completion: “…but for you, Mr. Bates, the church would
never have been built,” said Mrs. Eddy.
“I replied, 'But for you, Mrs. Eddy,
the church would never have been built.' She again said: 'Mr. Bates, but for
you the church would never have been built.' I again replied: 'But for you,
Mrs. Eddy, the church never would have been built.' The third time she said:
'Mr. Bates, if you had not come and helped me the church never would have been
built.' I replied: 'Mrs. Eddy, but for your demonstrations, the church would
never have been built.' “ Mr. Bates knew he was witnessing the power of
God being demonstrated by Mrs. Eddy during his work on The Mother Church.
Bates recounts the following item of
interest: Often when talking with a student Mrs. Eddy would tell that student
what happened at a certain time. Surprised, the student would say, “But
how did you know that, when you weren't there?” To this Mrs. Eddy would
reply, “But I was there.” Mrs. Eddy, reflecting the one Mind that
sees all angles at a glance, was able to be where it was necessary for her to
be. In one of his Sonnets Shakespeare gives the thought that if he knew enough
he could be in the place he desired as soon as he could think it. Mrs. Eddy was
able to be “in the place” as soon as think it.
The Mother Church had already been built by
Mrs. Eddy in spiritual consciousness, and she was leading her students to
acknowledge it. “Practicality is needed,” she said; “theory is
not.” Every hour of the day Mrs. Eddy was demonstrating the truths she had
stated in her textbook.
Bates records another interesting point in
this same conversation: “On my arrival she met me in the library and asked
many questions about the church and how we proceeded to overcome the
difficulties and prepare it for service on the twenty-ninth of December. She
showed a great deal of interest in every detail. But finally a sad expression
came over her countenance and she said: “Six thousand of my students could
be there and enjoy the services and the dedication of the church. Several
members of my household went down, but I was not invited.”
Tina: What did Mrs. Eddy mean by:
“I was not invited”?
Moderator: She meant the Christ
“I,” the “I” that was one with God, and that was able to
write Science and Health, Here the “I” was equated with the woman of
the Apocalypse. She certainly didn't mean her corporeal personality. The
students were interested in the material building, not in the real Christ 'I
Am” that demonstrated it. Thus she was not “Invited” into their
hearts. Mrs. Eddy felt their lack of spiritual sense.
Jackie: Why did Mrs. Eddy, at one
point, say “My work for The Mother Church is done”? Could that be
explained again?
Grace: Mrs. Eddy had unfolded the
idea of The Mother Church step by step in the twelve preceding volumes of the
Journal, showing that The Mother Church was the expression of Mrs. Eddy's own
conception. It was therefore her own generic consciousness. Thus The Mother
Church had already been built by her before it was symbolically expressed in
its literal edifice.
Billy: In what way had The Mother
Church been built by her?
Grace: The scientific teaching that
is embedded in the first twelve volumes of the Christian Science Journal
constitutes the spiritual Mother Church. Assimilating that teaching enables us
to catch a glimpse of the glory that is our true God-being.
Significantly, after The Mother Church was
completed on December 29, 1894, Mrs. Eddy delayed her visit to the church until
completion of the twelfth volume of the Journal in April, 1895. Each
volume of the Journal represents one of the tribes (stars on the God-crowned
woman's crown). Each volume presents the spiritual characteristics of a
specific tribe in successive order. Mrs. Eddy said the Journal was
“designed to put on record the divine Science of Truth” (My.
353).
Diane: There are twelve chapters in
Miscellaneous Writings, also. Is that significant?
Rocky: Yes, I understand they again
represent the twelve stars on woman's crown (or the twelve tribes of Israel),
one chapter for every tribe, or every phase of belief that must be overcome, as
well as the spiritual qualities that must be cultivated and assimilated. Our
God being can't remain a distant “wonder” (stars), but must be made
practical in everyday living-qualities.
Tina: Why is all this about Jacob and
his twelve sons and his two wives—meaning the two mothers of Jacob's
twelve sons—so important?
Bill: In the “Glossary”
(589:4) Jacob is defined as the revelation of Science, . . .” The
work of Jacob's two wives, that is, the two mothers, was to lift their children
above the alternate blessings (“crowns”) and cursings
(“crosses”) of Jacob. These blessings and cursings, given in the
forty-ninth chapter of Genesis, constitute Old Theology, the dragon.
Marie: How do Jacob's alternate
blessings and cursings tie in with Science and Health?
Bill: Science and Health abounds in
the alternate denunciations of error, symbolized by the cross, and rewards for
righteousness, symbolized by the crown. The progressive ascension of the
wiIderness-Mother's man child (Science and Health), through its 432
editions must lift him above both cursings (cross) and blessings (crown).
Billy: Did Mrs. Eddy succeed in
lifting Science and Health above both crosses and crowns?
Bill: Yes, in 1903 she finished this
Motherhood phase of her work when she added to Science and Health pp. 68:27 to
69:30, which gave us the child of the regeneration described on page 167 of
Miscellaneous Writings, and at the same time dropped the title of
“Mother.” Of course there are many other indications she had finished
the Motherhood phase of her work.
Moderator: We have touched on this
point before, but it is important in understanding the symbolism of The Mother
Church. That symbolism represents the government of the wilderness-Mother
regime that instituted control for the purpose of lifting mankind up to its
inherent right of self government as represented by the God-crowned woman. Thus
there were two elements of government evolving side by side in Mrs. Eddy's
movement: control and selfcontrol. The “self-control” is represented
by the Branches to which Mrs. Eddy decreed complete self-control.
Rookie: Does the wilderness-Mother
ever become one with the God-crowned woman, as far as this question of control
and selfcontrol is concerned?
Moderator: No, not until Science and
Health (the wilderness Mother's man child, which actually means the true
identity of each one of us) is caught up unto God and to his throne, meaning
when we understand our true identify. When the wilderness-Mother has lifted us
up to see ourselves as the infinite idea of the infinite Principle, then the
wilderness-Mother yields her control to the selfgovernment inherent in the
intelligence of the God-crowned woman, and the two “women” are one.
In the last analysis we are this
wilderness-Mother, and through our study and spiritual assimilation of our
textbook we lift ourselves to oneness with the inherent self-government of the
God-crowned woman, where the alternate blessings and cursings of Old Theology
(the dragon) no longer reach us.
SESSION XV: MATERIAL HISTORY
DRAWING TO ITS CLOSE
Moderator: We have been looking at
the prophecies in the Book of Revelation. Florence, would you like to give us a
brief review of what we have seen?
Florence: As has been brought out
before, the whole of Revelation prophecies or portrays the warfare between
ignorance and spiritual enlightenment, between “the spirit of Truth”
and “the spirit of deceit. It prophesies victory for the forces of
good.
Mrs. Eddy's achievement in discovering,
uncovering, and publishing, in the year 1881, the total unreality of evil ranks
as a watershed in human history. It was in her third edition of Science and
Health that her chapter “Demonology” became the crucial point,
the dividing line, for humanity. From that year on, evil has slowly become less
and less real, and is more and more being seen as merely aggressive mental
suggestion, and will so continue until its hold on and control over mankind is
entirely and forever overcome.
In his new book, Civilization Lieth
Foursquare, Gordon Brown quotes Christopher Booker, The Daily Telegraph,
April 21, 1979:Deep down ... we know we are approaching some tremendous
crisis in our civilization—one which will require a change of heart and
perspective far deeper than anything which has yet touched any of our public
representatives ... it is no good any longer looking for rebirth to the public
drama, to the outward show, to the collective—it must begin from somewhere
altogether different ... far down and mysterious, in the only place that
counts, it may well be that the great unimaginable process of rebirth which
always accompanies catastrophe has already begun.“That which transfigures
the human sense of life,” says Gordon Brown, “is the translation of
the past, present, and future out of three apparently separate
“tabernacles” of time into the forever nowness of the Life which is
God. Humanity's present is not in this case subject to crucifixion between a
thieving past and a thieving future, but rises in spiritual resurrection to
experience what life is now.”
Error Not to Be
Overlooked
Bill: As Christopher Booker says, the
“rebirth ...must begin...in the only place that counts.” It must
begin with mental self-knowledge, by probing the self-inflicted wounds of
selfishness, malice, envy, and hate, and the control of mad ambition (462:25).
Actually for each one of us only one thing matters, and that is that we learn
and practise the fundamental reality of our God-being. There is no other way
out of materiality than through each one, individually, replacing material
thinking with divinely scientific spiritual knowing. It must begin by letting
the truth of Christian Science teach us how to overcome the
“depravity” qualities Mrs. Eddy lists on page 115:21, and the
“self-love more opaque than a solid body.” Nothing but the
self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man and the
acknowledgement and achievement of his spiritual identity (Mis. 185) can
avert catastrophe and usher in the kingdom of heaven on earth.
Tracing man's spiritual evolution down the
dim corridors of time, Gordon Brown reveals how the bench marks established by
Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy will inevitably catapult man into the millennium
where he finds himself not a mortal but God-idea.
Moderator: Thank you, Bill. We know
all error must be overcome. The more spiritually-minded one is, the more he is
conscious of an error of belief. Mrs. Eddy abhorred all hypocrisy,
self-justification, or any excusing of error. She said she could not teach a
person who excused error, who closed his eyes to evil. Such a person, she said,
is not teachable.
“When anyone tries to argue in
justification of error to cover it up, against their honest convictions, it
fills me with righteous indignation beyond any other form of error because it
shuts out the light from them and hinders others from seeing and walking in the
light—from seeing the truth and accepting it” (DCC. 182).
Francie: When someone sent Mrs. Eddy
three little monkeys bearing the inscription, “See no evil, hear no evil,
speak no evil,” Mrs. Eddy pointed out that this was not Christian Science,
but heathen philosophy. Christian Scientists, she said, do not close their eyes
to evil. With spiritual discernment they open their eyes, and awaken to the
true nature of evil or sin, and to its false claims, methods, subtlety, but
they realize evil's nothingness, its powerlessness to control or harm. All evil
and error is hypnotic suggestion only, and induces belief in that which has no
substance.
Mrs. Eddy warned the students that error
says, “Don't talk about me. Talk about God.” Students tended to
ramble on about God, but Mrs. Eddy felt the most dangerous error for students
is not seeing error, not being aware that error is error. This made them
insensible to error's presence. “Ignorance of the error to be eradicated
oftentimes subjects you to its abuse. [And] covering iniquity will prevent
prosperity” (446). Error must be detected, but always seen as unreal, that
is, it must be destroyed with what we have learned through Christian Science.
Contending persistently for truth and thus rising above error, we destroy
it.
Moderator: Answering the question,
“What made Jesus the Messiah?” Mrs. Eddy said it was because he
“loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” Then she explained that
the true Christian not only loves the right, but he hates iniquity and is
willing to uncover the evil in himself and in others. She made it clear that he
is not a true disciple who closes his eyes to wrong-doing and takes no steps to
unmask the wrongdoer and bring to an end the evil doing. Wisdom as well as love
is necessary. Jesus was Love itself, and his love of good made him hate
iniquity.
Tommy: Like Jesus, Mrs. Eddy
tackled the fundamental error, human birth. She did not “whine over a
nest of serpents and paste placards around it warning people not to stir up the
reptiles because they have stings.” “When God bids me uncover
iniquity in order to exterminate it, I lay it bare,” she said. (C.S.
Journal, Vol. 6, p. 319) She couldn't tolerate students arguing in
justification of error.
While Mrs. Eddy knew the world at large
would not accept her teaching on marriage and progeny, she did expect her
class-taught students to make her teaching practical in their everyday lives,
as that Concord student, whom we mentioned earlier, learned when he wrote Mrs.
Eddy asking her to congratulate him on the birth of a “Christian Science
baby.”
Bill: She obviously didn't
congratulate him, but isn't there a record of one occasion when Mrs. Eddy
did send a letter of congratulation to one of her students who had
become a father?
Anna: Yes, you're thinking of William
G. Nixon who was publisher of the Journal and even publisher of Mrs. Eddy's
monumental 50th edition of Science and Health. But she left him in no doubt
about the unscientific nature of his creative beliefs.
It would help to read the actual text of her
letter, dated January 13, 1892, which was several years before the Lydia Hall
episode. Mrs. Eddy wrote:
Icongratulate you on the success at your
home. But I also pray that you be left not to temptation, and understand that
God [Principle, Love] has created all, and man is not, cannot be,
a creator, however much the senses declare against this great truth of
Christian Science. To the senses you have gotten a child, but not in Science
have you a mind in matter anymore than you have sickness, disease, and death.
Hence what you believe is a mortal child, is mortal, and subject
to [sickness, disease, and death], and if you believe you have an
immortal child formed of matter, you believe a lie, for this is
impossible. I felt so strongly it was my duty to say this to you
that I have written it .... (DCC. 122).
Mr. Nixon chemicalized at this rebuke from
her and became a bitter foe. Mrs. Eddy's uncompromising stand on human birth,
designating it the Pandora box from which all other ills sprang, brought her to
the agony of the cross and forced her to feel the pain of the nails driven
through her hands.
Sally: Mrs. Eddy probably thought
because Mr. Nixon was a prominent student of Christian Science (and had been
class-taught by her in 1888) that he would be able to understand. Wasn't she
usually very careful about talking with couples already married, on this
subject of procreation?
Bridal Pledges Not To Be
Escaped
Moderator: Yes, Mrs. Eddy was very
careful not to force any teaching that students were not spiritually prepared
to receive. The Lydia Hall recording was teaching she gave to students
spiritually prepared to receive it. She wrote on Oct. 11, 1892, to a student,
“About procreation, I seldom ever speak of it to a husband and wife. I
[speak] freely to those who are not married, but dread to touch the conjugal
relations already existing” (DCC. 121). In Science and Health she
counsels, “The nuptial vow should never be annulled so long as its moral
obligations are kept intact.” She encouraged wives to lead their husbands
gently from the cellar to the attic. Emerge gently from matter into Spirit.
Marriage to Mrs. Eddy was a suffer it to be so now; it was a concession to
materiality and material methods made for the advancement of spiritual good.
Tommy: I think, too, that Mrs. Eddy
didn't talk much on the subject of progeny to married couples because she
wanted to prevent polarization of opposite opinions. She never believed in
religious militancy but counseled her followers to be charitable and kind
toward those who hold differing opinions on various subjects. If we don't agree
with their views, we should .” . . part from these opponents as did
Abraham when he parted from Lot, saying, “Let there be no strife, I pray
thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be
brethren” (444:13). This doesn't mean that Mrs. Eddy was timid or that she
retracted a single word of the challenge she had thrown down to the world. She
was serenely confident in the rightness of the message she received from God,
and to the end, she staunchly stood before the world fully convinced that her
only recourse from all the vilification was her way of life.
 Picture No. 4 in Mary Baker Eddy's
illustrated poem, Christ and Christmas, delineates the opposite of man's
divine Principle which determines man to be born of God, of Mind, and divine
Love. Picture No. 4 portrays Job's decree: “Man that is born of a woman is
of few days and full of trouble,” and Isaiah's observation: “The
tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of
the Lord, neither consider the operation of His hands.” (See Christ and
Christmas, p. 55.) It is also suggestive of Jesus' statement to Salome:
“Death will never cease until ye women cease your child bearing.”
Concerning the merriment and Christmas celebrating, Mrs. Eddy asks, “Why
signalize the birth of him ne're born?” (ibid).
Preserving Man, Not
Annihilating
Marie: Can we return a moment to Mrs.
Eddy's teaching regarding man's divine origin and incorporeal nature? In spite
of the care she took to urge moderation and temperance in advancing the Science
point of view, wasn't she quickly and harshly branded as a race annihilist?
Bill: Yes, she was burned in effigy
in the Boston square, and the vilification in the press, pulpit, medical world,
and from “men of letters” was unbelievable in its violence and
virulence. The prospect of fewer people to buy their wares sent shock waves
through them. Also her ideas seemed an intolerable affront to their religious
views.
Bessie: We have just learned of Mrs.
Eddy's reticence to broach the subject of procreation to married couples, but
that she spoke of if freely to those unmarried, saying:Of this I am at present
certain, that if marriage does increase a temptation to depart from Christ's
teachings, it is not the union which Jesus sanctioned when he said, “What
therefore God [Principle] hath joined together, let not man put asunder”
(Matt. XIX:6). In other words, our Master assured us that they whom Spirit
unites spiritually—for Spirit cannot unite materially—cannot be
separated.
Anna: I think many of Mrs. Eddy's
students did see this point in divine metaphysics and saw it was critical, but
being unwilling to give up the fleshpots of materiality they argued in defense
of error. This Mrs. Eddy found hard to tolerate. “No man can serve two
masters,” Jesus said. We cannot escape from barriers when we commit our
moral sense to a dungeon.
Florence: When Galileo was charged
with heresy and faced death for his scientific discoveries, he asked one of the
Cardinals to come and look through his telescope and see for himself that what
he (Galileo) said was the truth. The Cardinal answered: “But I don't
want to see!” He didn't want to give up the material advantages that
remaining ignorant granted him. If he sided with Galileo he would subject
himself to the torture rack of the inquisition. “On the startled ear of
humanity rings out the iron tread of merciless invaders, putting man to the
rack for his conscience, or forcing from the lips of manhood shameful
confessions—Galileo kneeling at the feet of priestcraft, and giving the
lie to science” (Peo. 13:12). Galileo's fear overcame his loyalty; the
courage of his convictions fell before it. Fear is the weapon in the hands of
tyrants.... To weave one thread of Science through the looms of time, is a
miracle in itself” (Mis. 99). In Science, we saw celibacy is right.
Marriage synonymous with legalized lust is wrong.
Sally: Some of the students
misunderstood Mrs. Eddy's emphasis in her teaching that God is All-in-all, and
took it in a pantheistic sense; in fact one of the cudgels wielded against Mrs.
Eddy was that she was a “pantheist.” But a pantheist is one who
believes that God and the material universe are identical. Christian
Science teaches just the opposite: namely, that God is Spirit, and is reflected
only by spiritual things; it translates matter back into its original language
which is Spirit. Pantheism, on the other hand is the belief of mind in matter,
and that God is identical with material forms. This, obviously was what the
Concord Scientist was believing when he asked Mrs. Eddy to congratulate him on
a “Christian Science baby.”
Rocky: How do we gain the birth out
of the illusion of substance, life, and intelligence in matter?
Bill: Mrs. Eddy says that it is not
gained by argument nor by force, but rather it is growth, hourly; it is forever
getting nearer Love that is Love, universal, divine presence and power, alias
might and dominion; first over the body then its reflection is dominion over
all the earth. (DCC. 114)
Tommy: Mrs. Eddy said the world's
accepted theories admit more than one God, or less than a God. Scholastic
theology, she said, presupposes immortal Spirit imprisoned in a mortal body.
While it cannot contradict the Scripture that God is Spirit, it adds thereto
the falsity, that pure and infinite Spirit is imprisoned in a finite form,
having material sensuality and sin, and this form of matter masters
omnipotence, expels its Spirit, and then destroys itself. Thus evil, being as
real, and more universal than infinite good which is God, would make our
heavenly Father even less than a common sinner! This is the greatest deception,
the awful unreality of man and his Maker that is taught today, and adopted into
the fervor of human feeling.
When we understand how Mrs. Eddy's seven
synonyms for God operate in a spiritual calculus of Word, Christ, Christianity,
and Science, then we will see there is no limit on our ability to create
divinely and spiritually, as God's image and likeness. This is true motherhood
and true fatherhood. We are all destined to learn this method of creating. It
explains Jesus' prophecy of his second coming, beyond motherhood, and
pronouncement on motherhood: “Woe unto them that are with child, and to
them that give suck in those days” (Matt. 24:19). That we were born of the
flesh is pure illusion, hypnotic suggestion, only—“the first
death,” as Mrs. Eddy said.
Bessie: Do you mean that we can only
wed ourselves to divine Principle as the corporeal sense of creation is cast
out? Do you think Mrs. Eddy actually meant the time would come when no more
babies would be physically born?
Bill: Yes, Bessie. Naturally she was
considered a heretic for advancing such theories. In the seventeenth century it
was considered a heresy, a burnable offense, to say that the earth was not the
center of the universe but just a planet that circled around the sun. In
Brecht's famous play about Galileo, an old cardinal gasps: “Mr. Galileo
transfers mankind from the center of the universe to somewhere on the
outskirts. Mr. Galileo is therefore an enemy of mankind and must be dealt with
as such,” which meant he must be burned. Even his pope, Urban VII, a man
educated in science, allowed Galileo to be arrested by the inquisition. As the
head of the church he had to defend “harmony.”
At the very end of Brecht's play, the pope
cries, “I do not want to hear the battle cries 'Church, Church, Church!
Reason, Reason, Reason!'” In the pope's case, those battle cries
eventually died down. The earth moved around the sun and the church
accommodated.
If astronomy violated the order of heaven
and earth, Mrs. Eddy's Science would fall into a similar category. In the case
of the battle cries initiated by Mary Baker Eddy, much work still remains to be
done. “The education of the future will be instruction in spiritual
Science.”
Florence: Bill's statement that much
work still remains to be done reminds me of the Equal Rights adherents who feel
their work is like carving a woman's face on Mount Rushmore. Tons of stubborn
rock has to be blasted away before people can see the monumental change that is
being created. At present they have to be satisfied with cheering for the
amount of seemingly inexorable resistance that is softening, and the
step-by-step progress that is being made toward their ambitious goal of
equality. We too in Science have to be satisfied and grateful for the progress
that is being made toward enlightening humanity on the illusive nature of evil.
Education in spiritual Science is chipping and blasting away at the die-hard
opposition. It is only a matter of persevering in this spiritual education.
Before long it will be seen that “all the knowledge and vain strivings of
mortal mind that lead to death...will be swallowed up by the reality and
omnipotence of Truth over error, and Life over death” (Mis. 61:4). The
illusion, the hyp-notic suggestion, of living in a fleshly body and a material
universe of time and space will vanish.
Yes, Bessie, eventually no more babies will
be born. Eventually there will be no more little counterfeits to suffer and pay
the penalty for their parents' spiritual ignorance of man's already perfect
God-being.
Even now all institutions of higher learning
are teaching the mental nature of everything. It is only a step to the teaching
of the spiritual nature of everything. The consciousness of Truth, which Mary
Baker Eddy brought, will give man complete dominion over all false beliefs.
What we think about all day long determines our experience.
Margie: As the world gets a better
understanding of what is in the Christian Science textbook it will seem
very reasonable, and people will accept it because it appeals to their reason
and their sense of right.
Tina: What is the best way to win the
war with the beast?
Moderator: The best way to win the
war with error (the beast) is to rise above error and contend persistently for
the truth we have learned in the Christian Science textbook—namely, evil's
unreality and good's allness. We can only come out from under the control of
universal, collective, and individual false beliefs through assimilating the
teachings of Science. In order to escape from the illusions of the physical
senses we must escape to a higher realm. We must go to a higher dimension. When
we want to escape from ignorance about mathematics, we do so by learning the
principles of mathematics. In Science we learn to solve problems by approaching
them from a higher level. We put the problem aside, knowing it is aggressive
mental suggestion, just a lie about the divine Mind's perfect presentation. We
cease looking from wrong standpoints; we look away from the problem, and look
into Truth and Love, If we want to work out a problem in arithmetic we don't
look at the error, we look at the perfect principle, and let the
principle give us the answer.
The Beast and the False
Prophet
The whole of evil, says Eustace, comes not
from spiritualizing matter but from materializing Spirit, making that substance
which is merely shadow. This gives us a negation of Mind to deal with. This is
the “beast” of the Book of Revelation. So, getting rid of a
false sense of matter is getting rid of the beast of Revelation. We must see
that “matter is a misstatement of Mind” (Mis. 174:2).
When Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy healed the
sick and raised the dead, they were looking with God's, Principle’s, eyes
and in each case they were seeing a Mind-Spirit-Soul identity and not a matter
body. They were seeing what was really there instead of seeing what mortal,
carnal thought was aggressively suggesting to them. Because they knew God's man
was the only man, God's man appeared to them. This tells us that our structure
of consciousness determines our experience.
Moderator: That's right, Margie. We
escape the dream, the illusion of a matter body and a mind separate from the
one divine Mind, by understanding better hour by hour the message of Science
and Health. The earth is already the divine kingdom of Love and Mind where we
never meet anything but God's, Principle’s, presence. Heaven has always
been ever-present wherever we are; it is only the dragon, the spirit of deceit,
that “old serpent,” the “deceiver” that has made it appear
not so. It is this “murderer” that from the beginning has made it
appear there is mind in matter—that man's mind is locked in a body of
clay. And naturally “the dragon was wroth with the woman” (Rev.
12:17) who was to complete the works of Christ Jesus on earth and so end the
dragon's sovereignty. The woman's book and teaching—which founded the
Truth in human consciousness—is the first step in the warfare and causes
the dragon to be cast out of heaven. This victory strips the dragon, the spirit
of deceit, of his claim to be acting for God. It takes away his basis of
authority. Mrs. Eddy's students and her readers saw theoretically that what she
was telling was the truth. That was a far cry, however, from putting the truth
wholly into practice in their daily lives. “Heaven” is a state of
mind, and when the dragon was cast out of heaven—cast out of mind—it
only meant that the students were able to grasp mentally that heaven was here,
ever-present. They discerned mentally that it was only the spirit of deceit,
the “accuser,” that had previously kept them from being aware of
heaven's ever-presence. The true nature of the dragon had now been exposed,
even though the truth had not yet been made practical in their lives.
Juliann: Is this why the dragon now
has to delegate his authority to the “beast” and the “false
prophet,” as we read in Revelation? Is it because a lie once found out can
no longer operate effectively?
