0.0 – Mary Baker Eddy’s Other Writings – Prose Works + Manual

                           Contents
 
	1             DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
	
      1             PRINCIPL...E OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE  
	
      1             PERSONALITY OF GOD  
	
      2             HEALING SICKNESS AND SIN  
	
      3             INDIVIDUALITY OF GOD
	
      4             MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL SCIENCE  
	
      4             NON-EXISTENCE OF MATTER
	
      6             MATERIALITY INTANGIBLE 
	
      6             BASIS OF MIND-HEALING  
	
      7             MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL MAN
	
      8             DEMONSTRATION IN HEALING  
	
    13             MEANS AND METHODS  
        
       16             ONLY ONE SCHOOL

                           Contents
 
	1             DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 
	
      1             PRINCIPL...E OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE  
	
      1             PERSONALITY OF GOD  
	
      2             HEALING SICKNESS AND SIN  
	
      3             INDIVIDUALITY OF GOD
	
      4             MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL SCIENCE  
	
      4             NON-EXISTENCE OF MATTER
	
      6             MATERIALITY INTANGIBLE 
	
      6             BASIS OF MIND-HEALING  
	
      7             MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL MAN
	
      8             DEMONSTRATION IN HEALING  
	
    13             MEANS AND METHODS  
        
       16             ONLY ONE SCHOOL

 1	    How would you define Christian Science? 

  	    As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and
 3	demon...strating the divine Principle and rule of
  	universal harmony. 

  	    What is the Principle of Christian Science? 

 6	    It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal
  	Mi...nd, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father
  	which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth,
 9	and Love, — these are the deific Principle. 

  	    Do you mean by this that God is a person? 

  	    The word person affords a large margin for misappre-
12	hen...sion, as well as definition. In French the equivalent
  	word is personne. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is
  	persona. The Latin verb personare is compounded of
15	the prefix per (through) and sonare (to sound). 
  	    In law, Blackstone applies the word personal to bodily
  	presence, in distinction from one's appearance (in court,
18	for example) by deputy or proxy. 
 
   
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 1	    Other definitions of person, as given by Webster, are
  	"a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent;
 3	especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman,
  	or child; an individual of the human race." He adds,
  	that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one
 6	of the three subjects, or agents, constituting the Godhead. 
  	    In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely indi-
  	vidual, and not a person, as that word is used by the best
 9	authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining
  	person as especially a finite human being; but God is
  	personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit. 
12	    We do not conceive rightly of God, if we think of Him
  	as less than infinite. The human person is finite; and
  	therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Deity by
15	using the phrase an individual God, rather than a per-
  	sonal God; for there is and can be but one infinite indi-
  	vidual Spirit, whom mortals have named God. 
18	    Science defines the individuality of God as supreme
  	good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense
  	of Deity, takes away the trammels assigned to God by
21	finite thought, and introduces us to higher definitions. 

  	    Is healing the sick the whole of Science? 

  	    Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Chris-
24...	tian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and
  	action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The
  	emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of
27	sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the
 
   
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 1	cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they
  	do not love to be sick. Hence their comparative acqui-
 3	escence in your endeavors to heal them of bodily ills, and
  	their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them from
  	sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which
 6	redeem them, and become their Saviour, through the
  	flesh, from the flesh, — the material world and evil. 
  	    This Life, Truth, and Love — this trinity of good — was
 9	individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the
  	man Jesus. His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it
  	lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing. 
12	His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models
  	of the masters in music and painting are to artists. 
  	    Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate mor-
15	ally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon
  	on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe
  	drugs, or deny God. Jesus' healing was spiritual in its
18	nature, method, and design. He wrought the cure of
  	disease through the divine Mind, which gives all true
  	volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental
21	error made manifest physically, and establishes the oppo-
  	site manifestation of Truth upon the body in harmony
  	and health. 

24	    By the individuality of God, do you mean that God has
  	a finite form? 

  	    No. I mean the infinite and d...ivine Principle of all
27	being, the ever-present I AM, filling all space, including
 
   
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 1	in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God. Life,
  	Truth, and Love are this trinity in unity, and their uni-
 3	verse is spiritual, peopled with perfect beings, harmonious
  	and eternal, of which our material universe and men are
  	the counterfeits. 

 6	    Is God the Principle of all science, or only of Divine or
  	Christian Science? 

  	    Science is Mind manif...ested. It is not material; neither
 9	is it of human origin. 
  	    All true Science represents a moral and spiritual force,
  	which holds the earth in its orbit. This force is Spirit,
12	that can "bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades," and
  	"loose the bands of Orion." 
  	    There is no material science, if by that term you mean
15	material intelligence. God is infinite Mind, hence there
  	is no other Mind. Good is Mind, but evil is not Mind. 
  	Good is not in evil, but in God only. Spirit is not in matter,
18	but in Spirit only. Law is not in matter, but in Mind only. 

