0.0 – Christian Science – 16 Books by Mary Baker Eddy – Bk 4 – Rudimental Divine Science – Chpt 11 – Demonstration in Healing

  	    How should I undertake to demonstrate Christian Science
  	in healing the sick? 

 9	    As I have given you only an epitome of the Principle,
  	so I can give you here nothing but an outline of the prac-
  	tice. Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others;
12	then it follows thou wilt be strong in God, the eternal
  	good. Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other
  	healer. 
15	    In all moral revolutions, from a lower to a higher con-
  	dition of thought and action, Truth is in the minority and
  	error has the majority. It is not otherwise in the field
18	of Mind-healing. The man who calls himself a Christian
  	Scientist, yet is false to God and man, is also uttering
  	falsehood about good. This falsity shuts against him the
21	Truth and the Principle of Science, but opens a way
  	whereby, through will-power, sense may say the unchris-
  	tian practitioner can heal; but Science shows that he makes
24	morally worse the invalid whom he is supposed to cure. 
  	    By this I  mean that mortal mind should not be falsely
  	impregnated. If by such lower means the health is seem-
27	ingly restored, the restoration is not lasting, and the patient
 
   
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 1	is liable to a relapse, — "The last state of that man is
  	worse than the first." 
 3	    The teacher of Mind-healing who is not a Christian,
  	in the highest sense, is constantly sowing the seeds of
  	discord and disease. Even the truth he speaks is more
 6	or less blended with error; and this error will spring up
  	in the mind of his pupil. The pupil's imperfect knowl-
  	edge will lead to weakness in practice, and he will be a
 9	poor practitioner, if not a malpractitioner. 
  	    The basis of malpractice is in erring human will, and
  	this will is an outcome of what I call mortal mind, — a
12	false and temporal sense of Truth, Life, and Love. To
  	heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on
  	immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being; and
15	this requires a preparation of the heart and an answer
  	of the lips from the Lord. 
  	    The Science of healing is the Truth of healing. If
18	one is untruthful, his mental state weighs against his
  	healing power; and similar effects come from pride,
  	envy, lust, and all fleshly vices. 
21	    The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, with-
  	out a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument,
  	has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases. 
24	    The thoughts of the practitioner should be imbued with
  	a clear conviction of the omnipotence and omnipresence
  	of God; that He is All, and that there can be none beside
27	Him; that God is good, and the producer only of good;
  	and hence, that whatever militates against health, har-
 
   
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 1	mony, or holiness, is an unjust usurper of the throne of
  	the controller of all mankind. Note this, that if you have
 3	power in error, you forfeit the power that Truth bestows,
  	and its salutary influence on yourself and others. 
  	    You must feel and know that God alone governs man;
 6	that His government is harmonious; that He is too pure
  	to behold iniquity, and divides His power with nothing
  	evil or material; that material laws are only human be-
 9	liefs, which govern mortals wrongfully. These beliefs arise
  	from the subjective states of thought, producing the be-
  	liefs of a mortal material universe, — so-called, and of
12	material disease and mortality. Mortal ills are but errors
  	of thought, — diseases of mortal mind, and not of matter;
  	for matter cannot feel, see, or report pain or disease. 
15	    Disease is a thing of thought manifested on the body;
  	and fear is the procurator of the thought which causes
  	sickness and suffering. Remove this fear by the true
18	sense that God is Love, — and that Love punishes nothing
  	but sin, — and the patient can then look up to the loving
  	God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children
21	of men, who are punished because of disobedience to His
  	spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed, removes
  	every erroneous physical and mental state. The belief
24	that matter can master Mind, and make you ill, is an
  	error which Truth will destroy. 
  	    You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways. 
27	It is only a lack of understanding of the allness of God,
  	which leads you to believe in the existence of matter, or
 
   
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 1	that matter can frame its own conditions, contrary to the
  	law of Spirit. 
 3	    Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you to Christ;
  	first to faith in Christ; next to belief in God as omnipo-
  	tent; and finally to the understanding of God and man
 6	in Christian Science, whereby you learn that God is good,
  	and in Science man is His likeness, the forever reflection of
  	goodness. Therefore good is one and All. 
 9	    This brings forward the next proposition in Christian
  	Science, — namely, that there are no sickness, sin, and
  	death in the divine Mind. What seem to be disease, vice,
12	and mortality are illusions of the physical senses. These
  	illusions are not real, but unreal. Health is the conscious-
  	ness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the
15	absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else. 
  	In a moment you may awake from a night-dream; just
  	so you can awake from the dream of sickness; but the
18	demonstration of the Science of Mind-healing by no means
  	rests on the strength of human belief. This demonstra-
  	tion is based on a true understanding of God and divine
21	Science, which takes away every human belief, and,
  	through the illumination of spiritual understanding, re-
  	veals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whence
24	emanate health, harmony, and Life eternal. 
  	    The lecturer, teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian
  	Scientist, never introduces the subject of human anatomy;
27	never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous opera-
  	tions of the human frame. He never talks about the
 
   
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 1	structure of the material body. He never lays his hands
  	on the patient, nor manipulates the parts of the body sup-
 3	posed to be ailing. Above all, he keeps unbroken the Ten
  	Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on the
  	Mount. 
 6	    Wrong thoughts and methods strengthen the sense of
  	disease, instead of cure it; or else quiet the fear of the
  	sick on false grounds, encouraging them in the belief of
 9	error until they hold stronger than before the belief that
  	they are first made sick by matter, and then restored
  	through its agency. This fosters infidelity, and is mental
12	quackery, that denies the Principle of Mind-healing. If
  	the sick are aided in this mistaken fashion, their ailments
  	will return, and be more stubborn because the relief is
15	unchristian and unscientific. 
  	    Christian Science erases from the minds of invalids
  	their mistaken belief that they live in or because of matter,
18	or that a so-called material organism controls the health
  	or existence of mankind, and induces rest in God, divine
  	Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for the well-
21	being of man. As power divine is the healer, why should
  	mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of food? 
  	Jesus said: "Take no thought what ye shall eat." 
24	    The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds
  	of the healthy from any sense of subordination to their
  	bodies, and teach them that the divine Mind, not material
27	law, maintains human health and life. 
  	    A Christian Scientist knows that, in Science, disease
 
   
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 1	is unreal; that Mind is not in matter; that Life is God,
  	good; hence Life is not functional, and is neither matter
 3	nor mortal mind; knows that pantheism and theosophy
  	are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief,
  	this basis of Christian Science, renders it impossible to
 6	demonstrate the Principle of this Science, even in the
  	smallest degree. 
  	    A mortal and material body is not the actual individuality
 9	of man made in the divine and spiritual image of God. 
  	The material body is not the likeness of Spirit; hence it
  	is not the truth of being, but the likeness of error — the
12	human belief which saith there is more than one God, — 
  	there is more than one Life and one Mind. 
  	    In Deuteronomy (iv. 35) we read: "The Lord, He is
15	God; there is none else beside Him." In John (iv. 24)
  	we may read: "God is Spirit." These propositions, un-
  	derstood in their Science, elucidate my meaning. 
18	    When treating a patient, it is not Science to treat every
  	organ in the body. To aver that harmony is the real and
  	discord is the unreal, and then give special attention to
21	what according to their own belief is diseased, is scientific;
  	and if the healer realizes the truth, it will free his patient. SHOW ALL