Moderator: Yes, once he is cast out
of heaven, the warfare begins on earth. He is no longer able to operate openly.
Having been unmasked, a “deceiver” can only operate successfully
while remaining hidden. So the dragon now has to operate through what St. John
calls the “beast” and the “false prophet.” It is referring
to latent, subconscious beliefs—cosmic, universal, and collective
mythological thinking that constitutes mortal consciousness, aggressive mental
suggestion.
It is now the business of the
“beast” to make matter seem real, to make matter appear to be
substance, having life, truth, and intelligence. The “beast” that
rose up out of the pit and killed the two witnesses in Revelation 11:7 seemed
to have power of his own. It is understood here, however, that the
“beast” derives his authority entirely from the dragon, Old Theology,
that insists both evil and good are real.
Marie: I know Mrs. Eddy used biblical
symbolism to illustrate her teaching, but today fewer people are familiar with
the Bible than in her day. She had to use biblical symbolism in order to get
their attention and arouse interest and respect. Today we are more familiar
with the language of science and philosophy. Could this subject of the beast
and false prophet who are delegates for the dragon be explained in more
up-to-date language?
Moderator: Yes. Today we would talk
about hypnotism, mesmerism—voluntary, and involuntary mesmerism, etc.
Involuntary mesmerism, Mrs. Eddy indicates, is self-mesmerism, where we are not
in the least aware that we are operating completely in a state of mesmerism.
Here we are believing that we live in a world of matter, of matter bodies and
things. We are in a state of total self-deception, of self-mesmerism. In this
state mortal mind is constantly producing on the body the results of these
false beliefs and opinions. As mortals we have never really awakened from the
Adam dream. Only Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy were fully awake to the fact that
this mortal state is a dream state.
Those of us who are being instructed in
Science are beginning to see that we yield to the influence of unconscious and
subconscious collective mortal mind only because our “belief is not better
instructed by spiritual understanding” (402:27). Mrs. Eddy states that the
sick through their beliefs have induced their own diseased or discordant
conditions, that both voluntary and involuntary mesmerism have their origin in
the human mind and can be healed only by the divine Mind, that is, by
calculating correctly with the seven synonymous terms for God.
Billy: How does the divine Mind heal
us?
Moderator: Anyone?
Anna: Mrs. Eddy says, “You
command the situation if you understand that mortal existence is a state of
self-deception and not the truth of being” (403:14). It is the mortal
so-called mind that produces all evil, all that is unlike immortal Mind. Mortal
mind would be better if it knew how to be better, but mortal mind is ignorant
of itself, it doesn't know how to improve itself. The world is living in a
state of mesmerism but doesn't realize it.
Rookie: How do we get out of this
state of mesmerism?
Francie: Mr. Eustace at one time
distributed several thousand little pamphlets, entitled, The Psychologist
and the Magician. This pamphlet was not written by a Christian Scientist
but contained a wonderful lesson. Dr. Von Schultz, the psychologist, wanted to
make the test to find out which was the better, Indian magic or his
understanding of psychology. I think there is something in this story that will
answer Rookie's question, so with the class's permission I will take a few
minutes to review the important points.
Moderator: Yes, Francie,
please do. We have all read it, but it would be good to have the important
point in it brought out the way Eustace brings it out in The False Prophet.
Francie: The Magician's name was
Marbado. It was agreed between the magician and the psychologist that the
psychologist could examine the cave thoroughly beforehand—that is, before
the magician ran his test to hypnotize Dr. Von Schultz. Dr. Von Schultz
thoroughly examined the cave and carefully noted everything in it. He then took
the precaution of camping, the night before the test, in front of the mouth of
the cave to make sure nothing was tampered with.
Tina: Why did he do that?
Francie: Because, as Eustace points
out, it was the truth of what he knew was actually in the cave, that was really
the only Christ he had to depend upon in the test. Every time the terrific
temptations to believe the hypnotic suggestions of the magician came (of real
tigers, real cobras, the real fiery pit, and on one occasion a real tiger even
appeared to his senses to tear his arm so that he nearly fell a victim to the
suggestion) what did he do?
Diane: Yes, what did he do?
Francie: Well, he didn't look to see
the color or the stripe or anything about the tiger or cobra. Instead he
immediately turned to what he knew was in the cave, and the instant he turned
to what he knew was actually in the cave the suggestion disappeared. There were
no real cobras, there was no real tiger, no real fiery pit, or any other real
danger. You remember on one occasion the hypnotic effects seemed so real that
he went back to look and see if there was not something there. There wasn't a
thing!
Moderator: Thank you, Francie. That
little story illustrates what we are continually faced with, whether in
business or home affairs, diseased conditions, so-called, or anything else. We
are never confronted with anything except malicious argument, aggressive mental
suggestion, age-old, mythological beliefs. Our whole universe consists of these
universal, collective, and individual conscious and subconscious mortal mind
beliefs. We believe the lying testimony of the five physical senses and thus
live in a world of illusions.
Rocky: Sometimes hypnotism is used
for good purposes, isn't it?
Moderator: Yes, today hypnotism is
used extensively in medicine. However, since hypnotism is dualism and can
operate for both good and evil, it is not Truth, it is not Science.
“God,” Mrs. Eddy says, “is not in the medley where matter cares
for matter, where ... hypnotism and electricity are claimed to be the agents of
God's government” (78:24). Hypnotism is merely mortal mind controlling
mortal mind, so in the end it is not a real cure.
The great question, when error appears, is:
Are we handling it as just malicious mind, or are we mesmerized to think the
tiger, the cobras, the fiery pit, etc. are actually real?
TRANSLATION OF
MATTER
Johnny: Returning for a moment to the
“beast” of Revelation who stands for the seemingly tremendous power
of material law and the belief of life, truth, intelligence, and substance in
matter, could we have a further discussion on how to overcome this terrible
illusion of evil's power, or for that matter the illusion of both pain and
pleasure in the senses?
Moderator: Grace, I see you have
something to say.
Grace: In his article called
“Science, Understood, Translates Matter ('the Beast' of Revelation) into
Mind,” Eustace quotes from John 14:12, “He that believeth on me, the
works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go to the Father.” (Herbert W. Eustace, C.S.B., Christian
Science, “Its Clear Correct Teaching”). What does this
going unto the Father mean? asks Eustace. He explains that getting rid of a
false sense of matter is the only way we are going to find the answer. The
Father, God, Principle, Mind to Love is Spirit. Thus going unto the
“Father” must mean going from a finite matter basis to an infinite
Spirit basis.
Tracing the Shadow to its
Origin
In her original work, Science of
Man, Mrs. Eddy states: “Matter held as shadow is the idea of God,
but matter held as substance, is a belief and error.”
When you follow a shadow back, where does it
lead you?
Doesn't it always lead you to what it is
shadowing forth? Doesn't it bring you to its own original substance? Can a
shadow appear without an origin? Can a shadow ever be present through an
inherent quality of its own?
Now follow matter back, remembering that
matter held as shadow is the idea of God. Follow matter back and it has to lead
you to God. Thus we reverse and clear up the mistake of thinking that matter
has life, intelligence, or substance of itself. We are led to what matter when
seen rightly truly is, “the idea of God.” In this connection we have
a most enlightening statement by Mrs. Eddy, recorded by Calvin Frye: “What
thou needest to know is that mortal mind has translated the body and its
functions into matter, and immortal Mind gives back the original with its
functions preserved and harmonious, but not as not in matter, but as and of
Mind” (EOF. viii).
She is telling us that we will never lose
the solid objects and ends of life nor our own identity. Things will always
appear to us as solid, substantial, tangible, but we will realize all things
are the creations of divine Mind, and thus we become aware of the immutable
identity of man.
It was this that Jesus foretold and
foreshadowed when he said, “I go unto my Father [divine Principle
understood].” Here the “I” was no longer entertaining a false
sense of its origin as “matter held as substance.”
Mrs. Eddy writes, “Let us have a
clearing up of abstractions” (Mis. 174:6). To the human mind matter
seems the most concrete thing, and Spirit appears to be the abstraction,
Sally: It's the business of the
“beast” to make matter seem to be substance, to be concrete, and
governed by powerful material laws, isn't it?
Grace: Yes, and it was not until the
warfare in heaven (in the mind of Woman) was fought that material law was
understood to derive its whole power from a lie. The enormous power of the
beast, a symbol for material law, commands great respect on earth. “All
the earth followed the beast in wonder... saying, 'Who is like unto the
beast?…(Rev. 13:3-4)-meaning what or who is like unto the power of
material law? Who is intelligent and courageous enough to challenge the beast
who endlessly operates and speaks “in blasphemy against God....and it was
given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them” (Rev.
13:6,7). It is again referring to the ancient mythological, cosmic, universal,
collective beliefs, creeds, traditions, etc., that psychologists inform us make
up ninety percent of our consciousness.
Tina: What is the best way to win the
war with the beast?
Moderator: The best way to win the
war with error (the beast) is to rise above error and contend persistently for
the truth we have learned in the Christian Science textbook—namely, evil's
unreality and good's allness. We can only come out from under the control of
universal, collective, and individual false beliefs through assimilating the
teachings of Science. In order to escape from the illusions of the physical
senses we must escape to a higher realm. We must go to a higher dimension. When
we want to escape from ignorance about mathematics, we do so by learning the
principles of mathematics. In Science we learn to solve problems by approaching
them from a higher level. We put the problem aside, knowing it is aggressive
mental suggestion, just a lie about the divine Mind's perfect presentation. We
cease looking from wrong standpoints; we look away from the problem, and look
into Truth and Love. If we want to work out a problem in arithmetic we don't
look at the error, we look at the perfect principle, and let the principle give
us the answer.
The “beast” of Revelation is a
symbol for the belief that there is life, truth, intelligence, and substance in
matter, which is just a build-up of mythology and ancient false beliefs being
aggressively urged upon us.
So, the way to win the war with the
“beast” of Revelation is to understand that matter is not substance
but is only that which indicates the presence of God. A shadow can do nothing
of itself, “I can of mine own self do nothing,” said Jesus. A shadow
is never subject to sin, disease, discord or death. Everything we see or are
aware of can come to us only as consciousness, and “consciousness is
Mind” (Ret. 56:18; Un. 24:12, No. 10:18). So, while
what we are beholding may be misunderstood and may look like matter, it is
actually God's presence since God is All.
Anna: Remember this is what Mrs. Eddy
was trying to show Adam Dickey when she touched his arm and said, “Adam,
this is Spirit.”
Francie: Yes, Mrs. Eddy knew there
was no matter as substance; she knew that matter is a state of mind, a
misstatement of divine Mind, of divine Life. “Matter,” she said,
“is an error of statement” (277:26), and “ 'the new tongue' is
the spiritual meaning as opposed to the material. It is the language of Soul
instead of the senses; it translates matter into its original language, which
is Mind [note matter's original language is Mind], and gives the spiritual
instead of the material signification” (Hea. 7:6). Jesus and Mary Baker
Eddy were seeing matter as that which shadows forth Mind when they “beheld
in Science the perfect man who appeared to them where sinning mortal man
appears to mortals.” (476:32)
Margie: We would automatically
translate matter back into Mind if we weren't victimized by age-old
mythological beliefs of mind in matter (the beast of Revelation). If matter
wasn't translatable back into Spirit, we would have duality, meaning matter
would actually be something. But when Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy saw in Science
the perfect man, they were using the senses of Soul, and Soul-sense
“translates matter into its original language which is Mind,” as
Francie just brought out. “Creation is ever appearing,” Mrs. Eddy
says, “and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its
inexhaustible source [Mind]. Mortal sense inverts this appearing and calls
ideas material [but calling them material doesn't make them material any more
than calling a cow's leg its tail makes that leg a tail]. Thus
misinterpreted,” she says, “the divine idea seems to fall to the
level of a human or material belief, called mortal man” (507:28). The
divine Mind is all. It contains all life, truth, intelligence and substance,
all that the “beast” of Revelation tries to make us believe is in
matter. Matter has no life, substance, or intelligence of its own. Of its own
self it can do nothing. “The only intelligence of a thought, a seed, or a
flower is God, the creator of it. Mind is the Soul [the identity] of all”
(508:5).
Moderator: Francie, what do you think
have been the important points we have just covered?
Francie: First, Mrs. Eddy states that
Jesus was accounted a criminal because he could “prove God's divine power
by . . . spiritualizing materialistic beliefs, . . .” (316:26). He was
translating matter back into its original language which is Mind, giving matter
its spiritual instead of material signification. If we don't see matter as
merely shadowing forth Mind and as the presence of Mind, how are we going to
see the kingdom of heaven right here and at hand, ever-present? How are we
going to rid ourselves of duality? Mrs. Eddy did away with duality when she
wrote: “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is
All-in-all,” is All in every thought. If there is no matter as substance,
then so-called matter is a state of mind, a misstatement of divine Mind and of
divine Life. Consequently, a conception that seems to be a material conception
must have death as its basis in contradistinction to Life which Is God.
It behooves us to be in earnest to
“discern the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold”
(585:11), to replace matter with Spirit, and translate material personality
back into Mind. If we actually did “give to Mind the glory, honor,
dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name” (143:30) then the
“beast”—who stands for the great power of material law, which he
derives from the spirit of deceit—would be finished; our whole point of
view would change; we would see “heaven here, the struggle over” (My.
158:13).
Kathleen: If God, Principle, Love, is
All-in-all, that is, All in every thought, and life is forever spontaneous and
self-renewed, how did this spirit of deceit, this sense of materiality, get
such a deadly grip on the thinking of mankind?
Moderator: An article attributed to
Mrs. Eddy (DCC 180), states:The departure from God, Principle, was through the
Adam, which in its first statement was an intelligence separate from God; but
naked, unconscious of it, i.e. holding its body unconsciously (the body did not
speak); then placing intelligence in matter until the body appears to talk so
much through material sense that we are almost unconscious of any voice.
Our way back to God is by retracing our
footsteps, to put the body under subjection. First have a harmonious body or
belief, through our conscious dominion over it, and when the last trump shall
sound, to acknowledge God as the only intelligence, “the All-in-all,”
Principle, that we are, and that has an idea.Since there is only one Mind, that
Mind must necessarily be the Mind of all. It is our Mind, since there is no
other Mind. The Mind we are now using to put off erroneous ghostly beliefs that
have chained us to a matter body, is the one Mind. There are not two minds, one
human and one divine. Mortal mind is only the supposititious opposite of the
divine Mind; it is illusory, spectral, lacking reality; hypnotic suggestion. As
Mrs. Eddy said, body and mind are one in action, or the visible manifestation
of an invisible power. The “I” and the body are one. The I must be
changed in order to change the body. (See DCC. 187.)
Tina: Is it true, then, that as we
spiritually rise the symbol called matter disappears?
Moderator: Yes, under the microscope
of Spirit, matter disappears. (264:21) “What the human mind terms matter
and spirit,” said Mrs. Eddy, “indicates states and stages of
consciousness” (573:10). As we saw when Mrs. Eddy touched Adam Dickey's
arm and said, “This is Spirit,” his remonstrance indicated his state
of consciousness was entirely different from hers. He thought his arm was
matter as substance, whereas Mrs. Eddy had traced Adam's presence back to God,
as one would trace a shadow back to its origin. Each one of us must trace
ourselves and others back to God as Mrs. Eddy did in this case. Only in this
way do we overcome the illusion that we were born of the flesh instead of being
God's (Principle’s) manifestation.
Mrs. Eddy saw Adam Dickey as God's presence.
What she was looking at was the manifestation of Spirit. This is the conclusion
Jacob must have arrived at after his all-night battle with error—his
struggle with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence in matter.
(308:16) He must have seen that life, substance, intelligence, was in
God, and Esau merely shadowed it forth. Then tracing the shadow back to its
original, namely, to God. Jacob could see that Esau was God's presence being
made visible to Jacob's present state of consciousness. There was then no other
presence that could meet Jacob, to obstruct his intelligence, and pain, fetter,
and befool him. (Mis. 173:22) He could then honestly say to Esau, “I have
seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God” since he had seen that
all power, all life, substance, intelligence, and all-presence is in God; Esau,
like Adam Dickey's arm, was simply manifesting that presence.
Sally: That seems like a very
important point. Could someone please restate it briefly for me?
Anna: The whole of evil comes because
we materialize Spirit. We make into substance that which is merely shadow. Then
we have a negation of Mind, a “misstatement of Mind” to deal with.
The only remedy is the one Mrs. Eddy prescribed, namely, the translation of
matter back into its original language, Mind (Hea. 7:8).
To help us translate matter back into Spirit
Mrs. Eddy has given us a system, “the system that she denominated
Christian Science” (viii:27), the “system that enables the learner to
demonstrate the divine Principle upon which Jesus' healing was based”
(147:1). She has also given us “Sacred rules for its present application
to the cure of disease [sin, sickness, discord of every nature, and
death]” (ibid).
Moderator: Since Mrs. Eddy uses the
terms Science and Scientist something like a thousand times in the textbook
shouldn't we all be more familiar with what a science means in the ordinary
dictionary sense of the word? Francie, what would you say a science would have
to have in order to qualify as a science?
Francie: Well, science means system,
and Mrs. Eddy has nearly a hundred references to “system” in the
textbook, I believe. It wouldn't be a science unless the knowledge it gives had
been reduced to a system and embodied in laws and in an order where the
relationship between everything is shown. A science, to be a science, must have
categories, sub-categories, classifications, and sub-classifications.
Johnny: Truth, in Christian Science,
then works in a metaphysical system, according to categories, sub-categories,
classifications and sub-classifications. This is why Mrs. Eddy states that the
truth of being is a corrective, “an alterative, reaching to every part of
the human system ... it searches 'the joints and marrow' and it restores the
harmony of man” (423:10). It couldn't reach everywhere unless it
had a system with categories and sub-categories, classifications and
sub-classifications. In the science of mathematics we wouldn't get very far
unless we had categories. We learn the categories of addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and division, etc. If we learn the category of addition and
apply the rule we can calculate any sum. The same principle applies to the
other categories in mathematics. In Science we have our seven synonymous terms,
our timeless numerals of infinity (520:10), with which we can calculate
infinitely once we learn the categories and the rules that govern according to
the Principle Mrs. Eddy has given in the textbook.
Grace: It is important to see that in
the textbook's system every part of that system finds its right place in the
whole. If we know the system and what makes up this divine system of right
ideas, we are then aware of the counterfeit of a right idea. We know that
everything in the human, in mortal mind, is a counterfeit of something in the
divine Mind, and never has a real identity of its own; it is just simulating a
divine idea, Mrs. Eddy said (Mis. 60:28), “Every material belief hints the
existence of spiritual reality.” This informs us that behind the
complicated system of the human body there is actually a very complex system of
divine consciousness, that divine infinite calculus Mrs. Eddy speaks of on page
520, that Johnny referred to.
Moderator: And we all know that a calculus always
operates according to a system. Mrs. Eddy presented her Science on four levels
of spiritual consciousness which depict the multi-dimensional sense of Being.
Her Science touches every level of experience. It is the corrective and
alterative for all the falsehoods, myths, universal and collective conscious
and sub-conscious beliefs with which we are constantly being
assaulted and beset. Science teaches us to instantly recognize these as
aggressive mental suggestions, totally illusory, just hypnotic, since good
alone is real.
Florence: Mrs. Eddy shows us in the
textbook that in reality man has a scientifically structured consciousness, and
she has given us a Science and a system that delineates this structured
consciousness. Students of Christian Science are becoming aware that “from
the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite
idea, and with this infinitude come spiritual rules, laws, and their
demonstration” (1112:16).
Mary Baker Eddy's
System Discovered by Doorly
Moderator: We are all very thankful
to John Doorly for the tremendous textbook-research work he did. He was the
first to see the system that Mrs. Eddy called Christian Science. (viii:27) From
1910 on he was impelled, driven, by the conviction that Science must be
constituted of clearly defined identities of being and there must be ordered
relationships of these identities or else our concept of the oneness of Being
is merely mystical and not scientific.
Sally: What actually led Doorly to
see the system?
Moderator: Peggy Brook in her
excellent book, “John Doorly and the Scientific Evolution of
Christian Science, gives the following account:It is interesting how an
unforeseen happening or remark may spark off a discovery when consciousness is
ready to perceive it. Such was the case with John Doorly's awakening to the
pure Science of Christian Science. Although his thought had been naturally
moving towards this point, it was the conclusions he drew from the research
work of two students of Christian Science around 1936 that unexpectedly alerted
him to the universal Science set forth in Mary Baker Eddy's discovery. One of
these students was a pupil of his in Stockholm, Sweden, an optician, who had
compiled a comprehensive list of terms used in the textbook, relating to
optics, such as “light,” “reflection,” “lens ... ..
prism,” “image,” etc. This student had discovered that
throughout the text of Science and Health the science of optics was used
symbolically—yet one would say unconsciously on Mrs. Eddy's part—to
illustrate the Science of Christian Science. At the same time, in London, a
fellow student who was a musician, showed John Doorly a similar list of musical
terms taken from the textbook, such as “tone,” “scale,”
“chord,” “harmony,” “concord,” remarking that it
was deeply interesting to see how Mrs. Eddy had illustrated her system through
a comprehensive range of musical terminology. John Doorly said that suddenly
the word “system” stood out to him. He had never heard anyone
refer to Mrs. Eddy's discovery as a “system” before, and there began
to emerge in his thought the realization that just as music expresses itself
through certain fundamental tones which combine in orderly relationship in the
science of music to produce the harmonies of musical composition, and just as
there is a science of optics in human experience, so Mary Baker Eddy must have
presented a Science of spiritual reality with definite fundamental concepts
operating in specific yet infinite processes, a science that could be
understood by spiritual sense step by step in an ordered and systematic
way.From that point on the system embedded in the textbook evolved rapidly,
often in great and exciting leaps, to the ever-increasing delight of John
Doorly and his devoted, consecrated, students. It led them to discern not only
that Mary Baker Eddy's whole revelation is woven around her definition of God,
Principle, Love, in seven concise terms, but also that these terms are used in
specific ways to convey a spiritual Science operating according to law, order,
and rule.
Mary Baker Eddy
Scientist of First Magnitude
Anna: More and more our great
scientific thinkers are recognizing Mrs. Eddy as a Scientist of the first
magnitude. They are today discovering concepts such as structure, new logic,
holism, general systems theory, text-presentation, dimensionalism,
etc.—all concepts which Mrs. Eddy incorporated over a century ago. During
the coming millennium, as we more and more understand the Principle behind the
textbook, many more scientific concepts pre-glimpsed by Mrs. Eddy may come to
light.
To free ourselves from the Adam-dream,
so-called matter must be translated back into its original language which is
Mind. “Reason and revelation declare that God is both noumenon and
phenomena.” If God, Principle, is the only cause, then what looks like
matter must actually be Spirit. God or Spirit, cannot cause His opposite to
appear anymore than you, standing in front of the mirror, can cause your
opposite to appear.
Bill: Everything Jesus said, and all
Mrs. Eddy has written, has been an effort to turn us to the divine Mind as the
only cause, conceiver, and producer. “Human thought never projected the
least portion of true being” (126:8). (See Matt'. 24:19.) And woe unto him
who believes that he can either give birth to something or that he was given
birth to—that he was ever born, formed, or sustained materially.
(Human belief has sought and interpreted in its own way the echo of Spirit, and
so seems to have reversed it and repeated it materially; but the human mind
never produced a real tone nor sent forth a positive sound” (ibid). Christ
is the spiritual original of everything we behold. Origin is omnipresence;
everything originates in the omnipresent divine Mind. In reality, your body has
to be Mind's interpretation of itself, and as Mind's interpretation of itself
it never had a “beginning.” “The Lord possessed me in the
beginning (the only, the forever) of his way, before the works of the old ...
or ever the earth was” (Pro. 8:22,23). There is no more substance to the
body than there is to the image in the mirror. This is why an understanding of
ourselves as God's (Principle’s) reflection immunizes us from sin,
sickness, discord of every kind, and death, because, as we have stressed, an
image has no substance of itself. The thing that makes the image is what we
accept as Mind. Science and Health teaches us to accept the divine Mind as the
only Mind. It is God's Mind, and it is our Mind. Everything we see has to be a
projection from this Mind, just as a movie camera can only project onto the
screen an image that is on the film in the projector.
Let's culture the divine Mind since what
is in our consciousness determines our experience.
In his book, Illusions, The
Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Richard Bach illistrates this point with
a moving picture. He shows that the material sense of life, concerned with
belief in the reality of time and space, is all illusion. He compares the
material sense of life to a reel of film that we can hold in our hand. It is
all finished and complete beginning, middle, end, are all there at the same
second. But the reel is meaningless until it is put into a projector. Therefore
in order to get caught up and swept away in it, you have to put it in a
projector and let it go through the lens minute by minute, because any illusion
requires space and time to be experienced. Illusions are dependent upon your
belief in time and space. Without this false belief it is nothing more than a
roll of film projecting lights on a screen. We write our own movies, we act out
our own movies, says Bach. We are the cameraman, the projectionist, the theater
manager, the ticket-taker. We watch it all happen. We are free to walk out in
the middle; we are free to change the plot, or we are free to see the movie
over and over. Since mind is the projector the film is whatever we give our
consent to. If divine Mind is projecting our pictures all is harmony. To the
extent that mortal mind is doing the projecting, sin, disease, discord of every
kind, and death seem real. Bach shows you can be anything you want to be. It is
all a matter of consciousness. If you don't believe in time and space you can't
appear on this planet. Birth and death, discord of any nature, can
“never alarm or even appear to him who fully understands Life” (Un.