  	    Is there no matter? 

  	    All is Mind. According to the Scriptures and Christian
21	Science, all is God, an...d there is naught beside Him. "God
  	is Spirit;" and we can only learn and love Him through
  	His spirit, which brings out the fruits of Spirit and ex-
24	tinguishes forever the works of darkness by His marvel-
  	lous light. 
  	    The five material senses testify to the existence of
 
   
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 1	matter. The spiritual senses afford no such evidence,
  	but deny the testimony of the material senses. Which
 3	testimony is correct? The Bible says: "Let God be
  	true, and every man a liar." If, as the Scriptures imply,
  	God is All-in-all, then all must be Mind, since God is
 6	Mind. Therefore in divine Science there is no material
  	mortal man, for man is spiritual and eternal, he being
  	made in the image of Spirit, or God. 
 9	    There is no material sense. Matter is inert, inanimate,
  	and sensationless, — considered apart from Mind. Lives
  	there a man who has ever found Soul in the body or in
12	matter, who has ever seen spiritual substance with the
  	eye, who has found sight in matter, hearing in the material
  	ear, or intelligence in non-intelligence? If there is any
15	such thing as matter, it must be either mind which is
  	called matter, or matter without Mind. 
  	    Matter without Mind is a moral impossibility. Mind
18	in matter is pantheism. Soul is the only real conscious-
  	ness which cognizes being. The body does not see, hear,
  	smell, or taste. Human belief says that it does; but
21	destroy this belief of seeing with the eye, and we could
  	not see materially; and so it is with each of the physical
  	senses. 
24	    Accepting the verdict of these material senses, we should
  	believe man and the universe to be the football of chance
  	and sinking into oblivion. Destroy the five senses as
27	organized matter, and you must either become non-exist-
  	ent, or exist in Mind only; and this latter conclusion is
 
   
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 1	the simple solution of the problem of being, and leads to
  	the equal inference that there is no matter. 

 3	    The sweet sounds and glories of earth and sky, assum-
  	ing manifold forms and colors, — are they not tangibl...e and
  	material? 

 6	    As Mind they are real, but not as matter. All beauty
  	and goodness are in and of Mind, emanating from God;
  	but when we change the nature of beauty and goodness
 9	from Mind to matter, the beauty is marred, through a
  	false conception, and, to the material senses, evil takes
  	the place of good. 
12	    Has not the truth in Christian Science met a response
  	from Prof. S. P. Langley, the young American astronomer? 
  	He says that "color is in us," not "in the rose;" and he
15	adds that this is not "any metaphysical subtlety," but a
  	fact "almost universally accepted, within the last few
  	years, by physicists." 

18	    Is not the basis of Mind-healing a destruction of the evi-
  	dence of the material senses, and restoration of t...he true
  	evidence of spiritual sense? 

21	    It is, so far as you perceive and understand this predi-
  	cate and postulate of Mind-healing; but the Science of
  	Mind-healing is best understood in practical demonstra-
24	tion. The proof of what you apprehend, in the simplest
  	definite and absolute form of healing, can alone answer
  	this question of how much you understand of Christian
 
   
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 1	Science Mind-healing. Not that all healing is Science,
  	by any means; but that the simplest case, healed in Science,
 3	is as demonstrably scientific, in a small degree, as the most
  	difficult case so treated. 
  	    The infinite and subtler conceptions and consistencies
 6	of Christian Science are set forth in my work Science and
  	Health. 

  	    Is man material or spiritual? 

 9	    In Science, man is the manifest reflection of God, per-
  	fect and imm...ortal Mind. He is the likeness of God; and
  	His likeness would be lost if inverted or perverted. 
12	    According to the evidence of the so-called physical
  	senses, man is material, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal. 
  	Science and spiritual sense contradict this, and they afford
15	the only true evidence of the being of God and man, the
  	material evidence being wholly false. 
  	    Jesus said of personal evil, that "the truth abode not
18	in him," because there is no material sense. Matter, as
  	matter, has neither sensation nor personal intelligence. 
  	As a pretension to be Mind, matter is a lie, and "the
21	father of lies;" Mind is not in matter, and Spirit cannot
  	originate its opposite, named matter. 
  	    According to divine Science, Spirit no more changes its
24	species, by evolving matter from Spirit, than natural
  	science, so-called, or material laws, bring about altera-
  	tion of species by transforming minerals into vegetables
27	or plants into animals, — thus confusing and confounding
 
   
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 1	the three great kingdoms. No rock brings forth an apple;
  	no pine-tree produces a mammal or provides breast-milk
 3	for babes. 
  	    To sense, the lion of to-day is the lion of six thousand
  	years ago; but in Science, Spirit sends forth its own harm-
 6	less likeness. 