40). Suffering, and everything that causes it, comes only when we choose to
believe in the reality of time and space instead of choosing to accept the
divine Mind (our true Mind) as the only projector of ideas—ideas that are
timeless, spaceless, to which we are introduced in Science and Health with Key
to the Scriptures.
Francie: This would mean then that
what we are dealing with every split second in the realm of belief is simply
Mind misinterpreted. When this creation or appearing is misinterpreted, then
the divine idea, which Mind is presenting, seems to sink to the level of a
material belief—matter seems to have life, substance, intelligence of its
own, and calls itself mortal man. (507:28-2) But what makes it appear to be
mortal man, a person, place, or thing, is the dragon, hypnotic suggestion,
animal magnetism. We are merely victims of illusion when we think there is
life, substance, intelligence in matter. We were equally deceived when we
believed the sun rose and set, or that the earth was flat. Christian Science
has come to free us from the self-imposed materiality and bondage induced by
the hypnotic suggestion of the dragon, Old Theology, which has buried us in a
charnel house of false beliefs.
Matter Reduced to False
Mentality
Moderator: With the spiritual status
urging its highest demands on mortals, and material history drawing to a close
(No. 45:25), we can discern that St. John was using the symbol of the
false prophet to prophesy Mrs. Eddy's complete exposure of error and evil as
hypnotic mental suggestion. This exposure, we have noted before, constituted
the watershed in human history.
The enemy is not a person, place, or
thing—those belong to yesterday, to the era of the beast, material sense.
Today we are dealing alone with the false prophet which we have to meet on its
own ground of false mind. We have to meet false mind with divine Mind. And
because the one Mind is the All-Mind it translates matter back into its
original language which is Mind. Thus the so-called evil of malicious mind is
swallowed up in the one all-embracing Mind, divine Love. This ends the warfare
with the dragon. We find God as Bride, wedded to the purified human
consciousness, the “Lamb of Love.” The Bride conceives man as the
idea of God, and thus the lie of human birth and human parentage is forever
banished from consciousness.
Tommy: The Book of Revelation, as
interpreted in the light of Christian Science, prophesied that Mary Baker Eddy,
through her teaching and writing, would be that mighty spiritual force which
would bring the total destruction of error—Love, divine Science, is that
mighty spiritual force that is destined to effect the total destruction of the
misstatement of Mind to which Science has reduced error.A great new glorious
day is dawning as material history draws to its close.
SESSION XVI: THE SECOND
COMING
Renewed Opposition
Moderator: Evil forces had tried to
prevent Jesus' message in its first coming. Evil forces were again at work
trying to prevent Truth's message in the second coming. Mrs. Eddy said
that this same great red dragon, or “malicious animal instinct, of which
the dragon is the type, incites mortals to kill morally and physically even
their fellow-mortals, and worse still, to charge the innocent with the
crime” (564:4).
The dragon sprang into operation immediately
when Science and Health was given birth as the “second coming” of the
Christ-idea. During Mrs. Eddy's sojourn here it left no stone unturned to
prevent her message from getting a foothold in human consciousness. And since
her leaving this sphere of activity, the dragon, animal magnetism, aggressive
mental suggestion, has sent forth increasing floods of anti-Christ propaganda
to drown the Christ-idea, and keep the public from being receptive to the truth
of their Christ identity. Mrs. Eddy came to show that man generically is the
Son of God. She showed unmistakably that the human race itself is the spiritual
idea when seen in the light of the teachings of Christian Science.
Rocky: Could we at this time have a
review of what specifically the dragon stands for?
Francie: Mrs. Eddy speaks of the
dragon as the malicious animal instinct (564:4). She states that the brutal
barbarity of Jesus' foes could emanate from no source except the highest degree
of human depravity (564:16). “Depravity” she defines as mortal mind,
the physical—evil beliefs, passions and appetites, fear, depraved will,
self-justification, pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness,
disease, death (115:19). These mortal mind characteristics would all recede
from view, she taught, because they were unreal, illusory, and would disappear
with the understanding of spiritual reality.
Bill: We saw an instance of this
“depravity” surfacing in an earlier Session with regard to the
coronor's inquest in the James Neal case. James Neal, you remember, had been
requested to treat a seriously ill child, who had been under the care of
physicians. He treated the child one day, and then the mother, seeing no
improvement, and full of fear, returned the child to medical treatment. Under
the care of doctors the child died soon after.
On the basis of his one-day treatment of the
child the newspapers announced that the coroner's inquest was expected to
indict Neal for manslaughter, etc.
This type of activity against the
Christ-idea is the dragon at work. By using the newspapers, the dragon is able
to negate and nullify the receptivity of thousands to the Christ-idea. Had
they, for instance, headlined the many wonderful healings that James
Neal had accomplished through his understanding of Christian Science it would
have had the opposite effect on the general public. Many more people would have
been interested in the healing work and been influenced to investigate
Christian Science.
Johnny: There was another important
point brought out in that story. You remember that one of the jurors who had
been handpicked for his known hostility to Christian Science later came to
James Neal for treatment. Many other residents in Kearney came to Neal for help
and treatment—the point here being that human depravity (the dragon at
work in the form of the news media, and the infamous coroner's inquest, etc.)
could not stop or vanquish the Christ-idea. The wicked motives of those who
tried to find Neal guilty of manslaughter only set up a platform for him from
which he could let the light of Christian Science shine, and bless all who were
receptive to it.
Love unselfed, love of one's enemies,
humility, moderation—these were the God-qualities that Neal was expressing
and that gave him strength in his hour of trial. These qualities did not go
unnoticed by the folks in Kearney, and it drew them to the light of Mary Baker
Eddy's teachings, to the light that God was pouring out on mortals through her
wilderness-woman activities. The unseen silent forces of God stood sentinel
over him (as they stand sentinel over us all). These silent forces of God
exposed and destroyed the silent unseen arguments of the dragon, material
sense.
Misuse of News
Media
Anna: Recently there have been
incidents of children dying while under treatment by a Christian Science
practitioner, causing a recurrence of the dragon's efforts to destroy the
Christ, Truth. The disciples, though taught by our great Master, did not heal
every case (see Matt. 17:14-18). We do not discredit the principle of
mathematics because a pupil fails in its correct application. Two thousand
years ago the dragon, Old Theology, attempted to destroy the Christ message by
crucifying its great Exemplar, the masculine representative of the spiritual
idea. Today the dragon is attempting to destroy the second coming of the
Christ, the message of the feminine representative of the spiritual idea. The
dragon's means of destruction now are necessarily different from the way and
method used at the first coming when it only wanted to destroy Jesus. The
present aim of the dragon, Old Theology, is to destroy humanity's receptivity
to the Christ idea. The dragon is doing this in fulfilment of Jesus' prophecy
(Rev. 12:15), “And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood [of
anti-Christ propaganda] after the woman (after Mary Baker Eddy was no longer an
earthly personality] that he might cause her (her teachings) to be carried away
of the flood.”
Mrs. Eddy's interpretation of this prophecy
is addressed to her followers (570:14-21): “What if the old dragon should
send forth a new flood to drown the Christ-idea? He can neither drown your
voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the deep waters of chaos and
old night.”
It is the “millions of unprejudiced
minds—simple seekers for Truth” (ibid)—that the dragon wants to
reach through the news media to “prejudice” and close their minds to
the Science of being which gives mankind a method by which it can dissipate the
aggressive mental suggestion of the mind-matter-body syndrome and so escape
from the bondage of age-old mythological beliefs. The system of
Christian Science teaches us to structure our consciousness so it is in line
with the God-consciousness.
Bondage Self-imposed
Tommy: I think it is important for us
to realize that we can give birth to our own God-being in spite of all the
cruel obstacles the dragon tries to put in our path. The dragon tries to saddle
us with a material, theoretical life-basis. It is important that we gain the
conviction that we can break away from the false control of mortal erring
consciousness. Once we learn what Life includes, the whole earth will be
transformed by Truth, and the misapprehension of existence will disappear.
It is the dragon that keeps alive in us our
self-imposed materiality and bondage. The dragon, remember, consists of those
“first degree' qualities which Mrs. Eddy lists (115:20) under
“Depravity” which she calls the “physical.” Her marginal
heading here is “Unreality.” One of Mrs. Eddy's definitions for
“hell” is self-imposed agony. The dragon can have no power over us if
we are willing to work and probe the self-inflicted wounds of selfishness,
malice, envy, and hate; and to control mad ambition. (462:26)
Juliann: Those are all qualities of
the dragon that war against spirituality, aren't they?
Moderator: Yes, Mrs. Eddy
actually says that self-love is more opaque than a solid body, and that
self-will and self-justification war against spirituality and are the law of
sin and death. (242:15) If we want to “attend properly the birth of ...
the divine idea,” our true and real identity, we have to detach ourselves
from all these negative qualities that make up the dragon's constitution. In no
other way can we give birth to our God-being, the divine idea. We cannot escape
the evangelization of the human self. It must be done. But remember the
textbook shows us how to do it.
The dragon would have absolutely no power
over us if we obeyed Mrs. Eddy's “Admonition and Counsel” (My. 210):
“Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and
Love [meaning the fact (Truth) of present perfection (Love)] that sin, disease,
and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind
already full ....
Rookie: And wouldn't it be equally
true that nothing can be added to the mind already full of
“depravity,” the “first degree” (115:20) qualities, until
awakened by right desire?
Grace: Yes. Jesus said, “Ye
cannot fill vessels already full ... .. God writes on a clean slate.” We
win unity with our divine Principle in the same way we win unity with the
principle of mathematics or the principle of music, namely, by turning away
from error and ignorance, and practicing what the Principle of our God-being
teaches us. We never have to do anything except get rid of ignorance.
Margie: I think there is another
matter we must be clear on. We have pointed out the difference between the
first coming of the Christ-idea when Jesus impersonated God, in a human
form, and the “second coming” when Mary Baker Eddy, through
pure communion with God brought to earth the divine idea, not as a person, but
as a Science of ideas. However, we should remember that while the forms of the
appearing of the first and second coming of the Christ idea are
entirely different, in fact, opposite—one being the personal and the other
the impersonal—yet what they demand of mortals is the same. Both the first
and the second coming demand obedience to the two great Commandments of the
divine Principle, Love, that rules.
Elsie: Would some one kindly refresh
me on what these Commandments are?
Kathleen: When Jesus was asked by a
lawyer, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said
unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God [the Word, the Bride] with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great commandment.
“And the second is like unto it, thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [When we do this we are being the Lamb of
God.] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt.
22:36-40). They show the Bride and the Lamb, the womanhood and manhood of God.
Bessie: Why do you think Jesus said
that all the law and the prophets hang on these two Commandments?
Margie: For one thing, they include
the Golden Rule to do unto others as you would that others do unto you. That
brings heaven down to earth. “The life of Christ,” Mrs. Eddy said,
“is predicate and postulate of all that I teach, and there is but one
standard statement, one rule, and one Principle for all scientific truth ....
The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are 'Christian' and
'Science.' The former is the highest style of man; the latter reveals and
interprets God and man; it aggregates, amplifies, unfolds, and expresses the
All-God” (No. 10:6-13). “Christian Science healing,” as we have
seen in former Sessions, “is 'the Spirit and the bride'-the Word and the
wedding of this Word to all human thought and action” (My. 153:27).
This alone fulfils the two great Commandments of Jesus, which include the
Golden Rule, and show that both the first and second comings require the
surrender of all materiality.
Recess
Moderator: Are there any questions
before we continue?
Biblical References
to Second Coming
Sally: In our zeal to do Jesus full
honor may we not be overlooking Truth's second and last appearing, in our study
of the textbook?
Diane: Are there any specific
references to the “second coming” in the Bible and in Mrs. Eddy's
writings?
Moderator: Is anyone familiar with
the New Testament references to the “second coming”? It is important
to know the promises Jesus made with reference to his second coming. Nothing
could honor him more than to accept as fulfilled his own promises with
reference to his coming as the descending idea. Remember, it is God, Principle,
explaining Himself to us, first with Jesus as representing God's masculine
nature, and second, with Mary Baker Eddy, as representing his feminine nature.
But it is always our divine Principle, God, coming to us and explaining itself,
and thus explaining our being to us by showing us what it is that we are as the
Bride consciousness.
Anna: I think Matthew 24:30 is a
reference to his second coming: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son
of man in heaven . . . “ Here “man” is the generic term for all
that reflects God's, Principle’s image and likeness (475:15). Matthew
continues, “and then shall all the tribes [mortals] of the earth
mourn,…” They shall turn away from believing they live in a matter
body; laying down the mortal concept is usually accompanied by gall and
wormwood and a river of tears. Matthew then states: “and they shall see
the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and great
glory,” which is unmistakably the second coming as idea. It is the
descending idea coming down from God out of heaven proclaiming man's present
perfection as the infinite reflection of the infinite and perfect God.
“Coming in clouds” may be a reference to the “idea” seeming
at first obscure and abstract, before study makes it clearly understood
(558:10). It is no longer the human Jesus as the impersonation of the divine
idea.
Jackie: Another reference to the
“second coming” can be found in Mark 13:26, 27: “Then shall they
see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then
shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four
winds from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of
heaven.”
It is a prophecy that God, Principle, will
send His angels, meaning His Word, Science and Health, the spirit of
Truth.
Jesus, in his first coming was not able to
“gather”; but in his second coming all will be gathered together in
an unfragmented whole. The Principle of Science is “not to be found in
fragmentary ideas” (302:1).
Tina: Regarding this
“gathering,” that Mark mentions, does Jesus' statement: “I and
my Father are one,” have any connection with his great desire to gather
Jerusalem's children “together as a hen doth gather her brood . . .
“? We remember that “children” are defined as
“thoughts,” and “children of Israel” are defined as. .
ideas.”
Margie: Yes, Tina. Definitely, it
does. Explaining the oneness of “I and my Father are one,” Mrs. Eddy
said that this oneness is one in quality though not in quantity. It is a
qualitative oneness. This means, for example, a oneness like a drop of water is
one with the ocean, or a oneness like the ray of light that is one with the
sun. In this same way, God and man are one; all are gathered unto God, “as
one Father with his universal family, held in the gospel of Love.” The ray
of light can't be separated from the sun, neither can man be separated from
God. God and man are one in being “for in Him we live and move and have
our being” (361:15-20). The divine Principle includes the universe. By
reflection, therefore, man includes the universe.
There is actually only
One—“Principle and its idea is one, and that one is God.” But
this one is a oneness in quality. Therefore everything that seems to be a
part—as a ray of light is one with the sun, or a drop of water is one with
the ocean, or as a man seems to be a part—is actually not a part but is
qualitatively the same as the whole. By reflection man has everything God has.
Every idea reflects the whole. Everything lives to bless everything else.
Elsie: Could you explain that?
Margie: It means that every idea has
the quality of the infinite. So when we actually realize there is only the
oneness of being, we can no longer have isolated ideas. Ideas such as power,
action, law, intelligence, faculties, understanding, purity, dominion,
consciousness, wholeness, perfection, etc., ad-infinitum, are never isolated.
Isolation of an idea doesn't exist, because every idea is qualitatively one
with the whole and therefore must reflect all the other qualities. This makes
every idea the idea of the infinite One.
Tina: What would that mean?
Margie: It would mean, as Doorly once
explained, that the power of an idea is the power of the infinite One; the
influence of an idea is the influence of the infinite One; the identity of an
idea is the identity of the infinite One; the substance, the dominion, the
standard, the fulfilment of an idea is always the substance, dominion,
standard, and fulfilment of the infinite One. Every idea reflects every other
idea.
Billy: What has this got to do with
“gathering”—the subject under consideration?
Margie: Well, from what has just been
said, we can see that every idea gathers. Because it is one with all the other
ideas, it gathers to itself more qualities than it would have as an isolated
idea. For example a drop of water when it is one with the ocean can float huge
tankers, provide a home for whales and other sea life, which an isolated drop
could not do.
Where it concerns idea, an isolated idea
like “action” would not be action at all unless it gathered unto
itself all other ideas such as power, intelligence, creative ability,
understanding, dominion, etc. So we can see that true action, Mind-action,
would have to reflect the strength, goodness, reality, order, purity, etc., of
Spirit; it would have to reflect the joy, freedom, sinlessness, etc., ad
infinitum, of Soul; it would have to reflect the system, structure, government,
authority, demonstration, harmony, impersonality, etc., of Principle; it would
have to reflect the constructiveness, the inspiration, the flow of Life, Life's
method and consecration, etc; it would have to reflect the consciousness, the
dominion, the wholeness, etc., of Truth; and lastly, it would have to reflect
the glory, the peace, the design, the plan, the perfection and fulfilment of
Love.
An action, to be action, in Science—and
remember Science is the second coming of the Christ in which it was prophesied
the gathering would take place—must always reflect every other
idea. There are no isolated parts or ideas. When Jesus said, “I and my
Father are one” he was pre-glimpsing his second coming in Womanhood when
the gathering-Principle would be understood. Each part or quality is the
self-same as its divine Principle; each reflects the whole, and this is the
“gathering” that Jesus so deeply desired the people of his time to
understand: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,…how often would I have gathered
thy children together as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye
would not!” (Luke 13:34)
Jesus wanted them to see that I and the
Father are one and the same in quality—one and the same thing in regard to
quality. Jesus saw there was only the universe of ideas. But the opening up of
that universe of ideas had to await his second coming, when Mary Baker Eddy
would teach us how to come down from God with Science, and how to be Truth's
immortal idea that sees only what God sees. This correct view gathers beneath
its wings the sick and sinning, healing and regenerating them through a divine
understanding of the facts of being. In this gathering all is gathered
into one brotherhood, one Christianity as Jesus said (Matt. 24:31): “They
[Science] shall gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of
heaven to the other.”
“Wind” is defined (597:27) as that
which indicates the might of omnipotence and the movements of God's spiritual
government, encompassing all things. The four refers to Word, Christ,
Christianity and Science, meaning the four which show man as an infinite
calculus of spiritual ideas. Mary Baker Eddy's mission in the second coming was
an encompassing mission, and showed that the eternal Elohim includes the
forever universe (515:16). “The spiritual creation was the outgrowth, the
emanation, of His infinite self-containment and immortal wisdom” (519:4).
And because everything is within one's own
consciousness, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of
heaven, “the 'still small voice' of scientific thought reaches over
continent and ocean to the globe's remotest bound” (559:8). The one Mind,
self-containment your Mind, God, whom man perfectly reflects, sees all angles
at one glance. In Science our standpoint is always from Principle, so there is
nothing but good from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of
heaven. Whosoever beholds Life, Truth, and Love finds Life, Truth, and Love in
himself. He knows himself to be the spiritual idea that shows man to be
individually and collectively the Son of God. Remember, “the kingdom of
God is within” your consciousness.
Moderator: Does any one else have a
biblical reference to the second coming of Christ?
Sally: In Acts 1:11 we have another
reference to the second coming where “two men stood in white
apparel.” The “white apparel” indicates they had a certain sense
of the “seven-hued white,” the seven synonyms for God, an
understanding of which would come with the descending and encompassing mission
of Mary Baker Eddy.
The “two men” may indicate that it
was not yet a complete understanding with them. There was duality in that they
saw both an ascending and a descending mission, whereas when the missions of
Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy are understood it will be seen as one
God-mission wherein God acquaints us with His nature as both masculine and
feminine. The true nature of man as the image and likeness of this one infinite
Father-Mother Principle, Love, is thus revealed.
These two men say: “Ye men of Galilee,
why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you
into heaven [Jesus, in his ascending mission lifted himself out of the
belief of being a mortal—out of duality, out of the twoness that says we
are both material and spiritual. He found heaven right where he was. It was
just a matter of changing from a material viewpoint to a spiritual viewpoint,
since “heaven” is a state of mind], this same Jesus, which is taken
up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go
into heaven.” The ascending and the descending are one unbroken circle:
“I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave
the world, and go to the Father.” The idea, the image and likeness, has no
relationship with anything except the Principle, Love, and with Principle's
ideas. Its relationship with Principle's ideas is via the Principle, just as in
mathematics, every relationship the individual figures have with each other is
always via the principle of mathematics. A three can never get together with a
four or five on its own, that is, by ignoring the principle of mathematics.
Moderator: We have heard from
Matthew, Mark, and Acts on the subject of the second coming. Does anyone
remember what the writer of Hebrews has to say on this subject?
Jackie: “And unto them that look
for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation” (Heb.
9:28).
I think the word “look” is
important. When we are looking for something we are receptive, we have faith,
and are expecting.
“Appear a second time without
sin” means that in the second coming it will be a pure idea with no
fleshly accompaniment other than the paper and ink necessary for a book.
“Unto salvation” means that the second coming, as a Science which can
be learned and understood by all, will lead to a full salvation.
This second coming, in his womanhood, is
“the Lord from heaven” (I Cor. 15:47). It is natural that the
teachings of Jesus in his first coming of denying and forsaking sin,
crossbearing, etc.—the Christian warfare (see Matt. 10:34-37) all
of which was negative in its trend—should be embraced in the teachings of
his second coming. Mrs. Eddy speaks of the appearing of the spiritual
idea first by man, and last by woman. (565:18)
Moderator: Luke (24:13-32) tells of
the divine Spirit which identified Jesus to the two disciples on the walk to
Emmaus. In the second coming this divine Spirit would speak through the
inspired Word of Science and Health and Mary Baker Eddy's other
writings. It would fulfil Jesus' prophetic parable “foretelling the second
appearing in the flesh of the Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the
visible world” (118:6), and would continue its work until the entire mass
of error is destroyed, and this Truth is glorified in man's spiritual freedom.
Florence: Among Mrs. Eddy's notes,
preserved in Collectanea, is the following entry: “Book just found
entitled The Time of the End. As early as 1571 a D.D. advanced the idea
that the reappearing of Christ would occur in 1866” (DCC. 171).
Revelation 1:7 states: “Behold he
cometh.” Christians are expecting the second coming, but are they looking
in the right direction? Isaiah had foretold the first coming: “a
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.” But was Christ Jesus recognized
when he did appear, even though his birth was heralded by angels and a star in
the heavens?
Matthew 24:3 tells us “the disciples
came unto him privately, saying, Tell us ... what shall be the sign of thy
[second] coming ... ?”
Among many other signs, Jesus mentions
“great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world . . .
.”(Matt. 24:21).
Luke says, “great earthquakes shall be
in divers places.” Matthew and Mark also mention earthquakes as a
“sign” of the second Coming. “Immediately after the tribulation
of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be
shaken” (Matt. 24:29). “Then,” says Matthew, “shall
appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven.” A pamphlet by Doris Grekel,
The Second Coming, documents the actual happening, literally, of Jesus'
prophecies concerning the “signs” of his second coming. It is
obtainable from BOOKS and THINGS, Box 128, Awahnee, Ca. 93601.
Jesus also mentions Daniel. Daniel, according to one
authority, fixed the year 1866 or 1867 for the return of Christ (see My.
181:27). Jesus said “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of
desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place”
(Matt. 24:15), then shall be the time of the second coming, and the time to
practise the Truth Mary Baker Eddy revealed. Daniel prophesied the return of
the Christ in 1866 or 1877—the return of the spiritual idea to the
material earth, the antipode of heaven.
Gift of Christian
Science
Marie: What do you think Jesus meant when he said,
“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you
the kingdom”?
Moderator: As we have seen before,
once we rid ourselves of the “first degree-depravity” qualities, the
work is over, and the kingdom of heaven comes as a “gift.” The
dragon, animal magnetism, can only work through the “first
degree-depravity” qualities to keep us out of the kingdom of heaven. So,
when we are Christian Science—when we be Christian Science—and
say, “I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ,
and him glorified (200:27), we are making ourselves receptive for the
fulfilment of Jesus' promise: “it is your Father's [Principle’s] good
pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Rocky: Could that be explained more
fully?
Margie: I think Mrs. Eddy rent the
veil from top to bottom in her wonderful answer to the lady who wrote asking if
she was right in referring to herself as an immortal idea of the divine Mind.
(See My. 241:19.) Mrs. Eddy replied,You can never demonstrate
spirituality until you declare yourself to be immortal and understand that you
are so. Christian Science is absolute; it is neither behind the point of
perfection nor advancing towards it; it is at this point and must be practised
therefrom. Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence
perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its
demonstration. By this I do not mean that mortals are the children of
God—far from it. In practicing Christian Science you must state its
Principle correctly, or you forfeit your ability to demonstrate it.Mrs. Eddy
shows we must see and maintain that man is inherently pure and perfect, as
perfect as God, Principle, itself. This is taking part in the descending idea,
“the morning meal in the dawn of a new light,” the light of Christian
Science. We must maintain the facts, and not keep going back to till the soil.
We are in the Science era now, and Mrs. Eddy has lifted Christianity into
Science. With the coming of Science, the “tilling of the soil” became
passe. Science relieves mortals of the condemnation to till the ground. To
“improve material belief by thought tending spiritually upward” so as
to destroy materiality, is now taught in Science. The descending idea of
Science shows us that man—even he whom the human mind considers to be the
worst sinner—has always been perfect and has dominion over the whole
earth, and has always been, and is now, God's spiritual image and likeness.
There is no evil person. There is no error. This must be learned just as we
learned the earth was round, not flat.
The process of descent is a process we will
all have to make as we face the world with its claims. Every claim of error has
to be reversed. We learn in Science that “a lie takes its pattern from
Truth by reversing Truth. So evil and all its forms are inverted good”
(Un. 53:1-3).
Rookie: Since the second coming of
the Christ is so much concerned with finding God, good, All-in-all by reversing
error, could we have a brief review of this reversing-process?
Moderator: Grace, would you like to
add to what we have already said on that subject?
Grace: When Mrs. Eddy saw that sin
existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed
(Ret. 67:1) she saw also the remedy for it.
Diane: What was the remedy?
Grace: To destroy sin and reform the
sinner, she says, we must silence self (silence that sense of a selfhood apart
from God) and rise above corporeality. This means we have to regard error as
impersonal, as no part of real being. We have to regard error (sin) in the same
way a mathematician regards a false calculation. He doesn't see it as an
inherent or innate part of himself or of the student who might have made the
mathematical error.
Mrs. Eddy was able to heal all manner of
evil and even raise the dead after she saw that it was sin or error that
constituted the human or physical concept. When she started her thinking and
reasoning from God, from perfection, from the Principle, her calculations were
correct and those correct calculations reversed what mortal mind was suggesting
with its false calculations.
Tommy: Is this what Mrs. Eddy meant,
then, when she said, “the human thought does not constitute sin, but vice
versa, sin constitutes the human thought”? (ibid)
Grace: Yes, as Eustace once
explained, evil in its reversal of good is as infinite as good because for
every correct statement that can possibly be made there is potentially an
opposite statement, meaning a lie that can be told about it. This is why it is
so important to learn the seven synonymous terms for God and all their ideas.
When we know the facts thoroughly we can quickly reject the counterfeit,
because we know that if God didn't say it, it was never said, and if God didn't
do it, it was never done.
Mrs. Eddy showed that error is no part of
us, no part of you or of me or anyone when she said “Error comes to you
for life and you give it all the life it has.” She knew error was
impersonal, never a part of man's real identity. Jesus was showing this point
in his parable of the “prodigal son.” The elder brother made evil
personal. He attached evil and error to the younger brother, imputing to him
erroneous conduct meriting punishment. He did not impersonalize the error that
had victimized his younger brother, and thus detach it from him. Instead he
personalized the evil and saw it as an inherent part of his younger brother.
But the father in the parable impersonalized the error completely for both
boys, and to the elder he said, “Son, thou art ever with me and all
that I have is thine!”—all that is implied by the seven synonymous
terms for God is ours, is ever with us, just as all of the multiplication table
is ever with us, is ours and is everyone else's too at the same time. When we
know the facts, evil and error are seen as impersonal and as no part of anyone.
To sum this up, Mrs. Eddy writes: The sinner
created neither himself nor sin, but sin created the sinner; that is, error
made its man mortal [error made its man corporeal; made its man “born of a
woman”; made its man flesh, blood, and bones, subject to discord,
sickness, death, subject to all the first degree or depravity qualities] and
this mortal was the image and likeness of evil, not of good [a calculus of
divine ideas that perfectly reflects its Principle, God]. Therefore the lie
was, and is, collective as well as individual. It was in no way contingent on
Adam's thought [Adam, as the Son of God, was always innnately, inherently
perfect] .... [The lie] is supposititiously self-created. In the words of our
Master, it, the “devil” (alias evil), “was a liar, and the
father of it” (Ret 67:18).Marie: The prodigal son is just a
symbol for every mortal—for everyone who doesn't realize his oneness with
the seven synonymous terms for God. We each are the “prodigal son” as
long as we believe the evidence of the physical senses and fail to realize that
any sense of existence separate from divinity is pure illusion.
Descending Thought
Going Out To World
Bill: Another difference we should
note between the first and second coming of Christ is that Manhood (the first
coming) calls to the world to come unto him: “Come unto me. . . “
(Matt. 11:28). Womanhood, on the other hand, goes to the world, but goes with
the light of Womanhood, namely idea, not symbols. Womanhood, Science, goes to
the world with the spiritual idea by which the world is translated and
transformed. Matter transformed by the “Ideal” disappears (442:23).
Man's way of destroying error is to go forth into the world as a Christian
warrior. Man wars for the right, and destroys rather than transforms. Man
doesn't take the symbol of form across into idea and thus make the lie
disappear. Mrs. Eddy translated Bible symbols into divine ideas, into timeless,
spaceless divine ideas. The divine ideas in Science and Health transform the
material with the spiritual. We must understand that we are the divine infinite
calculus of being, and understand we are never less than the infinite calculus
at this present moment in spite of the wool that has been pulled over our eyes.
In reality we are infallible now. Mrs. Eddy explained that when one stands in
front of a mirror his “image and likeness” in the mirror isn't
something that has to grow up to the original standing in front of the mirror.
It is spontaneously the full reflection of the original. Our grasping of this
fact was made possible when Mrs. Eddy translated symbols into ideas, and showed
us man was God's spiritual idea which she defined as “An image in Mind;
the immediate object of understanding” (115:17).
Rookie: What do you mean when you say
Mrs. Eddy translated symbols into ideas?
Bill: Mrs. Eddy gathered the seven
days of creation into the white light of ideas. Ideas superseded Bible symbols.
We have seen that Abraham as Bible symbol, is not as great as
“fidelity” or idea, in Science and Health. Surely Moses, as Bible
symbol, is not as great as moral courage in Science and Health, etc. (As It Is,
p. 48). In Angelic Overtures to Christ and Christmas, p. 359, Mrs. Orgain
states:To impersonalize the Bible characters by the translation of history into
living factors and qualities (as is done in the Glossary of Science and Health)
opens the casket of form, removes its jewels—the casket having confined
these ideas to the dead past—and turns the activities of these ideas, as
the immortal diversification of the Principle of Life, into the channels of
each thinking consciousness…When Abel is accepted as
“watchfulness” or “self-offering,” Abraham as
“fidelity,” Asher as “hope and faith” or “spiritual
compensation,” Gad as “Science,” and so on through the entire
“Glossary,” the jewels of ideas have been removed from the casket in
which they so idly rested awaiting the time of translation into animate,
limitless values.Proportionately as we express the quality of
“watchfulness” we are Abel; as we express fidelity, we are Abraham;
as we express hope and faith, we are Asher; as we express moral courage we are
Moses, etc. In her Glossary (579-599) Mrs. Eddy made the Bible come alive. We
see that the Bible characters are ourselves. We are the Bible characters as we
express their qualities.
Grace: Further light regarding the
grand and infinite spiritual vista that opened up to mankind when Mrs. Eddy
translated Bible symbols into idea is indicated in Alice Orgain's explanation
of Ezekiel's prophecy. Mrs. Eddy fulfilled that prophecy when she wrote the
fiftieth edition of Science and Health. Ezekiel's prophecy reads: “The
hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out…and set me down in the
midst of the valley which was full of [dry] bones…He said unto me prophesy
upon these [dry] bones .... And as I prophesied.... the bones came together,
bone to his bone…Then He said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the
whole house of Israel” (Ezek. 37:1, 4, 7, 11). This coming together of the
dry bones prophesied the structural completeness of the Word in the fiftieth
edition of Science and Health, which presented the city foursquare with its
twelve tribal gates in one structural body. Science “breathes through the
sacred pages” of Scripture the spiritual sense of life, substance,
intelligence.
This structural body needed
“sinews” and “flesh,” which Ezekiel prophesied would follow
(and did in the 382 editions which followed the fiftieth edition): “And
when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin
covered them above: but [Ezekial added] there was no breath in them. (Ezek.
37:8).
“This 'breath,' “ says Mrs.
Orgain, “did not come into the Word of Science and Health as typing the
twelve tribes of Israel (the twelve stars on woman's crown) until the 1907
textual illumination incident to the spiritual descent of the city foursquare
[when Mrs. Eddy for the first time had her definition of God in its final form
(in the fourth edition) in 1907] as 'the light and glory of divine Science,'
whereupon was fulfilled Ezekiel's further prophecy, '. . . and the breath came
into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great
army [typing generic man]' (Ezek.37:10).” When Mrs. Eddy finalized her
definition of God the entire textbook sprang into life, into one indivisible
whole, because of the Science inherent in the seven synonymous terms whose
arrangement had just been perfected in the fourth edition of 1907.
Kathleen: If Mrs. Eddy had not first
translated everything into ideas—the white light of ideas—she could
not have made the statement that “man's harmony is no more to be invaded
than the rhythm of the universe” (Ret. 61:10). Here she is
referring to generic whole man as a collection of ideas, and each idea
harmonizing with the others as emanating from a common Principle. “To
discern the rhythm of Spirit and to be holy (whole), thought must be purely
spiritual” (510:4).
Bessie: What does that mean?
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy's sixth edition
of Science and Health contained the Glossary which impersonalized the
Bible characters by the translation of history into living factors and
qualities. Up to this time the symbols in the Bible had not been understood
and, in any event, had been confined to the dead past. But by impersonalizing
these ideas and translating them into living qualities and factors she turned
the activities of these ideas (which then became the immortal diversification
of the Principle of Life) into the channels of each thinking consciousness.
Thus she silenced Old Theology which never discerned the spiritual meaning of
the Bible.
Recess
Examples of Descending
Message
Elsie: Before we proceed I would like
to ask a question about our previous discussion. I think we agreed that the
Bride descends into the world with Her all-embracing balm of Love. How did
Science and Health bring the new descending message, particularly after the
withdrawal of Motherhood in 1903?
Tommy: First of all, in 1903 Mrs.
Eddy decapitalized Intelligence, Wisdom, and Substance, thus giving to man
these qualities which formerly were synonyms for God. With these qualities now
belonging to man, man really didn't need a “mother” any longer.
Moderator: Then, in the three hundred
and eighty two editions that followed the 50th edition, bridal statements were
continually descending into Science and Health. For example such statements as
we find on page 442:25-29 where Mrs. Eddy makes salvation a gift instead of the
result of labor. Again, “Christian Scientists, be a law unto yourselves
that mental malpractise [the dragon] cannot harm you either when asleep or when
awake.” There were many other bridal additions, Among them, those on page
200:25-29, page 99:13-17, page 103:15-16, page 265:20-22, and page 68:27 to end
of chapter. In her interpretation of the Lord's prayer, Mrs. Eddy reinstated,
“Thy kingdom is come.”
Also in her other writings, we find that her
latter teaching and methods were all beyond labor and cross-bearing. For
instance in Miscellany, page 364, we have her last word on how to
handle animal magnetism (the dragon). On page 210 of Miscellany we have
the wonderful article, What Our Leader Says, again on how
to handle the dragon or animal magnetism. On pages 241 and 242 of
Miscellany we are instructed by Mrs. Eddy to know that we are
perfect now, where she infers that we are Life, Truth, and Love now, and that
if we don't perceive this we haven't any Principle to demonstrate or any rule
for its demonstration. By such additions as these we see how the bridal
consciousness descended into the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, showing that
present perfection is the fact that must be accepted. Should something
seemingly negative happen we must go right on as though nothing had happened,
or we are not watching with God. Each one must rise to see the allness of good
and the nothingness of matter.
Florence: Mrs. Eddy, for the first
time in human history, has, through her written word, put the attainment of the
Christ consciousness—the bridal consciousness—within reach of all
humanity. It is now only a matter of intelligent obedience in laying down the
mortal concept and supplanting it with the new concept given in her divinely
inspired writings. As we do this we build a completely new structure of
consciousness.
FIRST THE CHANNEL OF THE
CHURCH
Rookie: If Christian Science has so
much to do with intelligence (and with “thinking,” as Mrs. Eddy
indicates when she says: “The time for thinkers has come,”) why did
she establish it more as a religion and connect it with “Church”? Why
didn't God lead her to establish it in schools and institutions of higher
learning?
Moral Requirements
Moderator: Mrs. Eddy did wish it to
be established in schools of learning (see Mis. 366:1; No. 11:15; 33:5).
In her day this was not possible. But the leaven of Truth that has been at work
since 1866 makes it increasingly possible to teach it in schools today.
Mrs. Eddy first called it “Moral
Science.” She taught that one could only succeed in casting out error by
being honest, just, merciful, pure-minded. Where Quimby's system (see
My. 306:22) had been a mental technique, Mary Baker Eddy taught a
religious discipline, moral as well as metaphysical. “in the soil
of an honest and good heart the seed must be sown, else it beareth not much
fruit.” In ordinary school subjects the moral requirement was not a
necessity. Arithmetic and geography could be learned without regard to one's
moral values. Christian Science was a matter of reforming the heart.
Kathleen: Mrs. Eddy saw there was no
way to handle animal magnetism except by moral values, by becoming Christlike.
It is the carnal “heart” action that has to be supplanted with the
heart that beats only for Christ. This is why Mrs. Eddy attached it to
religion, and said, “the time cometh when the religious element, or Church
of Christ, shall exist alone in the affections and need no organization to
express it” (Mis. 145:3).
Florence: She saw that the human mind
undisciplined by Science might “become wild with freedom”—with a
sense of its own power. Christianity teaches, on the contrary, “not my
will, but Thine be done.” Since the carnal mind “is enmity against
God,” the Mind of Christ, the religious element, alone could deal with it.
It was moral regeneration that led to success in healing. The first-degree
qualities she lists (115:21-24) must yield to Christlikeness, to a whole new
structure of consciousness. At Mrs. Eddy's time, the “Church more than any
other institution . . . [was] the cement of society, and it should be the
bulwark of civil and religious liberty” (Mis. 145:1). “The
epoch approaches,” she said, “when the understanding of the truth of
being will be the basis of true religion” (67:32).
Francie: I think Mrs. Eddy also
answered the question of why she established it through a church rather than in
schools when she said, “Christian Science may absorb the attention of sage
and philosopher, but the Christian alone can fathom it” (556:13).
It requires self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called mortal man.
It requires that certain unselfing that we do when we study mathematics. There,
it never occurs to us not to work according to principle. When we work in
mathematics we get ourselves out of the way completely and let the principle
operate. In order to demonstrate the principle of mathematics, however, we
don't have to overcome self-will, self-justification, self-love, envy, rivalry,
hate, self-justification, who shall be greatest, etc. Science demands the
evangelization of the human self, because “God [infinite good] demands
God, Principle, Love.” But this statement that God demands God also means
that we must realize that we already have a spiritual sense, which is Godlike,
“for what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is
in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God [it is
the spirit of God dwelling in us, as us, that knows God]” (I Cor.
2:11). So God demands the God in us—that kingdom of heaven within—the
Mind of God that is also our Mind. We have to claim the Mind of Christ, or
Christian Science is of no value to us. If we don't claim that we have the same
consciousness Jesus had, we can't heal a single case.
Tommy: When the Bible and Science and
Health eventually do have the place in schools of learning that physiology now
occupies, it will revolutionize the world. It must, however, be accompanied by
the Christian attitude of unselfishness, kindly forbearance—that
wonderful spirit of charity Paul speaks of: “Look not every man on his own
things, but every man also [should look] on the things [the efforts] of
others” (Phil. 2:4). This is paramount. “The letter,” Mrs. Eddy
says, “plentifully reaches humanity today, but its spirit comes only in
small degrees. The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is
Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science, pulseless,
cold, inanimate.”
Johnny: The Christian Scientist has
no proof within himself of any true humanity unless he feels moved with
compassion for all humanity, no matter in what way they may be held captive by
the suggestions of fear or sin. This compassion, or humanity, in our heart is
our assurance that the divine Love is entering our thought, and this is what we
must culture. The “last call of wisdom cannot come till mortals have
already yielded to each lesser call in the growth of Christian character”
(291:7). This growth takes place, not in schools, but in the quiet sanctuary of
earnest longing—the longing to be better and holier, that bends every
effort to achieve this growth in Christian character, this assimilation of the
divine character.
Anna: When Mrs. Eddy first discovered
Christian Science it was so new, so revolutionary, she knew that in order for
it to secure a foothold and gain the goodwill of the people it must in the
beginning come in the form of a church organization. This was a wise step
because it enabled her to train and accustom her students to new concepts and
her completely new interpretation of God and man. Christian Science was the
religion of Love, and Mrs. Eddy knew the time would come “when the
religious element, or Church of Christ, shall exist alone in the affections,
“and need no organization to express it.
Mrs. Eddy appealed to that which touches the
religious, the good moral sentiment within man. She said, “Let us attach
our sense of Science to that which touches the religious sentiment within man.
Let us open our affections to the Principle that moves all in harmony”
(Mis. 174:8). We can't open our affections to the Principle that moves
all in harmony without the assimilation of the moral qualities, the religious
element. (See synonyms for “religious.”)
Reaching World's
Schools
Moderator: Yes, I am sure you
have given the reasons why Mrs. Eddy had to establish her Science through the
channel of the Church. Today, however, as we have already said, because
Christian Science has been leavening world thought for over a century, great
changes have taken place; the general thought has risen, I believe, to where
Christian Science could profitably and successfully be taught in schools, even
though dropping the mortal seems to be a gradual process. Mrs. Eddy said,
“Mortals grow into immortals as babes develop into adults”
(Christian Science Journal, Vol. 8, p. 13).
Journal Article
(1895)
While we are on this subject of growing I
would like Billy to read an article he brought to class. It seems as pertinent
and vital today as when it was published in the Christian Science Journal,
August, 1895.
Billy: It's from the EDITOR'S
TABLE:Approximate results of Christianly scientific living must of
necessity be a better, higher, and purer humanhood. Unless this be true we
misread the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, as well
as all the other writings and admonitions of our Teacher and Leader. We cannot
conceive it possible to reach a spiritual state except through improved human
conditions as precedent thereto. Honesty, truthfulness, meekness, gentleness,
loving kindness, sympathy of the true sort—all these pertain to true
humanhood, and where they are lacking, Christianity and spirituality are
lacking.
Much of Jesus' teaching was addressed to a
better and higher humanity. His injunction to love our neighbor, practically
applied in human life, would assuredly lead to ideal human conditions; although
their ultimate goal must be the spiritual estate. But how shall this spiritual
estate be attained other than through the gradual processes of development
which bring with them improved and constantly improving human conditions?
Happier and more harmonious earthly environments must surely be the precursor
of the heavenly.
One of the most deplorable states of
self-deception, or self-mesmerism, is that which leads to the supposition that
by sudden intellectual or mental transformation, or by mere verbal
declarations, one can brush aside all material obstacles and leap at a single
bound from material trammels to spiritual freedom. Such a one is but piling up
wrath against the day of wrath. There is nothing more strongly emphasized in
Jesus' teachings and those of Science and Health, than that fact. Soon or late
must the victim of this self-deception drop from his falsely erected pinnacle,
retrace his steps, and through the suffering of purgation and gradual growth
out of sense into Soul, ascend the mountain of spiritual attainment. To fancy
that while he is yet in the valley below the mountain's base, he has scaled its
grand heights, is indeed a mischievous delusion. This, however, by no means
implies that he must not set his spiritual goal high, even the
highest—that dazzling height embraced in Jesus' remarkable command,
“Be ye perfect, even as the Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
That perfection is the grand finale, not the first step nor the intermediate
steps, and is attained only by treading the “thorn-road” which the
Master [and Mary Baker Eddy] trod.
A certain coincident of true humanhood must
be uniform kindliness of demeanor toward, and a careful consideration of, the
rights and prerogatives of others. A prurient ambition to dictate to others
their line of action and duty, is not a legitimate outgrowth of scientific
teaching or living. It is rather the fungus growth of disordered conceptions.
The Pauline admonition to “be kindly affectioned one to
another,” is along the line of true humanhood. While, of course, this
admonition, and those of Jesus above referred to, have especial reference to
the higher acts of brotherly love, yet they include all the amenities of human
life, even to the smallest acts. Christian Science should be the synonym of all
that is respectful and courteous in everyday affairs. In social relations, in
correspondence, in business dealings, no act of impropriety or breach of
courtesy should be thought of, much less practised. We must indeed, as our
beloved Leader has so recently said, 'grow from the infinitesimal to the
Infinite.'“Speak gently, it is better far
To rule by love than fear;
Speak gently; let no harsh word mar
The good we may do here.“Speak gently; 'tis a little
thing,
Dropped in the heart's deep well;
The good, the joy that it may bring,
Eternity shall tell.”
Anna: I think the whole tenor of that article
indicates why Mrs. Eddy established Christian Science through the medium of the
Church rather than in higher institutions of learning.
I believe that article tells us how we lay
our foundations in heaven, how we become the purified human consciousness, the
Lamb of Love that weds the Bride (Science). The article shows the reason for
Mrs. Eddy's statement, “The time for thinkers has come”—it
implies the time has come for intelligent obedience to the Golden Rule.
“Thinkers” would see the value of the Golden Rule in all human speech
and action, for “without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science.
Mrs. Eddy counseled, “Have a cell less in the brain and a fiber more in
the heart.” In Science of Man she says, “All feel the need of
sympathy, of kind words, and hearts interested for them, as well as for
yourself; and they feel the want of these who have them not sevenfold more than
those who have them. Therefore be charitable, for the greatest gift is
love.”
The Natural
Healing
Johnny: Elias, as Christian Science,
shows the here and now of everything right and good. Mrs. Eddy shows Elias as
symbolizing Christian Science with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of
whatever the material senses behold. As we have previously seen, Mrs. Eddy
indicates that if mortals are instructed in spiritual things, meaning in
Science, they will start with God, with Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life,
Truth, and Love, instead of starting with the evidence before the material
sense. Then material belief, in all its manifestations, reversed, will
be found the type and representative of verities, priceless, eternal, and just
at hand.
Moderator: Kimball's experience,
which I once read in the Rare Literature Department in the Congressional
Library, is a fine example of the benefits accruing when error is reversed by
the process of starting from God. Kimball had become interested in Christian
Science and had experienced a healing. But a relapse set in. One day, suffering
intensely, he began to wish he hadn't given his icepack to the coachman and
wondered if he might still find it. Making his way to the coachman's quarters,
he lay down on the bed there. Shortly his wife came looking for him. She said,
“Mrs. Smith sent word she is very sick, and wants you to come and help
her. (Kimball had only been in Christian Science a few months at this time, but
had already gained a reputation as a healer.)
With great difficulty he made it to Mrs.
Smith's, rang the bell, and opened the door. He heard Mrs. Smith call from her
bedroom, “I'm in here.” Feeling he couldn't go another step he sank
heavily into a chair by the door, replying: “I'll treat you here.”
Then error argued fiercely that he had no
business being there; he couldn't heal himself, so how could he heal Mrs.
Smith? To this Kimball answered: I can begin by remembering everything I have
read in Science and Health and everything I have heard Mrs. Eddy say. (He
was starting with God, trusting thus to reverse the testimony of the material
senses.) As he faithfully recalled all he had already learned of Christian
Science, he became “lost in the eminence of Mind.” Perhaps half an
hour had elapsed when he heard Mrs. Smith call from her “sick-bed,”
“Mr. Kimball, I feel very much improved.” To which Kimball answered
“So do I.” He had healed both Mrs. Smith and himself by starting
his thinking from God. Fairly walking on air, he returned home. He reported
that he never again had such a severe attack and the difficulty gradually left
him completely.
Elsie: I would be interested to hear
what the class feels the elements were that brought success in this case.
Rookie: I think Kimball was obedient
in responding to the call for help. He showed love and compassion, and his deep
desire to do what he could resulted in answered prayer. The deep desire was
actually the very substance of the healing that took place.
Tina: Mrs. Smith was expecting a
healing. That helped too.
Sally: Kimball showed humility,
trust, confidence, and gratitude for past healings when he turned his thought
entirely to God and away from the body and tried to remember everything he
already knew to be true about God and man. He forgot all about trying to heal
either himself or Mrs. Smith and was just busy glorifying God by remembering
everything he had recently learned about divine Truth. When he turned
completely away from trying to heal a case of sickness and became conscious
only of what he already knew to be true in Christian Science, he was presenting
God with a clean slate to write on. Kimball was giving the Christ a chance to
operate. The Christ always reports: There is no disease. “We send our best
detectives to whatever locality is reported to be haunted by Disease, but on
visiting the spot they learn that Disease was never there” (439:31)
because all causation is in God, Spirit, and not in matter or in so-called
mortal mind.
Kimball was acknowledging God's power and
goodness when he turned away from trying to heal a sick body. Mrs. Eddy tells
us: “To be immortal we must forsake the mortal sense of things, turn
from the lie of false belief to Truth, and gather the facts of being from the
immortal divine Mind” (370:2).
Jackie: I have always loved an
incident in John Wesley's diary. Returning from a preaching mission, Wesley
felt miserable, and noticed also that his horse was limping badly. As he jogged
along he contemplated the beautiful healings of Jesus and the disciples,
becoming completely lost in thought. Nearing home he suddenly realized his
“sickness” had left, and looking down, he noticed his horse was no
longer lame.
Margie: I remember reading that when
Mrs. Eddy was asked to what she attributed her momentous healing in February,
1866, she replied it was because she had turned away from the body to the
contemplation of God with such absorbed interest she forgot the body. In
actuality she was holding thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and
the true, and this brought the enduring, the good, and the true into her
experience. During those moments she was detaching sense from the body, from
matter, which is only a form of human belief, as she later learned. In that
breaking away from time and sense and that contemplation of the realities
supernal, she rose to the spiritual consciousness of being. Those moments of
divine contemplation brought the consciousness that Life and intelligence are
purely spiritual. This great spiritual awakening healed her. (See 598:23;
14:12.)
In thinking over her healing on this
occasion, Mrs. Eddy said, she recalled former occasions when she had been asked
to heal others and success had come when she turned completely away from the
physical evidence and contemplated only God's goodness and ever-presence.
Billy: How did Mrs. Eddy heal sin?
Anna: Irving C. Tomlinson tells of a
woman in one of Mrs. Eddy's classes who had a strong sense of resentment and
condemnation towards her husband who was very immoral. Mrs. Eddy said to her
that Jesus healed the Magdalen by condemning the sin, but not the woman. The
lady answered, “Yes, but I have not the consciousness that Jesus
had.” Our Leader instantly rebuked this by saying that she could claim the
Christ-consciousness, for otherwise she could not heal a single case of sin or
sickness. We all must claim that we have the Christ-consciousness now.