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

 9	    As I have given you o...nly 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. 

  	    What are the means and methods of trustworthy Christian
24	Scientists? 

  	    These people should not be exp...ected, more than others,
  	to give all their time to Christian Science work, receiving
27	no wages in return, but left to be fed, clothed, and sheltered
 
   
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 1	by charity. Neither can they serve two masters, giving
  	only a portion of their time to God, and still be Christian
 3	Scientists. They must give Him all their services, and
  	"owe no man." To do this, they must at present ask a
  	suitable price for their services, and then conscientiously
 6	earn their wages, strictly practising Divine Science, and
  	healing the sick. 
  	    The author never sought charitable support, but gave
 9	fully seven-eighths of her time without remuneration, ex-
  	cept the bliss of doing good. The only pay taken for her
  	labors was from classes, and often those were put off for
12	months, in order to do gratuitous work. She has never
  	taught a Primary class without several, and sometimes
  	seventeen, free students in it; and has endeavored to take
15	the full price of tuition only from those who were able to
  	pay. The student who pays must of necessity do better
  	than he who does not pay, and yet will expect and require
18	others to pay him. No discount on tuition was made on
  	higher classes, because their first classes furnished students
  	with the means of paying for their tuition in the higher
21	instruction, and of doing charity work besides. If the
  	Primary students are still impecunious, it is their own
  	fault, and this ill-success of itself leaves them unprepared
24	to enter higher classes. 
  	    People are being healed by means of my instructions,
  	both in and out of class. Many students, who have
27	passed through a regular course of instruction from me,
  	have been invalids and were healed in the class; but ex-
 
   
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 1	perience has shown that this defrauds the scholar, though
  	it heals the sick. 
 3	    It is seldom that a student, if healed in a class, has left
  	it understanding sufficiently the Science of healing to im-
  	mediately enter upon its practice. Why? Because the
 6	glad surprise of suddenly regained health is a shock to
  	the mind; and this holds and satisfies the thought with
  	exuberant joy. 
 9	    This renders the mind less inquisitive, plastic, and tract-
  	able; and deep systematic thinking is impracticable until
  	this impulse subsides. 
12	    This was the principal reason for advising diseased
  	people not to enter a class. Few were taken besides inva-
  	lids for students, until there were enough practitioners to
15	fill in the best possible manner the department of healing. 
  	Teaching and healing should have separate departments,
  	and these should be fortified on all sides with suitable and
18	thorough guardianship and grace. 
  	    Only a very limited number of students can advanta-
  	geously enter a class, grapple with this subject, and well
21	assimilate what has been taught them. It is impossible
  	to teach thorough Christian Science to promiscuous and
  	large assemblies, or to persons who cannot be addressed
24	individually, so that the mind of the pupil may be dissected
  	more critically than the body of a subject laid bare for
  	anatomical examination. Public lectures cannot be such
27	lessons in Christian Science as are required to empty and
  	to fill anew the individual mind. 
 
   
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 1	    If publicity and material control are the motives for
  	teaching, then public lectures can take the place of private
 3	lessons; but the former can never give a thorough knowledge
  	of Christian Science, and a Christian Scientist will never
  	undertake to fit students for practice by such means. Lec-
 6	tures in public are needed, but they must be subordinate
  	to thorough class instruction in any branch of education. 
  	    None with an imperfect sense of the spiritual significa-
 9	tion of the Bible, and its scientific relation to Mind-
  	healing, should attempt overmuch in their translation of
  	the Scriptures into the "new tongue;" but I see that
12	some novices, in the truth of Science, and some impostors
  	are committing this error. 

  	    Is there more than one school of scientific healing? 

15	    In reality there is, and can be, but one school o...f the
  	Science of Mind-healing. Any departure from Science is
  	an irreparable loss of Science. Whatever is said and
18	written correctly on this Science originates from the Princi-
  	ple and practice laid down in Science and Health, a work
  	which I published in 1875. This was the first book, re-
21	corded in history, which elucidates a pathological Science
  	purely mental. 
  	    Minor shades of difference in Mind-healing have origi-
24	nated with certain opposing factions, springing up among
  	unchristian students, who, fusing with a class of aspirants
  	which snatch at whatever is progressive, call it their first-
27	fruits, or else post mortem evidence. 
 
   
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 1	    A slight divergence is fatal in Science. Like certain
  	Jews whom St. Paul had hoped to convert from mere
 3	motives of self-aggrandizement to the love of Christ, these
  	so-called schools are clogging the wheels of progress by
  	blinding the people to the true character of Christian
 6	Science, — its moral power, and its divine efficacy to
  	heal. 
  	    The true understanding of Christian Science Mind-
 9	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
12	victories, under which she needed miraculous vision to
  	sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this
  	Science. 
15	    The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meek-
  	ness, selflessness, and love are the paths of His testimony
         and the footsteps of His flock