The student's consciousness was so illumined
that her state of mind completely changed toward her husband, and when she
returned home, she found him healed. (See 0. B. Collectanea, p.
130-131.)
Moderator: Why did the lady's
“completely changed” state of mind bring about a healing?
Bill: Because the patient—her
husband—wasn't something outside of her own thinking. The problem is never
“out there.” All there ever is to a so-called problem—a sick
body, a wayward spouse, or any other tragedy—is aggressive mental
suggestion coming to us to adopt as our own thinking. We give that suggestion
all the life it has. But when we suddenly become aware that God, good, is the
only reality and we begin to ask how does God look at this?—how does Mind,
Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love look at this?—we are
approaching the “problem” from a higher dimension. This new and
higher viewpoint wipes out the illusion. When we approach the multiplication
table from the way the principle of mathematics looks at it, we wipe out
illusions regarding the way the multiplication table works.
Mrs. Eddy's explanation brought to light the
facts regarding what looked like an immoral husband, and showed the lady that
these facts were timeless, spaceless realities that could never be interfered
with. Under the impact of this spiritual education the lady's concept of her
husband completely changed, and when her thought regarding him was changed she
found that all was well. When the image in mortal mind changed, the husband
changed too.
Mrs. Eddy, long before physicists became aware of it, knew
that all was mental. Time and space were obsolete to her. Even before her great
revelation of 1866 she had seen that not only the laws of nature but the whole
material universe was but a construction of the human mind. Everything the
physical senses cognize is but a mental concept we entertain in consciousness.
Jackie: Aren't there a number of
cases on record where Mrs. Eddy restored to life and health those who had
succumbed to the belief of death?
Moderator: Yes, Jackie, there are.
And there may be more unrecorded instances. One of the more detailed cases is
attested to by Adam Dickey in his Memoirs concerning the restoration to life of
Calvin Frye. Mrs. Eddy at that time was nearing the date of her departure from
this world, and the raising of Calvin Frye shows how her oneness with the
Christ-consciousness had lost none of its vigor and gave her full authority.
Dickey gives the following account:
One evening, shortly after Mrs. Eddy had
retired, Mrs. Sargent came to my door in great trepidation, informing me that
she had found Calvin Frye unconscious on the lounge in his room and had been
unable to arouse him. I hurriedly accompanied her and found Mr. Frye stretched
on the lounge in a most uncomfortable attitude, eyes closed, and apparently
breathless and with no pulse or indication of life whatever. We continued our
efforts to arouse him but with no success. We called to him, shook him, and
used every means at our command. Finally another worker came in and united his
efforts with ours, but we could gain no response of any kind in our efforts to
call Mr. Frye back. We hesitated about letting our Leader know of his
condition, but we saw that inasmuch as we were making no headway, we must
inform her of the circumstances.
... Mrs. Eddy was in bed, but hurriedly rang
her bell for her maid and started to arise and dress herself, when she was
seized with a sudden determination, and dropping back into bed she said,
“I cannot wait to dress. Bring him to me.” Mrs. Sargent said,
“But, Mother, he is unconscious. We cannot rouse him.” She said,
“Bring him to me at once.” On receiving this instruction, the one who
had come to our aid lifted the senseless form of Calvin Frye and placed him
into a low rocking chair. Then we dragged him around through the hall, through
Mrs. Eddy's study, into her bedroom.
She sat up in bed with a shawl or some kind of robe over her
shoulders and we drew Mr. Frye right up to her side where she could both touch
and speak to him.
It was an interesting moment.
The workers stood around the room and
watched the proceedings. Our Leader reached out her hand and placed it upon Mr.
Frye's shoulder and addressed him in a loud voice:
“Calvin, Calvin, wake up. It is Mother
who is calling you. Wake up, Calvin, this Cause needs you, Mother needs you,
and you must not leave. Calvin, Calvin, wake up. Disappoint your enemies,
Calvin, and awake.”
At this time Mr. Frye's head was hanging
limp on his shoulder. I had hold of the back of the rocking chair in which we
had placed him to steady him. I placed my hand on his head to lift it up. Mrs.
Eddy instantly stopped me and said, “Do not touch him. Leave him entirely
to me.” Again she repeated her calls to him to arouse himself and remain
with her.
It was now something like half an hour since
Calvin had first been found, and while those who were looking on at our
Leader's efforts to arouse him had not the slightest doubt that she would
succeed in awakening him, yet the time seemed to pass without any appreciable
response to her work. This did not discourage her. She redoubled her efforts
and fairly shouted to Mr. Frye her commands that he awake. [Finally] he raised
his head and drew a long, deep breath. After this his respiration became
regular and he was restored to consciousness.
The first words he uttered were, “I
don't want to stay. I want to go.” Mrs. Eddy paused in her efforts and
turning her gaze to the workers around the room, said “Just listen to
that!” She again turned to Mr. Frye and in her commanding tones insisted
that he awake and remain here.
... When Mr. Frye became fully conscious
Mrs. Eddy turned him over to one of the workers who remained with him through
the night. The next morning he was about his accustomed duties.... No questions
were asked as we felt it would not be well to recite the experience to him, but
the fact remains that Calvin Frye had passed through what mortal mind calls
“death,” and the grave had been cheated of its victim by our Leader's
quick and effective work. (Preserved in O.B. Collectanea, p. 133)
Rocky: Mrs. Eddy demonstrated her
conviction that death was an illusion.
Florence: Yes, Rocky. To Mrs. Eddy
this appearance of death was but a mortal concept, wholly erroneous; it was
only a “mortal shadow flitting across the dial of time” (Mis.
71:27). “Death can never alarm or even appear to him who fully understands
Life” (Un. 40:20). In Being, God, Principle, everything is
reflected as being, and that being is eternal Life; it is the factuality of
perfect health, the all-inclusiveness of Love, and this is the solution to
every problem, death included.
Mrs. Eddy knew that it isn't the body that
lives. Calvin Frye's body as matter had never lived, had never in reality had
life abiding in it—there is no life in matter—so it could never die
because matter has no life to surrender. (426:30) In restoring Calvin Frye,
Mrs. Eddy's first and only resort was to Spirit. She went immediately to Life
in and of Spirit. She would not allow Adam Dickey to adjust Calvin Frye's head;
she instinctively sensed his gesture as a tacit admission that there was
something “out of joint” and “Adam” could straighten it
out. She said, “Leave him entirely to me!” That is, leave him
entirely to the seven synonymous terms for God—leave him in the care of
Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. They, and they alone,
will sound the “trumpet-word of Truth, 'There is no death, no inaction,
diseased action, overaction, nor reaction' (427:32).
In order to “catch this trumpet-word of
Truth” Mrs. Eddy had to start with God, with Life in and of Spirit, and
totally consecrate herself to that Life which mortal sense cannot impair nor
mortal belief destroy. This consecration to the facts of being included the
understanding that death is nothing but a mortal dream. It is not a happening;
it is pure illusion, hypnotic suggestion.
The Glory of
Obedience
Bill: Such instances of healing show
the power of obedience, obedience to divine Principle. Obedience is not the
mark of a slave; it is an important quality in leadership in all professions.
The great leaders of this world have not been their own masters; they rose and
followed something higher up, and thereby became the greater. Obedience is a
gateway to power. Mrs. Eddy said there are no bleeding footprints in
willingness and obedience. Strength of character issues from obedience to the
decree of conscience. If we are to have a commanding hold on life, we must be
subject to a Will higher than our own.
Kimball showed this obedience and
willingness when he answered the call of his neighbor, Mrs. Smith. Wesley
showed willingness and obedience when he turned from contemplating his own
wretched physical condition and that of his horse, to the contemplation of the
Christ-spirit that animated Jesus and the disciples. Mrs. Eddy supremely showed
this quality of willingness and obedience.
Moderator: These healings show that
when the “bridegroom,” Truth, has done its work, the Bride, Love,
spontaneously says: All is well, all is perfect and always has been. You only
needed to awaken from your Adam-dream of life in matter to find that in reality
Life is always in and of Spirit. It is interesting to note that the
“footsteps of Truth” in the human consciousness, alone permanently
silence the seeming cause of human ills. Mrs. Eddy states: “The Science of
Mind…heals with Truth [not Love]” (318:22).
The Healing of
Sin
Tina: But doesn't Mrs. Eddy say that
if the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love the healing work will
be accomplished at one visit? (365:15)
Johnny: Yes. However this is
vicarious spiritual healing outside of the patient's own consciousness and may
accomplish little in turning the patient's feet into the pathway of Truth. Mrs.
Eddy says the emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin.
(Rud. 2:25) Sin healing is on a different basis. The difference between
the healing of sin and the healing of sickness is that sin must be uncovered
before it can be destroyed. (Mis. 352:29) Only Truth can uncover sin.
Truth uncovers sin by the law of opposites,
which means that the more we know correctly of any subject, the more the error
stands out and so can be annihilated. The more we know of music, for instance,
the more an inharmonious or discordant note stands out, and is automatically
replaced (healed) with the right note.
Tommy: At the moment of her
discovery, Mrs. Eddy says she knew that the last Adam, namely the true image
and likeness of God, was the first, the only man, and this knowledge did become
to her “a quickening spirit,” for she then understood Jesus'
statement, “The last shall be first, and the first last” (Mis.
188:28).
When we accept the divine Principle and rule
of being as unfolded in divine Science, the interpretation therein becomes the
Comforter that leads into all truth. (ibid 189:4) This is the work of Science,
the Comforter, that is signified by the five stars on Woman's crown. Science
reveals man's present perfection and oneness with God. This is what the five
stars symbolize.
Moderator: If we accept Science, we
will feel the divine energy of Spirit bringing us into newness of life. (249)
This would mean our “work” or labor was finished. The nineteenth
century had been the Mother and man child regime. (559:32-2) In the twentieth
century, Science and Health proclaimed salvation as a gift. (442:27) This
glorified Jesus, and fulfilled his prophecy in John 16:14. The glorification of
Jesus was Science. Thus Science with one final stroke eliminated every footstep
of Christianity below the point of crucifixion as the epitomy of Christianity,
and eliminated every footstep of Christianity below the point of the
glorification of manhood in Science. When Mrs. Eddy glorified her “man
child” the work was done. She had taken the labor out of Christianity.
When there is no longer a claim of separation between the masculine and
feminine element, then Principle and its idea is one. Then we are back to the
basic oneness when “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
God” which had no need of either ascension of descension.
Before we leave, who would like to sum up
for us in just a sentence of two what the main point of all these Sessions on
Mary Baker Eddy has been?
Grace: I think it is the point
mentioned in the Foreword, namely, Mrs. Eddy's words to Kimball in 1893:
For the world to understand me in my true
light, and life [as the fulfilment of the prophecy concerning the woman of the
Apocalypse, and other scriptural prophecies concerning the “second
coming” of Christ] would do more for our Cause than aught else could. This
I learn from the fact that the enemy tries harder to hides these two things
from the world than to win any other points. Also Jesus' life and character in
their first appearing were treated in like manner. And I regret to see that
loyal students are not more awake to this great demand in their measure to meet
the enemies' tactics.Also to Judge Hanna who asked her for advice when he began
lecturing, she wrote (see DCC 109):I can do most good by pointing the
path—showing the scenes behind the curtain. The united plan of the
evildoers is to ... keep Mrs. Eddy as she is (what God knows of her and
revealed to Christ Jesus) out of sight, and to keep her as she is not (just
another white-haired old lady) constantly before the public. This kills two
birds with one stone. It darkens the spiritual sense of students and misguides
the public. Why? Because it misstates the idea of divine Principle that you are
trying to demonstrate and hides it from the sense of the people.
Keeping the truth of her character before
the public will help the students, and do more than all else for the Cause.
Christianity in its purity was lost by defaming and killing its defenders. Do
not let this period repeat this mistake. The truth in regard to your Leader
heals the sick and saves the sinner. The lie has just the opposite effect, and
the evil one that leads all evil in this matter knows this more clearly than do
Christian Scientists in general. We can see what a devastating effect
disobedience to this teaching and to the Christian Science movement and to its
healing ability has had.“All that the people need, to live and adopt
Christian Science, is a true sense of its founder. In proportion as they have
it, will our Cause advance” (Mary Baker Eddy, 1899). This is so true,
because if the people really saw what Mrs. Eddy was and what she has revealed
they would be motivated to seek and find their true God-being—their
oneness with divine Love.
Moderator: That is right, Grace, and we
know too that Mrs. Eddy's living presence, as Bride, Word (from which she
personally is inseparable), is an active factor in the spiritual advancement of
our Cause, and she is vitally concerned therewith. Mrs. Eddy was the channel
for Science, and what she was the channel for she will have to remain with to
the end of its fulfilment. Jesus said to his disciples under a like necessity:
“Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
Love breathes deep and long to accomplish its
divine purpose.
-Mary Baker Eddy
APPENDIX
The Stone The Builders
Rejected
Moderator: On December 1, 1910, Mrs.
Eddy went for her last drive. When she returned she asked for her writing pad.
On it she wrote what would be her last written message to the world, namely,
“God is my life.”
Sally, I understand Dorothy Napkie loaned you a book by
Fernand E. d'Humy, Mary Baker Eddy Fulfills Prophecy, in which he
records how through divine inspiration he was led to see a deep meaning in
those last four words. Would you give us a brief review of what d'Humy tells,
which is so remarkable since he knew nothing of the “system” of
Christian Science. He was a physical scientist of international reputation. He
was Research director for the Western Union Telegraph Company.
“God is my
life” (d'Humy's Explanation)
Sally: Regarding “God is my life,” d'Humy
says, substantially:
These were significant words which she could have uttered
orally had she chosen to do so; but no, their importance was too great to trust
them to the memory of her hearers. These words were to be preserved for future
generations. They expressed a precise statement. An oral expression of her four
words might be regarded as an incidental remark and not register on its hearers
any more seriously than would casual conversation.
Never before had Mary made a direct statement about herself
which intimately united her with the Supreme Power and in a manner which
denoted the verity of the work which was wrought through this association. We
have seen how she consistently shrank from personal credit for her work and
always emphasized that the truth she gave to the world came direct from God,
divine Mind. But here was a statement which would make clear for all time the
impersonal verity of Christian Science and its divine ordination.
....The work she had performed was God's, divine
Mind’s, and His alone. She was only the medium through whom He, Principle,
Love, worked. It was important that the world remember this truth in all future
generations because to do so would strengthen faith in the Source and purpose
of her divine accomplishment.
With these thoughts in mind, how could Mary have helped
being impelled to leave a final word which would prove to the world that what
she had delivered was unmistakably an important part of an over-all pattern in
which the Holy Scriptures held the central place? Clearly it was essential that
irrefutable evidence be given.
Asking for a writing pad, in itself, gave evidence of a
definite purpose, that Mary desired to write down something for future
reference...The message was concise, composed of four short words having a
total of eleven letters in all. These numbers had a purpose of their own and
this purpose would be revealed in later years. [Remember Mrs. Eddy's
illustrated poem, Christ and Christmas, has eleven pictures, the first seven
corresponding to Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life Truth, and Love; the last
four corresponding to Word, Christ, Christianity, and Science. Also those of us
who are familiar with the system in the textbook know that the Science in it
rests on the seven synonymous terms for God, and the four mediums—Word,
Christ, Christianity, and Science—through which the seven synonyms or
elements of God are expressed. The Bible too when seen in the light of
Christian Science is entirely composed of these eleven elements.]
Because of the brevity of the message there
was danger of its importance being overlooked. To insure against this, these
four words should stand alone on a single sheet with nothing to distract from
them.
At no time must it be overlooked that Mary's
writings were divinely revealed to her. This she repeatedly emphasized so that
there be no misunderstanding. Therefore, it is certain that her four last
written words were also written through divine revelation.
....All through Science and Health with Key
to the Scriptures there radiates the significance of this memorable sentence,
God is my life. Its meaning is woven into page after page. It is there for
everyone to see who reads understandingly. [Mrs. Eddy could also have said, God
is my God, or God is my Truth, or any other truthful statement, but they would
not have had the chosen number of letters, nor would they have conveyed exactly
what she wanted to convey.]
....The word “is” implies an
ever-presence with no beginning and no ending. God had always been her life,
was now her life, and forever would be her life. Mary was God's expression on
earth and this expression led to the unfoldment of Christian Science. This
Science always was, just as the law of mathematics always existed and will
always exist in the ever present is. Like all else, it had no beginning and
will have no ending. Through this two-letter word, Mary denoted the permanency
of Christian Science.
Like Jesus, Mrs. Eddy could have comforted
them with, “For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest me: and
they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and
they have believed that Thou didst send me” (John 17:8).
But Mrs. Eddy reduced her last message to
the simplest expression which contained an all-comprehensive meaning of her
life's work…The absence of a period at the end of God is my life
may be interpreted as denoting that the four words, while complete in their
meaning, shall be considered in the broadest sense, namely, without
limitations, without termination, eternal. Like the law of mathematics, its
meaning was always there and always will be in the future.
.…From the foregoing we see how the
legacy by which she endowed the world was concisely expressed in four short
words having a total of no more and no less than eleven letters.
What do these numbers point to? d'Humy gave
a long explanation of the meaning of each word showing how carefully Mrs. Eddy
had chosen it and no other for this last message…Every word carries
weight, even the absence of punctuation is significant. The use of four words,
no more no less, and eleven letters to make up the four words, could not be
without purpose. These words were the last to be written and like all that Mary
wrote were written through divine revelation. They must be so regarded, and
therefore carefully examined.
....Mary truly was an apostle of God. In her
consciousness of this she desired that it be made known and proved to future
generations that Christian Science was authentically given by God. Therefore
let us seek for a further and final proof of this divine authority, a proof
supported by the Scriptures. None other will convince the world!
....Why should these four words containing
eleven letters be given attention and serious thought? Because they are Mary's
last written words which were divinely revealed to her. We must seek and find;
knock and the door will open. There can be only one door through which to
enter—the one which leads to the pages of the Holy Scriptures.
....Because all through her life Mary
emphasized Love, it is logical that we search the New Testament for the secret
unfolded in the two sets of divine numbers. . . This work of hers clearly was
an act of an Apostle. Accordingly, we should look for the disclosure we seek in
that noble book of the New Testament—The Acts of the Apostles. Therein is
revealed in Chapter 4 (four words), Verse 11 (eleven letters):
“This is the stone which was set at
nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.”
Now, in the year 1953 A.D. it is revealed that
Mary Baker Eddy, by the number of words and the numbers of letters contained in
her divine sentence:
God is my life
pointed to:
The Acts of the Apostles
Chapter 4 (four
words), Verse 11 (eleven letters).
The soundness of the reasoning which leads to
The Acts of The Apostles is plainly confirmed by the product obtained from the
two numbers of the cryptogram. This product, forty-four, gives the sequential
position of the book, The Acts of The Apostles, in the King James version of
the Holy Bible. Thus the decoding of the cryptogram is complete and
indisputable....
THE CAPSTONE OF THE
GREAT PYRAMID AND THE STONE THE BUILDERS REJECTED
This illuminating disclosure led d'Humy to
see that the capstone of the Great Pyramid was a symbol for “the stone
which the builders rejected”—the stone which Mary Baker Eddy did not
reject.
He feels that in this disclosure we have
Biblical evidence that Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is
authentically given by God. All evidence, all history, all scientific research
relating to the divine meaning and purpose of the Great Pyramid, compel the
acceptance of this truth. The Holy Scriptures came to us as the Word of God.
This has been unqualifiedly accepted by all who believe in Deity, in the one
God-Mind who created and governs all, the same one-God who caused to be erected
a great monument in stone [“the great pyramid of Egypt—a miracle in
stone” (Hea. 11:12)] which would endure through the centuries so
future generations would find an enduring confirmation of the authenticity of
the Holy Scriptures. That is why the Great Pyramid of Gizeh has reverently been
named the “Bible in Stone.” Its incomparable construction was
divinely inspired and there were no details from its foundations up, or as to
its location in Egypt and orientation on this earth's globe, which came with
the learning or capabilities of man alone to evolve except by the guidance of a
Supreme Power.
....Of this Pyramid, Jeremiah (32:19, 20)
writes: “Great in counsel....which hast set signs and wonders in the land
of Egypt, even unto this day, . . . and hast made Thee a name, as at this
day.”
The Great Monument
Without a Capstone
The great Monument, for nearly five thousand
years, has stood without a headstone—the “head of the corner,”
silently and symbolically awaiting the completion or crowning of the Holy
Scriptures. The Bible like the Pyramid, would not be complete until a textbook
was added which would unify its pages into a comprehensive lesson which would
aid man in overcoming his many vicissitudes. [The stone which the builders
rejected is referred to seven times in the Bible. Mrs. Eddy also refers to it
many times.] It was to her textbook Mrs. Eddy was pointing in the cryptogram
she wrote two days before she departed this mortal world. That this cryptogram
was divinely revealed to her there cannot be any question or doubt. A message
of such import could have come in no other way.
The Pyramid with its headstone suspended
above it in a halo of glory symbolizes the crowning of the Scriptures with the
Christian Science textbook… Divine prophecy was perfectly fulfilled
when the biblical Headstone was symbolically placed on the Holy Scriptures by
Mary Baker Eddy. Thus we can truly say, “Despise not prophecy.”
“God is my life” is telling us
that we can never rise from the temporal debris of error, belief in sin,
sickness, and death until we learn that God is the only Life. Spirit will have
overcome the flesh when the belief that life and sensation are in the body is
overcome by the understanding of what constitutes man as the image of God. (See
289:2.)
With the coming of Science and Health
which placed the capstone on the Bible, a material life-basis has been seen
to be a misapprehension of existence. The sacred and true knowledge the
textbook contains transforms the material with the ideal, and human thought
frees itself from self-imposed materiality and bondage.
Margie: As material history draws to
a close, we see the spiritual, in every direction, urging its highest demands
on mortals (No. 45:25). As these demands are accepted and implemented
“the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light,
chasing away the darkness of error” (191:13).
Moderator: In Pulpit and Press
(10:16) Mrs. Eddy asks us if we have planted our “standard on the rock
of Christ, the true, the spiritual idea—the chief cornerstone in the house
of our God”—and then assures us that, as Jesus prophesied,
“The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of
the corner” . . . Let us rejoice that the chill vicissitudes have not
withheld the timely shelter of this house, which descended like day-spring from
on high.”
What comes “from on high”—the
capstone—is Love, the descending city foursquare, or consciousness
where we start every thought from God. Then “How is man, seen through the
lens of Spirit, enlarged, and how counterpoised his origin from dust [remember
the belief in human birth is the murderer, the lie about man's origin], and how
he presses toward his original, never severed from Spirit! O ye who leap
disdainfully from this rock of ages, return and plant [your] steps in Christ,
Truth, 'the stone which the builders rejected'! Then will angels
administer grace, do thy errands, and be thy dearest allies” (My.
129:15).
Oneness of Manhood and
Womanhood
Francie: Mary Baker Eddy's
presentation of womanhood, Love, and the founding of it in human consciousness,
was the “capstone.” Mrs. Eddy brought from on high the stone which
the builders had rejected; she lowered it into place on the foundations laid by
Jesus, his apostles and the holy men of the Bible. These foundations Mrs. Eddy
presents in the first twelve chapters of Science and Health in fulfilment of
Jeremiah's prophecy (31:22), “A woman shall compass a man.”
Tina: Isn't it a fact that the stone
which the builders rejected could not become the headstone of the corner until
manhood and womanhood had become one, as qualities—as two individual
natures in one compound spiritual individuality?
Margie: Yes, the true capstone is
spiritual divinely scientific consciousness in which manhood and womanhood are
one as the image and likeness of the one God. That is the Principle, Love.
There can be but one whole complete image and likeness of one God. This the
“builders” have always rejected. Mrs. Eddy has now revealed the
capstone as the oneness of manhood and womanhood, and it is accepted by
spiritually minded students the world over. This true sense of Love—Love
wedded to its own spiritual idea—will destroy forever the physical plagues
imposed by material sense. (575:3)
Billy: Could someone put in very
simple terms what this analogy is concerning the Great Pyramid and its rejected
capstone, and the Bible with its rejected “cornerstone”?
Francie: The Great Pyramid referred
to as the Bible in Stone had its foundation completed, but its capstone was
rejected. In a similar way, allegorically speaking, the Bible had its
foundation well laid but as in the case of the Great Pyramid, its headstone or
capstone had been rejected.
Billy: What specifically was it that
“the builders” rejected?
Francie: They rejected their divine
Principle, Love. This means they rejected man's divine origin, his oneness with
his divine Principle, Love, which in essence means manhood and womanhood one,
in a divinely united spiritual consciousness.
Billy: Why do you think they rejected
it?
Cross: Surrender of
Mortality
Francie: Because in order to
understand our incorporeal divinity we must lay down the mortal. Without the
cross of giving up the mortal there can be no crown, no capstone. Love, the
capstone, is won only through the cross. “All have the cup of sorrowful
effort to drink in proportion to their demonstration of His Love till all are
redeemed through divine Love” (26:7). This deep note of sorrowful effort
sounds again and again beneath the triumphant affirmations of Science. Mrs.
Eddy's own “gracious preparation” was a series of disasters, humanly
seen. The “builders” want to escape the laying down of the mortal.
Mrs. Eddy chose the cross and crown as the
emblem for Christian Science because it symbolizes that without the crucifixion
of the mortal viewpoint there can be no crown, no capstone. The crown
can be won in no other way than through continuing to “pour in truth
through floodtides of Love”—love for the spiritual. Everything Mrs.
Eddy wrote or spoke revealed her commitment to the Christian ethic of
love—love for her fellowman and love for her enemies. Since the
publication of Science and Health the world's commitment to the Christian ethic
of love for one's fellowman has steadily grown, “for the world feels the
alterative effect of truth through every pore” (224:2).
Grace: So the Bible writers took the
Great Pyramid whose capstone had been rejected as a symbol of the Holy
Scriptures which were also incomplete and were awaiting the second coming of
Jesus, in his femininity, in order that God might be represented in His
fullness, i.e. in both his masculine and his feminine nature.
Bessie: Could you repeat very simply
what the capstone symbolizes?
Left for Mrs. Eddy to
Position
Grace: Yes, it symbolizes Mrs. Eddy
encompassing mission. Hers was a “descending” mission. This simply
means that she showed us how to start every thought from God. She did this by
explaining the Principle of man's being, the same divine Principle Jesus was
using to calculate with when he fed the five thousand, raised the dead, walked
on the water—the same Principle and rule he was using in the tomb when he
effected “his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the
flesh” (117:21).
 Moderator: d'Humy says, “Enter
the home of any Christian Scientist and there upon the table you will see the
Bible, and upon that Holy Book there will rest Science and Health with Key to
the Scriptures.“ For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid,
which is Jesus Christ—1st Cor., iii II. “What a reminder
this is of the 'rejected stone' at long last finding its resting place on the
'Bible in stone'—the Great Pyramid and its divine prophetic
message.”
The Consciousness
of Love
The holy city, that spiritual divinely
scientific consciousness, the “capstone,” comes “down from God
out of heaven” (Rev. 21:2) as an ever present divine Principle with which
we can calculate; and this assures us that our foundations too have been laid
in heaven, for like produces like.
We lay our foundation in heaven when we
start with Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life Truth, and Love. Other
foundations there are none, since the starting point of divine Science is that
God, Spirit, is All-in-all....that God is Love, and therefore He is divine
Principle” (275:6). Love is a circle that has no starting-point. Thus
Christ is one whole body, “in whom all the building fitly framed together
groweth into an holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. 2:21). This “holy
temple in the Lord” is the consciousness of Love, and is why Mrs. Eddy,
like Jesus, could say, “Lo, I am with you always.” Love is the
capstone Mary Baker Eddy lowered onto biblical foundations.
Judge Hanna's Article
Note to Reader: As the centuries roll
on it may be of interest to readers to know of the great respect Mary Baker
Eddy had for Judge Hanna. Judge Hanna's confidence, trust, and affection for
Mrs. Eddy never wavered. He felt from the very beginning that Mrs. Eddy was the
woman of the Apocalypse—the visible idea, as prophesied in St. John's
Revelation. Paster Gardiner's vision and prophecy, which follows Judge Hanna's
Article, was, in Judge Hanna's mind, unquestionably a vision and prophecy of
Mary Baker Eddy's mission. That Mrs. Eddy also regarded Paster Gardiner's
vision as a prophecy of her coming can be inferred from her three separate
letters of approval of Judge Hanna's article which follows:(Copied from the
Reminiscences of Mary Baker Eddy by Judge Septimus J. Hanna, C.S.D.)In
1898 when work had accumulated to such an extent that I wrote Mrs. Eddy for
permission to resign some of my places she asked me to adopt a method of relief
by taking certain hours each day for self-work, during which I was not to be
interrupted by any one for any purpose. She said that had she not adopted such
a course she never could have accomplished her work. I did this, and betook
myself to the tower of her Commonwealth Avenue residence in Boston, No. 385,
which we occupied while I was First Reader of The Mother Church. I called this
tower room the “upper chamber.” While working here I read as a part
of my Bible study the 53rd and 54th chapters of Isaiah. As I read the latter it
came to me almost as a voice speaking that this chapter was as distinctly and
literally a prophecy of Mrs. Eddy as was the 53rd chapter a prophecy of Jesus.
I continued from day to day to study this chapter in this new light. The more I
studied the more firm became the conviction that I was not mistaken in my view
of it. I was not, as I then felt and as I now see, emotional or ecstatic on
this question, but was governed by a deep spiritual sense of the meaning of the
prophecy.
Shortly before I began this study a student
had sent in to us a little book entitled “Fragments from the study of a
Pastor,” written by the Rev. Gardiner Spring, pastor of the Brick
Presbyterian Church of New York City, to which reference is made in an article
copied further along. This prophecy of Mr. Spring impressed me as being so in
line with the prophecy of Isaiah that I read and studied them together. (See
Appendix for Fragments From the Study of a Pastor, by the Rev. Gardiner
Spring.)
As a result, I became so imbued with the
sense that they both prophesied so distinctly of the Christian Science movement
and of Mrs. Eddy that I concluded to prepare an article for publication in our
Journal setting forth my convictions, and publishing the “Church in the
Wilderness” in connection with the prophecies of Isaiah. I did so and had
it set in galley proof, but, of course, would not have published my views
without submitting them to Mrs. Eddy and having her approval. In the letter
above quoted she wrote immediately before the quoted part, these words:
“Yes, the prophesy was wonderful;” then she proceeded to relate her
own vision as stated in the letter which I have above quoted. I will now quote
from the letters from her in which she referred to my article and the vision of
Mr. Spring:(The vision of Mr. Spring was published in full in The Christian
Science Journal of July, 1898, Vol. 16, p. 230.)
First Letter of Approval
In a letter dated June 10, 1898, Mrs. Eddy
said: I have not the time to read your article before Laura returns but have
seen it enough to say you may have the Vision and the accompanying
circumstances at your control. I would make it a leader not editorial.
To this she added:
I have read your article 'tis wonderful,
sound, lawyer-like in argument. Please if you cast this bread on the water add
the bit enclosed after fixing it to your liking. God be with us both and He
will, is.
The following is what Mrs. Eddy added to my article as
mentioned in her letter:We know there is but one God, one Christ Jesus, and one
mother of Jesus. But we deem it no infringement to regard the fulfilment of
Scripture as indicated at the present period, and named therein, a self-evident
proof thereof—not confined to personality but the works which declare the
Word.
Second Letter of Approval
The next letter I received relating to the article was dated
June 18, 1898, which was as follows:My beloved Student:
The time has not yet come in which to say the wonderful
things you have written in proof read by me today, unless you qualify it. Now
you may hold your ground as therein, but do not say blandly that I represent
the second appearing of Christ. That assertion will array mortal mind
against us, and M.A.M. has been putting it into your mind to say it, and the
infinite Love has inspired you to say it. Now be wiser than a serpent.
Throw out your truths not as affirmations or protestations, but as suggestions.
Then you catch your fish, and make the wrath of man praise Him.(signed)
With deep love, Mother
Third Letter of Approval
June 22nd she again wrote:
Your vision article is too grand, true, to be
tampered with. I ventured to send for it to see if it cannot be held together
and be the leader, I want it where all will catch sight of it. I write this
before Laura will get here. I am so bothered then to get time. Will add all
else I wish to tell you after she brings proofs.Although the last letter
indicated permission to proceed with the publication of the entire article
(that is the one I wrote and the Vision of Mr. Spring) I concluded it best to
publish only that of Mr. Spring and the more general part of what I said of the
prophecy of Isaiah, deferring the other until a future time and make it a
separate article. After this, events in connection with the work and the
Woodbury suit, came so thick and fast that there seemed no opportune time to
again bring the matter to Mrs. Eddy's attention (which I felt I must do before
publishing it), and there it rested. My own conception of the whole matter,
however, has not changed and I see it today just as I saw it then, but I see
also that neither our own people, as a whole, nor the outside world were ready
for the interpretation of Isaiah then made; and I do not know that they are yet
ready.
I here quote the article in full:
EDITOR'S TABLE
It has ever been a peculiarity of human
nature to relegate prophecy and prophets to the past. It is as much a truism
that a prophet is not without honor save in his own age and generation, as that
he is not without honor save in his own country. When the great Prophet of
Nazareth appeared on the world's arena, teaching as no prophet had taught
before him and proving the efficacy of his teaching by the performance of works
that no prophet had performed before him, his age and generation rejected him
and his teachings, and refused to believe in the divinity of his works,
although compelled to admit that they were wonderful, and above all human
understanding.
It was easy for that age and generation to
believe that Moses, Elijah, and many others who had flourished in previous
times, were prophets. Their teachings were unquestionably accepted by the Jews
as of divine authority. But to believe that there was actually then amongst
them a prophet greater than any who had preceded him was more than the
blindness of that age and generation was ready for. Only a few would believe
and accept. Yet Jesus' coming had long and repeatedly been foretold, and a
Messianic appearing was generally expected among the Jews, the people who, more
than any other, refused to receive him.
A second-coming is as clearly
prophesied as was the first coming. The Old Testament writers foretold it,
Jesus plainly prophesied it, and the apostles reiterated these prophecies. The
only question among believers in the Bible has been as to the time and manner
of the coming. In respect to this there has been and yet is, much disputation,
speculation, and controversy. A personal coming is generally believed in, and
the only personality that will at present meet the general expectancy of
Christendom is the identical personality of Jesus as he appeared nineteen
hundred years ago.
Only, as yet, a comparatively small part of
mankind are ready to accept the larger coming comprehended in a
re-establishment of the religious regime which Jesus inaugurated. This small
part of mankind are satisfied that the second coming has commenced and is now
manifesting itself in the works which Jesus taught and should be the evidence
of the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. While this coming is, in a
sense, general, presaging a universal Kingdom, it is in another sense,
individual. There can be no general or universal Kingdom that does not include,
first and foremost, the individual. As units make millions and trillions, so
individuals make an aggregate. Individuality, therefore, leads to universality.
Individuality, in its best sense, includes personality. Not the false
personality of mortal sense, but the true personality, which, in its
individuality, reflects the Divine character. From this point of view Christian
Scientists believe in a personal second coming.
God has ever manifested himself, in large
measure, through persons or individuals. Through the Biblical writers, and
through Moses, Elijah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and many others, he manifested
himself in a sense above and beyond that of the average of their contemporaries
or the generality of those who preceded them. In Christ Jesus he manifested
himself in the largest sense of all and in ways apart from all. Yet, as we have
said, notwithstanding the wonderful and striking character of such
manifestations, the material perception of that age and generation could not
accept them as of God. The “remnant” only could see and accept. It
has been so in a relative sense ever since.
Christian Scientists see in the
non-acceptance of the God manifestations of today an almost literal repetition
of early history. They see a blindness to the signs of the times which compares
well with the ancient blindness. So long has the world been adrift from the
moorings of a genuinely spiritual Christianity that it is not strange it should
continue in its self-mesmerized condition until aroused therefrom by special
circumstances or proofs of a higher Christianity brought home to individuals in
signs and wonders of healing, and other impressive ways. Until so awakened, the
great majority are indifferent to, and incredulous of, the tokens of the second
coming. That thousands are being awakened and are actually accepting the tokens
is, nevertheless, indubitable proof that convincing circumstances are
constantly taking place.
Jesus' saying, “By their fruits ye shall know
them,” is becoming more and more a verity.
Must the “Spirit of Truth,” or the
“Comforter,” that Jesus said should come be personalized or
individualized? Undoubtedly. There could be no fulfilment of prophecy
otherwise.
What, then, in the Christian Science
estimate, is the second coming?
First appeared the person or individual. Then followed the
works.
Who is the personality or individuality
manifesting the second coming?
The answer of every true Christian Scientist
will be: The person or individual who has done, and is doing, the works, in a
sense above and beyond that of the average of those, even, who are addressing
themselves to the task of regenerating the race.
Is there one such?
Christian Scientists unhesitatingly answer,
Yes: The Reverend Mary Baker Eddy.
Where is the proof?
We will produce it. First we go to the
Bible. We find our proof in Genesis and Revelation and uniformly between those
books.
In the declaration in Genesis that God
created man in his own image, male and female, we recognize the divine
Fatherhood and Motherhood. That Fatherhood and Motherhood must logically
express itself in the male and female. Otherwise there were no true, full
“image and likeness.” That would not be a complete second coming
which did not express the “fullness of the Godhead bodily.” In other
words, there must be a personalized or individualized expression of the male
and female of God's creation before there is a full revelation of God to
mankind. How could such an expression reach human conception unless it were
manifested in human form?
By common belief of all Christians, Christ
Jesus represented the spiritual malehood of God. Is it not reasonable to assume
that a full or completed revelation includes God's spiritual female-hood? If
God is male only, it seems that he would embrace within himself but a half of
Being or Individuality; and it would be impossible to reconcile such a
conception with his own declaration in Genesis that out of his self-hood he
created “male and female.”
Christian Scientists believe in a full
Godhead; and thus believing they believe also in a full manifestation of
that Godhead to humanity. (Therefore they see in Genesis a prophecy of the
second coming in female form. In Revelation they see the finality of prophecy.)
To their understanding the Woman of the Apocalypse stands in type for the
female of God's creation spoken of in Genesis. They see in spiritual vision or
perception the “Spiritual ideal as a woman clothed in (reflecting) light,
a bride coming down from Heaven, wedded to the Lamb of Love.” (Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures) The Apocalypse is indeed a
“revelation” to their thought, and in it they see a “new heaven
and a new earth,” as the new tongue referred to in the gospel.
Must the Woman of the Apocalypse be
personalized or individualized to mankind? By every principle of logical
sequence in Biblical prophecy, Yes.
Without undertaking to speak for any but
ourself (the writer hereof), we read in the 54th chapter of Isaiah a distinct
prophecy of the personalized or individualized woman spoken of in Genesis and
revealed in the Apocalypse. All Bible commentators and students agree that the
53rd chapter of Isaiah is directly prophetic of Jesus in his distinctly
personal character. We see in the 54th chapter quite as distinct and direct a
prophecy of a Woman. Is there not much significance in the fact that the female
representing the second coming should be thus placed in juxtaposition with the
male who represented the first coming?
Let us look at the 54th chapter of
Isaiah:-“Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into
singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are
the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the
Lord.”
Mary Baker Eddy had only one son born to her
of the flesh, and in his early infancy he was surreptitiously taken from her
and for years concealed. He has always lived away from her, and yet so lives,
although it was her intense desire that he should be with her and be her child
in every sense of the word. What mortal sense would call a strange and
unaccountable fate has decreed otherwise, and neither son nor mother seems able
to control the conditions which have separated them. She is, therefore, to all
intents and purposes, without a child of the flesh. But what of her other
children,—her spiritual children? They are now numbered by the thousands,
and their numbers are being augmented with amazing rapidity; and how
spontaneously and unanimously have they arisen and called her
“Mother!” Long ere the writer had read the 54th chapter of Isaiah as
he now reads it, scarcely knowing why, and like unto a little child, he lisped
the word “Mother” when he spoke of her. Thousands of others have done
so and thousands more are daily doing so. Among the most touching sights that
have ever come within our observation has been the childlike simplicity with
which full-grown men—great strong men, physically and mentally, have
addressed this delicate, sensitive little woman as “Mother.” Not in
mockery or jest, but in the seriousness of profound conviction. Yea, her
adherents call her their Mother and themselves her children as if by common
impulsion and that impulsion is known to them to be above the human.
“ Enlarge the place of thy tent, and
let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen
thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right
hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the
desolate cities to be inhabited.”
The textbook of Christian Science,
“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” is but a
systematized amplification of the Mosaic Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount.
The teachings of these constitute the groundwork of Christianity. Were they
fully understood and practised the Kingdom of Christ would have fully come. To
the extent that they are being understood and practised the Kingdom is coming
into human consciousness, and the receiving of the Christ-spirit into human
consciousness is the true coming of His Kingdom. Let it always be borne in mind
by believers in the Bible that Jesus declared the evidence of the presence of
the Kingdom to be the healing of the sick, the casting out of devils, the
cleansing of lepers, and the raising of the dead. Certainly these must be the
evidences, for, carried to their ultimate effect, they comprehend the complete
redemption of the human race.
In so far as these evidences are being now
brought into view through Christian Science, may it not be consistently claimed
that the second-coming is here; and in so far as a single Woman has been the
instrument of bringing these evidences into view, may it not be consistently
claimed that she is the personal representative of that second-coming? Is there
anything far-fetched or unreasonable in this?
Spiritualization of thought and action is
love of God, and love of God is love of the brother. The cords of this love are
being rapidly lengthened through Christian Science; the stakes (solid
foundation) of this love are being daily strengthened through practical works;
literally are the demonstrators of this Science breaking forth on the right
hand and on the left, and it requires not the eye of prophecy to see as the
necessary result of this breaking forth that the seed “shall inherit the
Gentiles (unbelievers), and make the desolate cities (barren aggregates of
human thought) to be inhabited.” If Christian Science is at all what it
claims to be, this prophecy of Isaiah is even now in process of distinct
fulfilment. For the verity of its claims, its adherents point with confidence
to its works.
“Fear not; for thou shalt not be
ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame; for
thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach
of thy widowhood any more. For thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of hosts is
his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth
shall he be called.”
When we recall the reproaches cast upon Mrs.
Eddy because of her widowhood, especially by certain of the clergy, and think
upon the irrepressible energy with which the tongue of slander has wagged
against her, without any known or apparent reason, it is not strange that we
read in the tender words of this prophecy God's purpose to protect his child.
Those who are in position to know of the
inner life of Mrs. Eddy can most deeply appreciate the last of the above
verses. They know that she walks constantly with God, looking to Him for
guidance in her every step, and relying upon Him alone for direction in the
great religious movement of which she is the head. Deeply was the writer
impressed while sitting with her at her dining table in Concord not long since,
when in childlike simplicity, yet with deepest seriousness, she said: “I
am learning more and more to take God with me into every detail of my
life.”
If it be possible for “a widow,”
still living on this plane of existence, to make her “Maker her
husband,” surely that widow is Mrs. Eddy.
“For the Lord hath called thee as a
woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast
refused, saith thy God.”
To those familiar with Mrs. Eddy's life and
career this is indeed literal prophecy. None could be more so. Alone, and
often, in most trying times, forsaken by all but God, she trod the winepress of
her mighty endeavor, and undismayedly yet with “bleeding footsteps,”
fighting and wrestling and praying against the opposition of the world. A
“woman forsaken and grieved in spirit” at times, but rallying quickly
in the majesty and might of the Maker who is her husband. And well she might,
for, whether she then knew it or not, God had said to her in explicit words,
“For a small moment have I forsaken
thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.”
To those who know, has there not been a
startling fulfilment of this prophecy? How often by some has that “small
moment” been witnessed, and how quickly have they seen the gathering with
great mercies.
Not less literally have they witnessed the
verification of this prophecy:
“In a little wrath I hid my face from
thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee,
saith the Lord thy Redeemer.”
Again:-“For this is as the waters of
Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go
over the earth, so have I sworn that I should not be wroth with thee nor rebuke
thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness
shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed,
saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.”
“If one who constantly walks with God,
who lives the percepts of the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount, and who is
giving her whole life to the work of enabling others so to live, does not come
within these tender assurances, where shall we find any who do?
“0 thou afflicted, tossed with tempest,
and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy
foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy
gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy
childen shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy
children. In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from
oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come to
thee ... No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue
that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the
heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith
the Lord.”
Could there be a more explicit fulfilment of
this prophecy than the following, written by Mrs. Eddy to the writer, but with
no reference whatever to the use we are now making of it, and not intended for
publication at all, until by special request consent was obtained?
“Twenty-one years ago, when the first revolt took place
in our church, I had a vision and uttered it. We then had no funds, I no
salary, and Christian Science few followers. In that vision I prophesied great
prosperity, plenty of money, blessings unnumbered, and the utterance was to the
'Daughter of Zion; she shall sit under her own vine and fig-tree, and all
peoples shall hear her gladly.' That was when I had but one or two loyal
students, all had deserted in the darkest hour, the people scorned my teaching,
and even those I raised instantly from the door of death would shun me on the
street. In 1898 that dear verse in my hall at Concord was suggested to my
thought which, for fifty years, had been forgotten:Daughter of Zion, awake from
thy sadness;
Awake! for thy foes shall oppress thee no more
Bright o'er thy hills dawns the day-star of gladness;
Arise! for the night of thy sorrow is
o'er.She closes her letter with these words:—Oh, the goodness and loving
kindness of our God, who can tell it?
Oh, the Love that never
faileth!”Millions are now hearing the “Daughter of Zion” gIadly.
She is sitting under her own vine and fig-tree; God has prospered her and her
Cause most bounteously in the financial and every other rightful way; she who
was “afflicted, tossed with tempest, and (for a small moment) not
comforted,” has literally witnessed the rich fulfilment of God's promise
to her: “I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay thy foundations
with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of
carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.” Literally enough has
this promise been redeemed in the material sense, but with overflowing
abundance in the spiritual-present and prospective.
But what of this material abundance? To no
selfish end is it being appropriated. It is fast being converted into the
Lord's treasury. Such use is being made of it as would be expected of one who
in prophetic vision foresaw “prosperity, plenty of money, and blessings
unnumbered,” for a sacred Cause.
In the April, 1898, Journal, Mrs.
Eddy, speaking of the financial problem as she experienced it, says:
“After four years from my discovery of
Christian Science, while taking no remuneration for my labors, and healing all
manner of diseases, I was confronted with the fact of no monetary means left
wherewith to hire a hall in which to speak, or to establish a Christian Science
Home for indigent students (which I yearned to do), or even to meet my own
current expenses, and halted from necessity.
“I had cast my all into the treasury of
Truth, but where were the means with which to carry on a Cause? To desert the
Cause never occurred to me, but nobody then wanted Christian Science, nor gave
it a half penny. Though sorely oppressed I was above begging, and knew well the
priceless worth of what had been bestowed without money or price. Just then
God, Principle, Love, stretched forth His hand. He it was that bade me do what
I did, and it prospered at every step…It was thus that I earned the means
wherewith to start a Christian Science Home for the poor worthy student,
to establish a Metaphysical College, to plant our first magazine, to
purchase the site for a church edifice, to give my church the Christian
Science Journal, and to keep the 'wolves in sheep's clothing,' from preying
upon my pearls, from clogging the wheels of Christian Science.”
The donation of the valuable lot of ground
to The Mother Church in Boston, liberal aid to the erection of the church
building, countless contributions to indigent students and to charitable
purposes outside our ranks, a score of contributions to branch churches and
societies for building and other purposes, the transfer in toto of the
Publishing Society with all its property, prerequisites, and prospects, as well
as her valuable residence on Commonwealth Avenue, to The Mother Church in
perpetuity, and her latest donation in trust of four thousand dollars to the
children of Scientists or “Busy Bees,”—these are some of the
evidences of the sense in which this Daughter of Zion is sitting under her own
vine and fig-tree and dispensing the wine of life and the figs of Love to
hungering and thirsting humanity.
The God-fearing, God-loving, and
God-reflecting woman truly is witnessing the re-assuring and unmistakable
evidences that her children are being “taught of the Lord.” She can
easily foresee that when they shall have imbibed and practised the fullness of
such teaching “great will be the peace” of her “children.”
Has not this Daughter of Zion also witnessed
the fulfilment of this promise of God: “No weapon that is formed against
thee shall prosper”?
Every form of opposition has been made
against her and her teaching possible to humanity, saving only attempts to
murder her in the ordinary or physical sense. The mental assassin has exhausted
his ingenuity and resources in his vain efforts. But no weapon raised against
her has prospered. Grandly and majestically has her work gone on, and mightily
has it prospered. So much so that it is challenging the wonder and awe of the
millions.
We shall not stop to enlarge upon the
“mighty works.” They are becoming well-known and widely recognized.
Read of some of them in the Journal, and in the newspapers and magazines
of the country. Hear of them in the weekly testimonial meetings. Hear how
thousands have been raised from beds of sorrow, sickness, and pain, to joy, and
health, and hope; how despairing sinners have been aroused from the lethargy of
hades to a sense of their manhood in Christ Jesus and their childhood in God;
how agnostics have become unquestioning believers in the Divine power to heal
and save; how atheists have come to know that God is, and that in Him they
live, and move, and have their being; how infidels have been reclaimed from all
unbelief; how sceptics have become convinced by proof they could no longer
dispute; how drunkards have been redeemed from hells of woe and made to rejoice
in freedom from their dread tormentor; how licentiates and libertines have been
made to blush for their sins and turned toward abstinence and purity; how
dishonesty is being made to quail and cringe before the majesty of Truth and
Right; how hate and selfishness are being supplanted by self-sacrifice and
love; how all the blighting and damning qualities of human thought are being
uprooted and destroyed to the purification and spiritualization of such
thought; and how those who have only recently been the unhappy victims of some
or all of these death-dealing trammels are now proving their disenthralment by
healing their neighbors of sickness and pointing the way to their salvation
from sin, whilst healer and healed, saver and saved, are alike coming into the
temple of the New Jerusalem, literally “leaping and shouting, and praising
God.”
Observe too, how rapidly beautiful and
stately church edifices, reared in the name of, and dedicated to, the God of
the living, not of the dead, are springing into existence all over our land;
how one common sermon, compiled from the Eternal Word, is preached in more than
five hundred places in this country, England, and the Continental Countries
each recurring Sabbath, while the number is being almost weekly added to; how
reading, and hearing these sermons read, are healing sickness and awakening
sinners every Sabbath day; how the reading of the Bible and the books whose
writing was divinely entrusted to the “Woman's” hand, is daily
healing sickness and saving sinners; how the Spirit of God, through these
manifold instrumentalities, is indeed moving upon the face of the troubled
waters of mortal discord to the calming thereof, and how the Light whereof God
said, Let it be, and it was, is shining athwart the world's horizon and
glinting into the darkest recesses of mortal thought,—observe and think
upon all this, and say: Is not “this the heritage of the Lord,” and
is not “their righteousness” of him?
While, in the foregoing, we plainly see the
Woman, as in other Scripture we see the Man, we look beyond all personality and
as plainly see the Male and Female,—the universal Manhood and Womanhood
comprehended in the Divine scheme,—and know that the ideal Manhood and
Womanhood of God's Word personally typified as we have shown, is,—must in
the Divine order be,—the heritage of every son and daughter of God's
creating; and He [Principle knows] created all.
Hence we recognize personality in type only
that we may thereby understand the unified Individuality of Father and Son, and
Mother and Daughter, in the fullness of that Godhead whose second coming is
upon us, wherein we see “a new Heaven and a new earth.” We see the
man who was “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and
acquainted with grief . . . oppressed and afflicted;” and we see also the
Man of whom God said: “Therefore will I divide him a portion with the
great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured
out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he
bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”
(Isaiah, 53).
We see also the woman of travail, spoken of
in Isaiah, as before shown, and of whom God further spake in Jeremiah, 4:
“For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of
her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion,
that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! For my
soul (italics are ours) is wearied because of murderers;” and we see also
the Woman of whom God said; “Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen
such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in a day? or shall a nation
be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her
children” (Isaiah, 66). “Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the
end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation
cometh” (Isaiah, 62). And we read of the man and woman: “For your
shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their
portion: therefore in their hand shall they possess the double: everlasting joy
shall be unto them…And I will direct their work in truth, and I will make
an everlasting covenant with them. And their seed shall be known among the
Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall
acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed”
(Isaiah, 61).
By way of epilogue to this effort to
“render tribute where tribute is due,” and, in some small part, meet
the imperative demands of the history of our times, we present herewith what
seems to us a remarkable prophecy; a prophecy in direct line with the Scripture
prophecies to which we have above referred. Nor let us sneer at the author's
claim that this prophecy came to him as a vision and by apparently supernatural
means. Until we know more of God and His methods let us withhold our feeble,
finite judgement.—unless we are ready to acknowledge that God does, in
these latter days, speak to His faithful ones through vision and voice as He
did of old. We refer to an article entitled, “The Church in the
Wilderness,” contained in a little book written in 1838 by the Rev.
Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church of New York, the work
itself being entitled “Fragments from the Study of a Pastor.”
We should like to make some comments on
this, to us wonderful, production, but space will not permit. Let it be
observed, however, that some of the Scriptural quotations are from the 54th of
Isaiah.
It may be interesting to know how this
somewhat ancient little book came to light at this particular time, and we will
mention how.
A Faithful student of Mrs. Eddy's sent it
us, saying:
“I would like to tell you how the book
came into my hands. It is interesting to know how it came to light, Two years
ago last winter I was living in a furnished house which I rented of a dear
friend. There was in the house a large number of books which once belonged to
an old uncle. I used to sit by a window when reading; close to this window
stood a small bookcase filled mostly with small old books. Two or three times,
perhaps oftener, when sitting there the thought came I wonder if there is not
something among those books that would give light on the Bible, or explain its
truth, and would say, Sometime I will look the books over. One morning I was
sorely tempted; after the morning's work was finished I set down with Science
and Health to dispel the seeming error. I had read but a short time when the
thought again came that there might be something in the book-case of value. I
looked at the books, took one out; the first or second—I cannot remember
which—was 'The Church in the Wilderness.' I commenced reading in the
middle of the Chapter, but the little I read healed me. The next day as soon as
I returned from church I read the whole chapter. I then invited the students up
to read it. When I read it a year from that time I saw far more than at first.
“I am filled with gratitude that I
reflected God sufficiently to bring to light this marvelous history of the
appearing Truth. It helped me to realize what our Mother is, as never before,
for I knew I was reading of her experiences. Also those of The Mother
Church.”
The “Mother Church” is the
material expression of that church universal implied in the second-coming; but
we ask, in all sincerity, could that Church have been thus expressed but for
the labor, toil, and self-sacrificing devotion of the Daughter of Zion to whom
its building was entrusted?
The prophet Isaiah clearly saw the
personalized Woman. The Bible commentators, not discerning the fact of a female
appearing as the type of the second-coming, naturally enough saw in Isaiah's
prophecy only the Church of Christ, apart from any particular person.
Christian Scientists recognize in the
material structure, called “The Mother Church,” The First Church of
Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass., with its branches throughout the world,
the type of the second-coming of the Christ, or the final and universal
application of the Christ-Principle. They also recognize in the Founder of this
Church the typical embodiment in human form of the female of God's creation
prophesied in Scripture.
These are evidences presented to mortal
sense of the universal idea of the Church and of the Woman embraced in
Revelation.
Our latter-day prophet, the Rev. Gardiner
Spring, saw also both the Church, and the Woman typifying the Church. Hence its
impressiveness from the standpoint of scientific prophecy.
It is interesting to note that the place of
Mr. Spring's revelation was on Mont Viso (Mount of Vision) of the Alpine
range, at a point where on the persecuted Vaudois or Waldenses, found an
asylum. It will be remembered that this sect arose in the south of France about
A.D. 1170. They were the first to protest, as a body, against the corruption of
the Roman church, and as a consequence were, of course, bitterly persecuted.
Persecution, however, (as it always does), gave vitality to their doctrines,
which passed on to Wycliffe and Huss, and through them produced the Reformation
in Germany and England. This sect was distinguished from the Franciecans in
that they taught the doctrine of Christ, while the latter taught the
person of Christ, or Jesus. They had no official priesthood. They
regarded the sacraments as merely symbolical, and with them ceremonies
gradually disappeared. They became merged in the general Protestant movement in
Germany and England.
As will be readily seen by Christian
Scientists, they were among the forerunners of the larger Protestantism which
is finding its expression in a general protest against all forms and conditions
of erroneous doctrine,—in the churches and out of them.
The following was added by Mrs. Eddy:—“We know
there is but one God, one Christ Jesus, and one mother of Jesus. But we deem it
no infringement to regard the fulfilment of Scripture as indicated at the
present period, and named therein, a self-evident proof thereof—not
confined to personality but the works which declare the Word.”
Pastor Gardiner's
Vision and Prophecy
We herewith publish what seems to us an
interesting prophecy. The article is entitled, “The Church in the
Wilderness,” and is contained in a little book written in 1838 by the Rev.
Gardiner Spring, Pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church of New York, the work
itself being entitled, “Fragments from the Study of a
Pastor.”Following is the prophecy:
The Church In the Wilderness
I was crossing a narrow strip of land which
lies upon the frontiers of France and Italy, where the Alps, without losing
their loftiness and sublimity, begin to incline toward the Mediterranean, and
occasionally put on an appearance of freshness and verdure. I had resolved, if
possible, to ascend Mont Viso. Though not so high as Mont Blanc,
yet from its solitary and isolated position, it presents a more
imposing appearance of grandeur. It stands almost alone; and, like a colossal
pyramid, rises high above the various crests, and peaks, and ridges which
surround its base. It presented to my mind the aspect of some huge beacon
towering amid the storm; and the strange irregularity of the scenery gave
strength to the impression. It seemed as though the heaving, angry ocean had
been here arrested in the extreme fury of its tempest, and as if the power
which had caused, had suddenly stilled, its terrors, and bound it in solid and
enduring chains. Inconstancy and change seemed strongly represented in constant
and unchanging forms—the very emblem of mutability fixed as it might seem
immutable,
Already had I ascended far up the mountain,
and all the beautiful plain of Italy was spread out before me. That immense
reservoir at waters, that well-known extent of gardens and cities, of wealth
and splendor, which the heroes of ancient and modern times pointed out to their
soldiers as the reward of perseverance and victory, glittered upon my eye. At
the foot of the mountain, on the one side, had once stood the elephants of
Hannibal and the armies of Francie the First; on the other, the forces of
Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon. So vivid was my fancy, it almost seemed that
I could hear the sullen tramp of their legions; and the rushing of the streams
around me seemed disturbed by the fording of their thronging cavalry, and all
the tumult of a hurried march. I looked almost to see the Roman eagle hovering
over their steps, or the lilies of France trembling to the mountain air.
The continued and almost unbroken stillness
of the scene recalled me from this vision of the past. All this glory and
greatness had departed. Sooner will the first drops which issued from these
torrents, come back from the vast ocean in which they are mingled, and flow
again from their source, than aught of all this life and renown return, to
trouble or astonish the scene on which they once played so conspicuous and
interesting a part. Yet I dwelt long, and with singular pleasure, on the names
of those illustrious heroes. And who does not, as he crosses the Alps?
It was with a feeling of self-reproach that I turned at last
to think of others. The glory and splendor of this world had first taken
possession of my mind, while true worth and piety had also their monuments near
me. I was standing in the retreat of the ancient Vaudois.Few remember
them. They lived unknown,
Till persecution dragged them into fame,
And chased them up to heaven.From the
eminence from which I surveyed them, four beautiful valleys spread themselves
before me something in the form of a fan, converging from the distance, and
terminating almost in a point near the spot where I stood. I had heard of this
asylum of the faiththful as the region of barrenness and ice. I had read of it
as a desert environed with frightful precipices, and protected by eternal
snows. But such was not the scene on which I gazed. A beautiful sky spread its
blue arch above. The verdure was springing from the sides of the mountain,
scantily, it is true, but for that the more welcome. The valley below seemed
spread with a carpet of rich emerald, wrought in with the brightest flowers.
Nor were the light and life of civilization wanting to complete the picture.
Scattered villages and villas were seen at intervals, and everywhere the vine
and the fig-tree enriched the plain. The Po and the Dora too, with their almost
innumerable branches, were wildly urging their waters down the rocks and
through the crevices of the mountains, till you might see them quietly stealing
to the valleys and mingling with the streams below.
I stood gazing, sometimes at the naked and
barren cliffs of some distant promontory; sometimes at mountains that lifted
their snowy summits where the eagle is never seen to soar; and sometimes at the
enchanting plain beneath. And are these the rocks, said I, which looked down
upon those sanguinary persecutions? Are these the mountains whence vibrated
those songs of salvation that indicated to the foe the retreat of the faithful?
Are these the streams once stained with the blood of the saints? Are these the
valleys from which ascended in many a mingled column the flames of the fagot,
the supplications and sighs of the martyrs, and the fiend-like exultation of
their destroyers? I felt as though I were surveying the monuments of deeds in
which one scarce knows which had the preeminence,—the faith and constancy
of the victims, or the fury of their fierce persecutors. Here once dwelt a
small, poor, forgotten people; a people, weak indeed, but full of that faith
which wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
escaped the edge of the sword. Here dwelt a people whose glory shone brightest
in their tribulations, and to whom it was entrusted to preserve the purity of
the faith through centuries of darkness, when barbarous nations ravaged and
destroyed all around them, making no distinction between what was sacred and
what was profane. And here still dwelt the descendants of that same people, in
all the peculiarity of their language, habits, and manners, as well as in all
the integrity of that faith which has survived the revolution of empires, and
which is still destined to travel down the descent of time, and as successive
ages roll on, exert a reforming and purifying influence over the world.
And can this be the place, thought I, where
the Woman, described in the Apocalypse, hath a place prepared of God, where she
is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the
Serpent? While this inquiry was passing through my mind, I was lost in
contemplation. My thoughts became irregular and wild. My imagination wandered,
I knew not whither. Whether it were that sleep overtook me on the mountain, and
what followed was the fancy of a dream, or whether a waking vision occupied my
senses, I am unable to tell. I seemed raised in spirit above the world; and yet
my hopes and fears were strangely connected with its spiritual welfare and
prosperity. A subject upon which I had thought, and read, and conversed often,
weighed upon my bosom, and filled it with deep and serious reflection. My
anxious mind brooded over it, as some busy, restless fancy, waking to the roar
of the tempest, pictures to itself evils which nothing can remedy or relieve.
I trembled for the Ark of God. Errors,
deeply ruinous in doctrine and practise, were inducing desolation and decay. A
smooth theology had taken the place of those wholesome truths which have in
every age been the wisdom of God, and the power of God to salvation. The
meekness of wisdom was superceded by a vaunting and arrogant spirit; and means
and measures were making progress in the church, which threatened to burn over
her fairest borders, and leave them like a land that could not be tilled, or
sown, or eared, or harvested for generations to come. I saw collisions of
sentiment distracting the minds and dividing the counsels of those who were
once joined together in the same mind and the same judgment. I saw also
chilling alienation’s among those who once loved as brethren; while the
peaceful spirit who had so long hovered over this fair land, was just about to
spread his pinions and fly away. Already, the ways of Zion mourned because few
came to her solemn feasts. Already the streams of mercy seemed to be drying up,
which have for so long a period been refreshing our heritage and bearing on
their bosom the blessings of salvation to distant lands. From the daughter of
Zion all her beauty was departed. Her princes were become like harts that find
no pasture; and they were gone without strength before the pursuer. I thought
of her in the days of her captivity and reproach, when she hung her harp upon
the willows, and wept. I remembered, and could not forbear uttering aloud, that
affecting lamentation of the Prophet, How hath the Lord covered the daughter of
Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto earth the beauty
of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger.
Such were the thoughts which occupied me in
my reverie. And they were not without close connection and sympathy with those
which had often disturbed me in my hours of waking reflection. The day seemed
dark and gloomy like one in November. The sun was enveloped in clouds, and the
rough north wind roared around me. I was by the side of a lofty, weather-beaten
mountain. Its top seemed to support the heavens, and its brow frowned over a
deep, expansive wilderness, impervious to the eye, and immeasurable in extent.
It appeared at first view as one vast desert, where was no trace of human
footsteps, and where no man dwelt.
As I was walking to and fro with a mind
almost as cheerless as the rugged cliffs around me, suddenly a chorus of
superhuman voices filled the air. The words of their song fell distinctly upon
my ear, clear and sweet as from instruments of silver. They chanted, Who is
this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved? As I
turned to look toward the desert, I beheld a female form of distinguished
attractions and beauty, leaning on One like unto the Son of Man. Her
countenance was expressive of intelligence and sweetness. Her mien was humble,
yet a peculiar dignity shone in her every action, and her entire appearance
seemed pre-eminently fitted to please and captivate. I had heard of One
dwelling in the wilderness, whom the tongues of inspired men and angels had
represented as clothed with celestial comeliness and decked with beauty from
the skies—a wanderer in the desert, but not alone; hand in hand with One
more powerful than herself, she had her course through its strife and
temptations. As my eye rested upon her for the purpose of scanning her person
more carefully, that I might satisfy myself if this were indeed she of whom I
had heard, I saw that she was enveloped in a dense and hazy atmosphere, through
which a pale light beamed from her countenance and clothed her form, and seemed
everywhere struggling to dart forth its rays. For the moment it seemed doubtful
whether she would not be merged in the obscurity; but the mist was soon
dissipated, and she looked forth like the moon walking in her brightness,
luminous in her entire form, and like the angel standing in the sun,
conspicuous to the world.
I observed that her features were in part
covered with a veil. She had an humble, lowly spirit, and though in the full
power of youth and beauty, seemed utterly unconscious of her attractions. She
had no desire of superiority or distinction; no undue assumption of dignity; no
spirit of ambition or rivalry. She did not court applause, nor was she offended
at rebuke. She sought not the eye of the world, neither delighted in its bustle
and confusion; but rather in the shade and stillness of some beloved retreat,
open only to the observation, and consecrated only by the presence, of her Lord
and Husband. At times she instinctively shrunk from his inspection, and hid her
face in confusion. Nor was there in this any affection of modesty, but a deep
and ingenuous impression of her unworthiness that oppressed her, and often
indeed found its way to her lips. Look not upon me, she would exclaim, Look
not upon me, because the Sun hath looked upon me! One of her loveliest
characteristics as it seemed to me, was this humble, meek, and retiring spirit.
Her progress was often rapid, yet was it noiseless and silent as the dew of
heaven. Wherever she took a false step, she herself was the first to detect it,
and prompt and faithful in her self-reproach. Rather than feel that she was
worthy to be the object of admiration, many a time would she lay her hand upon
her mouth and exclaim Behold I am vile! There was a lowliness of
demeanor exemplified in her progress that reminded me of the spirit of genuine
piety. She seemed at such a remove from the haughty, overbearing temper of the
world, that I concluded she belonged to another race of beings. For nothing did
I envy her so much as for this unearthly spirit.
And can this be she, thought I, of whom I
have so often read, that was cast out into the open field to the loathing of
her person In the day that she was born? If so, nothing could be more striking
than the contrast between her original condition, her debased parentage, and
her present elevation and prospects. She was like one who had sustained a moral
transformation, and had been, as it were, re-created and born anew. Once poor
and miserable, and blind, and naked, she was now clothed with embroidered work,
girded about with fine linen, covered with silk, and decked with ornaments.
Though her birth and nativity were of the land of Canaan; though her father was
an Amorite and her mother a Hittite; yet she was now allied to a family that
participates in the riches and royalty of a nobler world, and her renown went
forth among the nations for her beauty. She was the child of God—the
adopted daughter of the king of heaven. Her second birth traced her lineage to
the skies; born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God. She had no unborrowed splendor, yet was she covered with
righteousness as with a garment and prepared as a bride adorned for her
husband. Though once soiled and blemished by her native servitude; though
abject in her occupation and associates; yet was she now as the wings of a dove
covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold. My own impressions of
her loveliness were confirmed by what I distinctly heard from the lips of her
royal husband. Behold, said he, thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair,
My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother; she is the
choice one of her that bare her. Sometimes he spoke of the tenderness of her
attachment; sometimes of her purity and faithfulness; and sometimes, breaking
forth in the language of gratified joy, he exclaimed, Thou art all fair, my
love, there is no spot in thee!
Filled with admiration, I could not but
again exclaim, Who is this? —so depraved in her nativity and yet so
exalted in her adoption—so impure in her original, and yet so pure in her
transformation—so heaven born, so acknowledged and endeared to higher
worlds, and yet in her own view so worthless? The answer was quickly upon my
lips. Who but the church of the First Born!—the spiritual Jerusalem from
God out of heaven—the Bride, the Lamb's Wife! Who but that complex,
ornate, and lovely Personage, who is a lively emblem, a typical designation of
the virtuous of every age and name, here embodied and personified by the
daughter of Zion travelling in the greatness of her strength.
This amiable and fair being I beheld far
from the abodes of men, in the waste, howling desert. She had no continuing
city. She was away from home, often afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not
comforted. The place where she sojourned was a place of vicissitude and woe.
There were no sorrows like her sorrows, and a stranger did not intermeddle with
her joy. Here she stretched forth her hands unto God, and her soul thirsted for
him, as a thirsty land for the grateful and ever welcome rain. Here she met
with delays, hindrances, and vexations. The powers of darkness were leagued
against her, combining their strength and subtlety to perplex and embitter her
mind, to retard her progress, and effect her destruction. She was passing
through an enemy's land, and had put on the whole armor of God. Without were
fightings, and within were fears. External foes, and indwelling sins,
distracting cares, painful bereavements, and a subtle adversary often filled
her with despondency, and spoiled her every earth-born hope.
I observed that she did not always know how
to explore her path, and that she sometimes forsook her guide and wandered from
the way. Then she was depressed and discouraged, and instead of going
cheerfully forward, would stray up and down in the wilderness. And then her
courage faltered, her strength languished, and her beauty withered. Many a
time, at such seasons, would she sit down and weep with abundant sorrow, and
exclaim as though all hope had deserted her, My heart is overwhelmed within me!
All thy waves and billows are gone over my soul! The wilderness too was long,
and she was often wearied by the length of the way. Sometimes she trembled, and
seemed on the point of fainting or falling; and then again she would press
forward, now with a bold, and now with a doubtful step.
Here she wandered amid the gloom and
darkness of the desert. Here she had a place prepared for her by God. With his
own hands, he spread a table for her. The rock supplied her, and the manna
descended. She fed on angels' food, and ate the bread of life. The pillar and
the cloud moved before her. The God of Israel himself was with her, a friend in
need, a refuge in times of trouble. In his mercy and care, in his power and
faithfulness, she had resources which never failed. She sometimes grieved him,
but he never abandoned her. He seemed to have no employment so delightful to
his heart, as to care for her. He would watch her every step. He would often
throw around her the arms of his protection to save her even from imaginary
harm. He would spread his banner of love over her, and support her from step to
step in all her course. I heard him say to her, / gave Egypt for thy ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my sight, I have loved
thee; therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life. It seemed to
me that he would blot out all the nations, that he would crush a thousand
worlds, before one hair of her head should fall to the ground.
And yet there were sensible alterations in
her spirit and condition. Sometimes she looked for light, and behold darkness,
and for good, and behold trouble and vexation; and then again, her most
chilling fears were turned into hopes, and her deepest sorrows into joy.
Sometimes her prospect was gilded by all the varied tints of Spring, and all
the rich maturity of Autumn; while sometimes the snows of Winter swept along
her path, and night enshrouded it with gloom. At times, the skies above her
were soft and serene; at times, they were black and heavy,—lowering with
tempest, and dark with indignation. Her path now lay through beds of spices,
and along the fruits of the valley, which the forest enriched with its softest
foliage; where the murmur of the running streams, and the light breezes cheered
and refreshed her, and every odor, charged with fragrance, brought pleasure to
her senses; and again she was constrained, amid the wildness of the precipices
and the roar of the tempest, to pass along the lions' dens and the mountains of
the leopards.
As I was attentively observing her, a beam
of light fell on her path, at a moment when the darkness had increased around
her, and when despondency seemed almost to overwhelm her soul. All at once her
countenance became bright, and though still pensive, she pursued her course
with revived strength and freshness. Something had roused her from her
depression and put new courage into her heart. It was the voice of her Beloved.
A multitude of conflicting emotions seemed for a moment to agitate her bosom.
They were emotions of surprise, of joy, and of grief. Rise up, my love, my fair
One, said he, and come away! For lo, the Winter is past, the rain is over and
gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is
come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land! Arise, my love, my fair
one, and come away! At this well-known voice, a tear stood in her eye. She
looked on him whom she had pierced and mourned. I heard her confessions of
folly, and promises of faithfulness, and felt that I could make them my own. My
soul melted within me, and flowed forth in her every tear. Never shall I forget
when she hid herself from sight, as though fearful of his reproaches, and
bewailed her departures from him whom her soul loved. Then it was that I heard
him say, O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock; let me see thy
countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance
is comely! Then it was that he allured her and spake comfortably unto her, and
gave her the valley of Achor for a door of hope, and she sang there as in the
days of her youth. There did he wipe away the tears from her cheeks, and cheer
her with the promise of his favor; while she, animated and buoyant with warm
affection and eager hopes, was once more like a roe, or young hart upon the
mountains of Bether. Forthe moment, she forgot that she was in the wilderness.
She remembered not that she was far from her destined home, so much did the
presence of him she thus loved smooth her path along the desert, and render her
sojourn amid its wilds a season of happiness and security.
This endured not long. Dark clouds again
enfolded her, the scene put off its charms, and the way before her was
curtained with its wonted gloom. There was nothing here to allure her stay,
nothing suited to her large desires, nothing that could become the source of
her blessedness, or the place of her repose. Nor was she either alarmed or
surprised by the oft-repeated admonition, Arise, and depart hence, for this is
not your rest, because it is polluted; for as often did she herself respond, 0
that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest! To her
hallowed mind, the place of her pilgrimage presented nothing but a wilderness,
which she longed to leave behind her. Communion with her Lord had rendered it
at times a place of delightful remembrance; but she well knew that a higher
abode was awaiting her, where she should enjoy his presence uninterruptedly and
forever. There was her treasure, and there her heart. Her conversation was
there. Her ardent desires, her highest good was there. Heaven absorbed her
attention, awakened her highest affections and passions, and exhausted the
vigor of her mind. Her very sorrows and griefs indicated its aspirations and
tendencies. Like the magnetic needle, amid all the variations of a transcient
conflict, or passing storm, her heart exhibited a trembling agitation till it
reposed in one unchanging point of rest. There were moments when her faith,
with more than ordinary vividness, realized the unseen world, when a hope full
of immortality shed its fragrance over her spirits, and made her long for the
promised land. And then, habitually watchful of the pillar and the cloud,
regardless of obstacles and fearless of danger, onward she went from conquering
to conquer. The circuitles and vicissitudes of her path might at times bewilder
her; the grandeur of the scenery, or its softness and beauty might for a moment
allure her; but her aim was fixed, the object single to which she aspired.
Forgetting the things that were behind, and reaching forth to those which were
before, she pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in
Jesus Christ. It was the way to the Heavenly City, and she could not turn back.
It was the only way, and she could not forego the expectation of that
imperishable inheritance.
I stood a while wondering at her zeal and steadfastness, but
my wonder ceased when I recollected that she was not alone. She leaned on One
who seemed more than mortal.In his side he bore,
And in his hands and feet the cruel scars.He
it was who bore her griefs, carried sorrows, and even made her sins his own. It
was her Lord-her Husband—her Life-her Sacrifice. It was he who liveth and
was dead, and is alive for evermore, to succor and bless his church when all
the nations die. I saw the secret of her strength. Her life was hid with Christ
in God. Though she was perfect weakness, she had omnipotence to lean upon.
Experience had taught her her own insufficiency, and she lived by faith in him
who loved her, and gave himself for her. I was not a little interested in this
view of her progress. Literally did she come up from the wilderness, leaning
upon her Beloved. She did not move a step without him. She did not wait for him
to lead her, but went forward leaning upon him. When she stood still, she
always stood alone. Once I saw her so depressed and weary, that she sank to the
earth; and then he took her up in his arms and carried her like a lamb in his
bosom. Thus she pursued her way—for the most part wakeful, active,
persevering—and yet ever leaning upon him. The influence under which she
acted, seemed a sort of charm upon her will, and drew her with the cords of
love as with the bands of a man. It was her joy, as well as her strength. It
gave buoyancy to her hopes, and inspired her with the confidence that he would
keep her from failing and bear her safely through. When by some strong
temptation, she lost sight of her dependence, most bitterly was she made to
repent of her self-confidence and folly. Then it was that her time was spent in
retracing and recovering the ground she had lost, and bemoaning her sad
condition. Many a time has she then exclaimed, 0 that it were with we as in
months past when the candle of the Lord shone upon my head! But these seasons
of self-reproach and pensiveness were comparatively few. Habitually she looked
beyond all created things, felt herself to be his creature and child, subject
to his guidance and control, dependent on his strength and grace. Never did she
delight in her dependence more than during the seasons of her greatest vigor,
her most rapid progress. Never could she say with a more comforted confidence,
than in her most successful victories, My soul, wait thou upon God, for my
expectation is from him!
I thought I saw the heavenly axiom verified,
I love them that love me. By nothing was her guide and patron more
distinguished than his love for her, and by nothing was she more distinguished
than her love to him. In strains sweet as angels use, I often heard her sing,
My beloved is the chief among ten thousands! Yea, he is altogether lovely! On
him she placed her fondest affection, and reposed her every hope. Her love was
confiding and unsuspicious; her confidence filial and even childlike. Sometimes
you might see her reclining under the shadow of his favor with great delight;
sometimes lamenting his absence and watching for his return; sometimes
traversing with him the loftiest mountains and sometimes exploring the
vineyards to see if the vine flourish and the tender grape appear. If
difficulties opposed, or dangers threatened, or enemies stood ready to devour,
his grace was sufficient for her, his strength was made perfect in her
weakness, his presence was her chief joy. Leaning on him, she escaped the
dangers of the wilderness, ascended the steepest mountains, stood safe on the
brink of the angry precipice, penetrated hideous forests, resisted and overcame
the fiercest beasts of prey. With her eye on him and all her trust in him, she
continued her course. And while the youth became faint and were weary and the
young men had utterly fallen, she renewed her strength; in heavenly
contemplation, she mounted up with wings as an eagle, and through all her
course of duty and of trial, she ran and was not weary, and walked and did not
faint. While others were intimidated by dangers, or discouraged by difficulty,
or lost sight of their Leader, she pressed forward, because her courage was
inspired from above, and her exertion had a spring, a source, an energy not her
own. The dangers and trials of the wilderness were gradually left behind her,
and remembered only to enhance her gratitude and perpetuate her praise.
I observed, that in leaning upon her
Beloved, she was often led in a way that she knew not, and in paths that she
had not known. She seemed to be under a sort of discipline, designed to subdue
her will to an unconditional acquiescence in his; to chastise her
self-confidence, and teach her to walk by faith and not by sight. Like the
Father of the faithful, she went forth not knowing whither she went. She knew
not whither she was going the next hour, the next moment, the next step. It was
her province to follow, not to lead; to obey, not to dictate. Her hopes and
fears were both subject to disappointment. She was journeying in a weary land,
and beheld the way stretching out almost immeasurably before her and
lengthening as she proceeded. Often was she conducted by a very diversified
course—sometimes amid scenes of mercy, and sometimes amid scenes of
judgment—now amid well watered meadows, and now over dry and barren
lands—now to mountains whence she caught a glimpse of her promised
inheritance, and now to some low valley where the light of heaven scarcely
penetrated. Her path was checkered and variable, like the path of human life.
It was perpetually changing—rousing her attention when she was
careless—reminding her of her obligations when she was
ungrateful—recalling her confidence when she had placed it upon creatures.
Her disposition was thus tried, and her character formed. Many a time what she
thought her best seasons, proved her worse; and what she thought her worst,
proved her best; till, by an alternately painful and joyful experience she
learned to repose all her confidence in her Redeemer, and to have no will but
his. I had not seen such a spirit among men. The storms of life had driven her
to this wilderness; there to live eminently above the world and walk with God.
There was a tenderness, a meekness and submission, a love, a gratitude, a
cheerfulness which was not of this world.
I could not help exclaiming. What a glorious
object is this which I behold! The church of the First Born struggling through
this world—this moral wilderness—is a spectacle to God, to angels and
men. This humble and lovely Personage, thought I, may well be the object of
concern, of solicitude, of admiration. While this reflection was passing in my
mind, a multitude of voices, issuing I knew not whence, repeated the song, Who
is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved? I turned
to ascertain whom they were that spoke, and it seemed to me that the atmosphere
around and above her was filled with living beings. They were of various
descriptions and orders, very dissimilar in their appearance, but all deeply
interested in the progress and condition of this daughter of Zion. There was a
peculiarity about her person, her professions, her claims, her prospects, that
attracted the attention of the inhabitants of this lower world. She disclaimed
the authority of its maxims and usages. She declined its pleasures, and all
participation in its unhallowed amusements. And she would not needlessly, even
intermingle with its society. She came out and was separate, that all might
know what immunities she challenged, and of what inheritance she was the
expectant.
She was like a city set on an hill. None
could help seeing her; none could view her with indifference. Good men beheld
her, as identified with the glory of the Redeemer, as identifying their own
happiness and glory with hers, as embodying the best interests of mankind in
this world and that which is to come. Though now depressed, they saw that soon
she was to be triumphant, soon to behold her sons coming from far, and her
daughters from the end of the world; and though still bearing the marks of
imperfection and servitude, e'er long to share the kingdoms of this world with
her Prince, and wear a diadem of gold.
Bad men beheld her, sometimes to wonder at
the peculiarity of her condition—a feeble woman coming up from the
wilderness, leaning upon her beloved! Sometimes to admire her beauty, for she
was comely as Jerusalem, and the fairest among women; sometimes to acknowledge
her influence and power, for she was terrible as an army with banners;
sometimes to feel the reproach of her example, for though shining in borrowed
splendor, yet was she the light of the world; sometimes to be envious at her
allotment, for the smile of heaven played upon her countenance, and the
solitary place was glad for her., And sometimes to hate her with perfect
hatred, to vex and injure her, to persecute, and if possible destroy her.
I saw also a multitude of living spirits hovering over her
path and near her person. They were messengers from a higher world—an
exalted order of beings, and seemed to have come from the presence of God.
Their countenances were like lightning, and their raiment white as snow. They
possessed wonderful power and activity, and moved with the swiftness of the
wind. They were beautiful also beyond a parallel—clothed with unfading and
immortal youth, and glowing with the energy and ardor of truth and love. I saw
them lifting up their hands—spreading forth their wings and apparently in
sweet discourse with one another as they watched her progress. Now, they would
stoop down and bend their faces towards the ground to observe her. Again, they
would fly through the air and return, as though from some unknown region
whither they had gone to tell of her conquests. At times, they would range
themselves in throngs and companies, and strike their lyres and tune their
hymns of praise. One particularly, I observed, of elevated mien and resplendent
countenance, who hovered around her head, so near indeed that the vivid light
that enveloped her colored and tinged his form, covering both as with a mantle
of celestial splendor. With his finger he pointed towards Heaven and said, Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man the things
that God hath prepared for them that love him!
I saw, too, dark and benighted spirits,
irritated with malignity, corroded with envy, and scarred by God's indignation,
come up as it were out of the earth, and alight about her. I trembled for her
safety, for it seemed to me they came with great wrath, as though they knew
they had but a short time. I was re-assured however by the calm and confident
mien with which she looked around, as though certain of protection from One
mightier than they. And then I heard the clashing of arms, and saw the rushing
of battle. In the tumultuous conflict which ensued, I could distinguish voices
of fiend-like rage and despair, the answer of exulting indignant courage
mingled together, and at times the startling cry of some wounded, fallen
combatant, resounding faint and fainter, as though borne and hurried down to
earth's very centre. With what deep interest did I await the result! Yet I did
not fear for it. Soon the noise of strife gave place to shouts of victory. And
from the sweet notes of praise—praise to him who is seated upon the
throne—I knew they were from the victorious company who are ministering
spirits to them that shall be heirs of salvation, and to whom the church was
the object of unremitting care.
I saw also, that God, her mighty Maker,
regarded her. More than all things else, did she illustrate His ineffable
glory. He beheld her clothed with His own loveliness. He rejoiced over her with
joy; He joyed over her with singing. As a bridegroom rejoiceth over his bride,
so did her God rejoice over her. God her Redeemer was with her, His Temple;
while the ever blessed and glorious Trinity, through her, made impressive and
augmenting discoveries of His own excellence.
Next to her glorious Lord, no object so well
deserved, or might so well attract attention, as this pilgrim in the desert. I
looked upon her with more than admiration. And while I gazed on her, as in her
beauty and her might she pursued her course, I could not help repeating the vow
I had made in my youth,—If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand
forget her cunning!—let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I
prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy!
Inexpressibly happy, thought I, is the
Church of God! Where is there in the world so amiable and lovely a
character—where a community so favored as this! Many a time, when she has
had no resting place, and has been hunted like a partridge upon the mountains,
has the Shepherd and Stone of Israel provided safety and repose for her, and
kept her as the apple of his eye. Often when she has been driven from among
men, and perdition like a flood has chased her, has He Himself been her
dwelling place, and nourished and brought her up as an only child. Her
ignorance He has instructed; her languor and depression He has changed into
hope and rejoicing; her solitude He has sweetened by his presence; her danger
He has driven far away. He has been her refuge and her strength. To the
multiplied mischiefs that have passed through the earth, He has said, Touch not
mine anointed and do my people no harm! He has beautified and enlarged her. He
has caused her to look forth like the morning. He has made her head like
Carmel, and the hair of her head like Lebanon. He has set her as a seal upon
His heart, as a seal upon His arm. Nor will His purposes of love toward her be
accomplished, till he has purified her from all her imperfection, decked her
with majesty and excellency, and in the day of her celestial espousals,
presented her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing.
While this train of thought was passing through my mind, I
cast my eyes once more towards the wilderness. No longer was it a desert, but
rather an expanse of cultivated fields, and gardens of richest shrubbery,
everywhere interspersed with beautiful villages, towering palaces, lofty
turrets, and living men. The corn, and the vine, the olive and the palm
flourished. Instead of the thorn, was the fir tree, and instead of the briar,
the myrtle and the rose. Waters broke out in the desert. The way through this
verdant territory seemed a highway. No tedious, intricate pilgrimage was it
now. Enemies had disappeared. No lion was there, neither any ravenous beast
went up thereon, it was not found there. And the pilgrim had now thrown aside
that veil which obscured her, and put on her most splendid attire. A voice
reached her from the heavens, Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the
glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. She looked forth now as the effulgence of
the world. She seemed as it were, clothed with the Sun; the moon was under her
feet, and upon her head was a crown of twelve stars. There was a halo of glory
encircling her, that reminded me of the Shekinah that stood over the ancient
tabernacle. She was near to the Deity, encompassed with glory, and living
within the comprehension of his smile. Kings and princes were allured by her
brightness, and the wondering people came bending to her. The Kings of Tarshish
and the isles brought her presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba offered her
gifts. No longer did she falter in her course, or turn her eye backward. She
was clothed with a divine panoply, and went forth more than conqueror through
Him that loved her. A banner waved over her of the purest gold, on one side of
which was set in rich enamel, THE LORD KNOWETH THEM THAT ARE HIS; and on the
other, LET EVERY ONE THAT NAMETH THE NAME OF CHRIST DEPART FROM INIQUITY. At
her approach, every false system of religion was arrested in its progress; all
mist and darkness, error and delusion, sin, shame and woe fled before her.
Streams of light and salvation flowed everywhere around her, and sent forth
their blessings to every land. In her hand she carried a scroll, or parchment,
which she unfolded before the nations, and by which she turned them from
darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Wonderful was the
transformation that attended and followed her brilliant career. Iniquity fell
before her. Tyranny and oppression and unrighteousness were blasted by her
breath. Misery and despair were together chased away by the light of her
countenance. Every valley was exalted, and every mountain and hill was made
low; the crooked was made straight, and the rough places plain; and the glory
of the Lord was revealed, and all flesh saw it together.
0 scenes surpassing fable and yet true;
Scenes of accomplished bliss, which who can see
Though but in distant prospect, and not feel
His soul refresh'd with foretastes of the
joy!The mountains and the hills broke forth before her into singing and all
the trees of the field clapped their hands. The Spirit was poured from on
high, and the world appeared to be turning to the service and favor of the true
God. Every revolution of this diurnal sphere beheld her triumphs from the
rising of the sun to his going down. Distant, barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song, where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles,alternately
became the scenes of her perpetuated victories. Distant continents and islands,
wandering tribes and collected empires, though once shrounded in deepest gloom,
now beheld and reflected the brightness of her rising.One song employs all
nations, and all cry
Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for
us!
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy.
Till nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapt'rous hosannah round.My
reverie continued, but the gloom and depression which at first pervaded it,
passed away. Instead of a dark day in November, it appeared to my gratified
imagination like the loveliest in May. Brown autumn had fled. Winter had been
chased away by the softness and beauty of spring. The sun was just descending
in his gayest chariot, and throwing his light from pole to pole. The rough
north wind had yielded to the fragrant zephyr. The rugged mountain had become
like the verdant lawn. The unclouded sky, the balmy air, the rich foliage of
the forest, the fragrant flowers were but faintly emblematical of the unbroken
serenity I felt within. The birds were chanting their songs of joy, and all
nature was vocal with praise and blossoming with hope. The bow of promise threw
its arch over the eastern sky, and as the sun went down, he cast forth the
signals of a still brighter day.END OF THE REV. GARDINER SPRING’S PROPHECY
“DEFINITIONS”—STUDY AIDS
The following partial explanations of symbolic terms used by
Mrs. Eddy may prove helpful:
Ascending: As we ascend we are laying off mortality,
separating ourselves from materiality, gaining a little each day in the right
direction. Jesus' mission was an ascending mission. His ascending
“manhood” steps involved labor, cross-bearing, forsaking a matter
point of view, denials, persecution for righteousness' sake,
crucifixion—the whole struggle to achieve oneness with God.
In his second coming the
“ascending” steps are woman's manhood steps which Mary Baker
Eddy took in fulfilment of Jesus' prophecy (John 14:26) that the Comforter,
Divine Science, would “bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said
unto you.” Since the “Bride,” the teaching of Mary Baker Eddy,
was the compound of the masculine and feminine nature of God, she had to lay
her own foundations (manhood). When the city foursquare came down from heaven,
as Bride, she brought her foundations (her manhood—intelligence, logic,
divine reasoning) with her. Her ascending manhood steps had been the gradual
relinquishing of all materiality in accordance with Science and Health p.
353:18-19.
Branch: A symbol for the Bride, or
for “Principle and its idea is one.” Branch-idea stands for that
which is self-existent and self-expressed. The Branch or Branch Church
symbolizes man as God's idea—God and man as one, indivisible. The five
extra stars on woman's crown represent this concept.
The Branch is a symbol for the
Bride-consciousness where every thought starts from God, descendingly, and
conceives man in the idea of God.
The Branch is also called “the Lamb's
wife,” which Mrs. Eddy interprets as presenting the unity of male and
female, as two individual natures in one consciousness, This means each
one of us must include both the masculine teaching of Jesus and the
masculine-feminine teaching of Science and Health; in no other way can the law
of Love be fulfilled. The Branch symbolizes the fact that Science must
encompass Christianity (manhood) in fulfilment of Jeremiah's prophecy (31:22),
“A woman shall compass a man.”
The BRANCH represents all the God-crowned
woman stands for.
Bride: “Purity and innocence,
conceiving man in the idea of God . .. “ (582:14). Bride is a symbol for
Principle when it includes the other six synonymous terms (see My. 225:30).
Bride, the Lamb's wife, presents the unity
of male and female as two individual natures in one. (577:4). Bride symbolizes
our compound spiritual individuality in which there is no impediment to eternal
bliss. (ibid)
Bride is equated with “the Lord God Almighty”
(576:8-11).
The Bride-consciousness is Science
understood spiritually; it is our spiritual divinely scientific consciousness.
(See definition of Branch.)
The Bride as the Branch-idea, as “the
man whose name is the BRANCH,” alone conceives, for Mrs. Eddy defines
“Bride” as conceiving [generic] man in the idea of God (582:14).
Since Bride as the heavenly God-crowned woman is “the spiritual idea of
God” (561:22), she conceives (expands or unfolds) within her own
consciousness and thus “Includes the forever universe” (515:16).
The Bride is the written Word. “The
written Word was necessary for the generic Bride who represents Love which Mrs.
Eddy calls ' . . . the light and glory of divine Science' (575:9). Divine
Science so illumines the earth with its presence as to dissipate the symbols of
sense” (Minnie Mallabar, A Student's Introduction to Christ and
Christmas, p. 20).
Bridegroom: “Spiritual
understanding; the pure consciousness that God, the divine Principle, creates
man as His own spiritual idea and that God is the only creative power”
(582:17).
Jesus called himself the
“bridegroom” (Matt. 9:15). There are twenty-four references to
bridegroom in the Bible.
Bridegroom refers to the ascending thought,
to that which is responsible for separating ourselves from the mortal
viewpoint, and laying down the mortal in preparation for our wedding with God.
Mrs. Eddy's wilderness-woman phase was her manhood or bridegroom aspect.
Under the regime of the bridegroom all things material continue to disappear
until perfection appears and reality is reached. Compare
“ascending” mission of Jesus.
Descending: Refers to the Bride state
which starts every thought from God. We can only descend when the
structure of our consciousness is identical with the structure of God's
consciousness. When we descend we experience “the Word and the wedding of
that Word to all human thought and action” (My. 153:28). The
descent requires a spiritual understanding of Mary Baker Eddy's seven
synonymous terms for God and how they operate on the four levels of spiritual
consciousness.
Extension: The Extension (to The
Mother Church) symbolized the end of human motherhood, and the realization that
man is the reflection of the incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind,
Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love.
The Extension represents catching a glimpse
of the oneness of manhood and womanhood as two individual natures in one
compounded spiritual individuality, where there is no impediment to eternal
bliss.
The Extension stands for the crown of
Christian endeavor (see 583:14-19). It is that which is always unfolding the
highway of hope, faith, understanding.
God-crowned Woman (Rev. 12:1)
signifies the complete and ever-present perfection of man which was
revealed to Mary Baker Eddy.Lamb: “The spiritual idea of Love;
self-immolation; innocence and purity; sacrifice” (590:9). The Lamb of God
is that which has totally sacrificed the mortal sense of life. The Lamb stands
for the purified human consciousness.
Mrs. Eddy explained that the “Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world” refers to the sex act, or
“the spiritual sense of Love that is slain from the foundation of a
material sense of sexuality” (DCC. 101). The Lamb slain is the Pandora box
from which stem all of humanity's ills.
Man Child: The man child is actually
understanding. It is TRUTH. It is sometimes called divine Science. Mrs. Eddy's
mental and spiritual conception of Jesus—of what Jesus was as God,
Principle knows Jesus—is called the “man child.” It is also
called the Lamb of God, Lamb of Love, Bridegroom, purified human consciousness.
In the system of Science it is the calculus of Spirit and Truth.
The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil
has only been Adam's labored human demonstration of Eve's higher and higher
human conceptions until woman, as the Bride, divine Motherhood (see 582:14-16
and 592:16-17; Rev. chapters 21 and 22) brought forth THE man
child—the Tree of Life, the generic form of human good, instead of A man
child, human wilderness—Motherhood conception (Rev. 12th chapter). The
former was Bride's conception “conceiving man [generic man, the whole of
Jesus' teaching] in the idea of God” (582:14). The Bride includes Truth,
the man child.
Mortal Mind: is defined in the
Glossary (591:25) as “nothing claiming to be something...; mythology;
error creating other errors; a suppositional material sense, alias the belief
that sensation is in matter, which is sensationless; a belief that life,
substance and intelligence are in and of matter; the opposite of Spirit and
therefore the opposite of God or good; the belief that life has a beginning and
therefore an end; the belief that man is the offspring of mortals; the belief
that there can be more than one creator . . . “
Mortal mind is all those false beliefs
coming to the surface, all that ancient mythology, those universal and
collective, conscious and subconscious beliefs that make up the mortal
mentality. Jesus termed these beliefs the “liar,” and “a
murderer from the beginning,” because believing in a flesh, blood, and
bones creation always ends in death. It is “idolatry; the subjective
states of error; material senses; that which neither exists in Science nor can
be recognized by the spiritual sense; sin; sickness; death.”
Only Science can free us from the domination
of mortal mind.
Time, Times, and Half A Time: (Rev.
12:14) Time refers to the establishment of the Branch-idea (the Bride
concept; Mrs. Eddy established the Branch church-idea thirteen years before the
institution of The Mother Church.) The Branch is a symbol for the Bride or
Principle (God) and idea (man) one. (465:17)
Times (plural) was the part of the
prophecy that was fulfilled in the Mother and man child phase of Mrs. Eddy's
mission, the “wilderness-Mother” phase.
Half a time: Mrs. Eddy's “half a
time” began with the twentieth century after her Motherhood in the Word
and “church” had been fulfilled. She was then no longer involved in
the affairs of the church in any way other than through her written and
published rules (My. 359:8). In the twentieth century there was a short period
of Leadership after which both Motherhood and Leadership yielded to the other
“half a time”—to the descending Bride, her Word.
Wilderness Woman and Wilderness Mother
are the same. They symbolize the manhood phase of Mrs. Eddy's mission, the
ascending phase where the separation from all materiality takes place. Each one
must go through this motherhood travail of separating himself from materiality,
where we continually detach mortal thought from all material
conceptions—from the belief of a selfhood apart from God. Much of what was
set forth in Mrs. Eddy's 432 editions of the textbook was devoted to her
manhood phase of detaching mortal thought from all material conceptions even
though hers was a descending mission.
While the God-crowned woman sees only flawless perfection,
the wilderness woman had to uncover error and show it to be pure illusion. Mrs.
Eddy could uncover error only because the structure of her consciousness was
the same as the structure of God's, Principle’s, consciousness. She looked
out from immaculate being and started every thought from God.
Woman: The Bride-consciousness. Mrs. Eddy's marvelous
revelation in the Key to the Scriptures was her only message as Woman. No one
before Mrs. Eddy had even faintly discerned these glorious revelations. In this
“Key,” Genesis is again manhood and the Apocalypse is Womanhood.
However, as Woman must encompass man, she compassed, in her founding, the
teaching of the Bible. Woman corresponds to Life and to Love which encompass
Truth. The manhood of Woman revealed itself in her wilderness-Mother role.
Woman is a symbol for Science.
Books Referred To In
These Sessions
Most of the following books are obtainable from:
Rare Book Company
P.O. Box
6957
Freehold, N.J. 07728
Tel. (732) 364-8043
Bookmark
P.O. Box 801143
Santa
Clarita, CA 91380
Bach, Richard. Illusions, The
Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. Delacorte Press/Eleanor Friede.
1977.
Bancroft, Samuel Putnam. Mrs. Eddy as I
Knew Her in 1870.
Brook, Peggy M. John W. Doorly and the
Scientific Evolution of Christian Science.
Brown, W. Gordon. Civilization Lieth
Foursquare.
Carpenter, Gilbert C. C.S.B., and Carpenter,
Gilbert C., Jr. C.S.B.
Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Footsteps.
Mary
Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Precepts.
Carpenter, Gilbert C., Jr., C.S.B.
Fragments Gathered from Unpublished Items Ascribed to Mary Baker Eddy.
Miscellaneous Documents to Christian Science and Mary Baker
Eddy.
Doorly, John W. The Pure Science of Christian
Science.
Eddy, Mary Baker. Science and Health with
Key to the Scriptures.
Prose Works Other than Science and Health.
Christ
and Christmas.
432 Editions of Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures. Church Manual of The First Church of Christ Scientist, in Boston,
Mass.
Science of Man, 1870
Eustace, Herbert W. Christian Science
“Its Clear Correct Teaching” and Complete Writings.
Fitzpatrick, Lida, C.S.D. Notes on the
Course in Divinity Given by Mary Baker Eddy.
Gilman, James F. Recollections of Mary
Baker Eddy, Diary Records. With an Introductory Critique by Gilbert
C. Carpenter, C.S.B. (Sometime Assistant Secretary to Mrs. Eddy) and Gilbert C.
Carpenter, Jr., C.S.B.
Joel Jessen.The Physical, The Mental, The
Spiritual.
Kappeler, Dr. Max. The Structure of the
Christian Science Textbook, A catalog of books and tape recordings by Max
Kappeler is obtainable from The Rare Book Co., P.O. Box 6957, Freehold, NJ
07728.
Mallabar, Minnie. A Student's Introduction to Christ and
Christmas.
Oakes, Richard. Divinity Course and General
Collectanea. Reproduced by kind permission of Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr.,
C.S.B. Essays and Other Footprints. Reproduced by kind permission of
Gilbert Carpenter, Jr., C.S.B.
Orcutt, William Dana. Mary Baker Eddy and Her
Books.
Orgain, Alice. Angelic Overtures of Mary Baker Eddy's
“Christ and Christmas.
As It Is.
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Mary Baker Eddy's Progressive
Revisions of Science and Health.
Footsteps
of Mary Baker Eddy's Progressive Interpretation of Lord's Prayer.
The Story
of the Christian Science Church Manual.
The Detached Branch, The Olive
Branch of Peace.
Powell, Lyman P. Mary Baker Eddy, A Life Size Portrait.
Smith, Clifford P. Historical Sketches.
Stetson, Augusta, C.S.D. Sermons.
Tomlinson, Irving C. The Revelation of St. John an Open
Book. We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Series I, II, and III. The Christian Science
Publishing Society, 1943. Obtainable in C.S. Reading Rooms.
Wilbur, Sibyl. The Life of Mary Baker Eddy.
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