Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 54

Real and counterfeit

367:30 Because Truth is infinite, error should be known as nothing. Because Truth is omnipotent in goodness, error, Truth's opposite, has no might. Evil is but the 368:1 counterpoise of nothingness. The greatest wrong is but a supposit.i.tious opposite of the highest right. The 368:3 confidence inspired by Science lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal. Error is a coward before Truth. Divine Science insists that 368:6 time will prove all this. Both truth and error have come nearer than ever before to the apprehension of mortals, and truth will become still clearer as error is self- 368:9 destroyed.

Results of faith in Truth

Against the fatal beliefs that error is as real as Truth, that evil is equal in power to good if not superior, and that 368:12 discord is as normal as harmony, even the hope of freedom from the bondage of sickness and sin has little inspiration to nerve endeavor. When we 368:15 come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in G.o.d than in man, 368:18 then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error.

Life independent of matter

That Life is not contingent on bodily conditions is 368:21 proved, when we learn that life and man survive this body. Neither evil, disease, nor death can be spiritual, and the material belief in them dis- 368:24 appears in the ratio of one's spiritual growth. Because matter has no consciousness or Ego, it cannot act; its conditions are illusions, and these false conditions are the 368:27 source of all seeming sickness. Admit the existence of matter, and you admit that mortality (and therefore dis- ease) has a foundation in fact. Deny the existence of matter, and you can destroy the belief in material con- ditions. When fear disappears, the foundation of disease is gone. Once let the mental physician believe in the 369:1 reality of matter, and he is liable to admit also the reality of all discordant conditions, and this hinders his de- 369:3 stroying them. Thus he is unfitted for the successful treatment of disease.

Man's ent.i.ty

In proportion as matter loses to human sense all en- 369:6 t.i.ty as man, in that proportion does man become its master. He enters into a diviner sense of the facts, and comprehends the theology of Jesus 369:9 as demonstrated in healing the sick, raising the dead, and walking over the wave. All these deeds manifested Jesus' control over the belief that matter is substance, 369:12 that it can be the arbiter of life or the constructor of any form of existence.

The Christ treatment

We never read that Luke or Paul made a reality of 369:15 disease in order to discover some means of healing it.

Jesus never asked if disease were acute or chronic, and he never recommended atten- 369:18 tion to laws of health, never gave drugs, never prayed to know if G.o.d were willing that a man should live. He understood man, whose life is G.o.d, to be immortal, and 369:21 knew that man has not two lives, one to be destroyed and the other to be made indestructible.

Matter not medicine

The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the prevent- 369:24 ive and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science, as would be readily seen, if psychology, or the Science of Spirit, G.o.d, was understood.

369:27 Unscientific methods are finding their dead level. Lim- ited to matter by their own law, what have they of the advantages of Mind and immortality?

No healing in sin

369:30 No man is physically healed in wilful error or by it, any more than he is morally saved in or by sin. It is error even to murmur or to be angry over sin. To be 370:1 every whit whole, man must be better spiritually as well as physically. To be immortal, we must forsake the 370:3 mortal sense of things, turn from the lie of false belief to Truth, and gather the facts of being from the divine Mind. The body improves under the 370:6 same regimen which spiritualizes the thought; and if health is not made manifest under this regimen, this proves that fear is governing the body. This is the law 370:9 of cause and effect, or like producing like.

Like curing like

h.o.m.oeopathy furnishes the evidence to the senses, that symptoms, which might be produced by a certain drug, 370:12 are removed by using the same drug which might cause the symptoms. This confirms my theory that faith in the drug is the sole factor in the 370:15 cure. The effect, which mortal mind produces through one belief, it removes through an opposite belief, but it uses the same medicine in both cases.

370:18 The moral and spiritual facts of health, whispered into thought, produce very direct and marked effects on the body. A physical diagnosis of disease - since mor- 370:21 tal mind must be the cause of disease - tends to induce disease.

Transient potency of drugs

According to both medical testimony and individual 370:24 experience, a drug may eventually lose its supposed power and do no more for the patient. Hygienic treatment also loses its efficacy. Quackery 370:27 likewise fails at length to inspire the credulity of the sick, and then they cease to improve. These les- sons are useful. They should naturally and genuinely 370:30 change our basis from sensation to Christian Science, from error to Truth, from matter to Spirit.

Diagnosis of matter

Physicians examine the pulse, tongue, lungs, to dis- 371:1 cover the condition of matter, when in fact all is Mind. The body is the substratum of mortal mind, 371:3 and this so-called mind must finally yield to the mandate of immortal Mind.

Ghost-stories inducing fear

Disquisitions on disease have a mental effect similar 371:6 to that produced on children by telling ghost-stories in the dark. By those uninstructed in Christian Science, nothing is really understood of material 371:9 existence. Mortals are believed to be here without their consent and to be removed as involuntarily, not knowing why nor when. As frightened children look everywhere 371:12 for the imaginary ghost, so sick humanity sees danger in every direction, and looks for relief in all ways except the right one. Darkness induces fear. The adult, in bond- 371:15 age to his beliefs, no more comprehends his real being than does the child; and the adult must be taken out of his darkness, before he can get rid of the illusive suffer- 371:18 ings which throng the gloaming. The way in divine Science is the only way out of this condition.

Mind imparts purity, health, and beauty

I would not transform the infant at once into a 371:21 man, nor would I keep the suckling a lifelong babe.

No impossible thing do I ask when urging the claims of Christian Science; but because 371:24 this teaching is in advance of the age, we should not deny our need of its spiritual unfoldment.

Mankind will improve through Science and Christi- 371:27 anity. The necessity for uplifting the race is father to the fact that Mind can do it; for Mind can impart purity instead of impurity, strength instead of weak- 371:30 ness, and health instead of disease. Truth is an altera- tive in the entire system, and can make it "every whit whole."

Brain not intelligent

372:1 Remember, brain is not mind. Matter cannot be sick, and Mind is immortal. The mortal body is only an erro- 372:3 neous mortal belief of mind in matter. What you call matter was originally error in solu- tion, elementary mortal mind, - likened by Milton to 372:6 "chaos and old night." One theory about this mortal mind is, that its sensations can reproduce man, can form blood, flesh, and bones. The Science of being, in which 372:9 all is divine Mind, or G.o.d and His idea, would be clearer in this age, but for the belief that matter is the medium of man, or that man can enter his own embodied thought, 372:12 bind himself with his own beliefs, and then call his bonds material and name them divine law.

Veritable success

When man demonstrates Christian Science absolutely, 372:15 he will be perfect. He can neither sin, suffer, be subject to matter, nor disobey the law of G.o.d. There- fore he will be as the angels in heaven. Chris- 372:18 tian Science and Christianity are one. How, then, in Christianity any more than in Christian Science, can we believe in the reality and power of both Truth and error, 372:21 Spirit and matter, and hope to succeed with contraries?

Matter is not self-sustaining. Its false supports fail one after another. Matter succeeds for a period only by 372:24 falsely parading in the vestments of law.

Recognition of benefits

"Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." In Chris- 372:27 tian Science, a denial of Truth is fatal, while a just acknowledgment of Truth and of what it has done for us is an effectual help. If pride, super- 372:30 st.i.tion, or any error prevents the honest recognition of benefits received, this will be a hindrance to the recovery of the sick and the success of the student.

Disease far more docile than iniquity

373:1 If we are Christians on all moral questions, but are in darkness as to the physical exemption which Christian- 373:3 ity includes, then we must have more faith in G.o.d on this subject and be more alive to His promises. It is easier to cure the most 373:6 malignant disease than it is to cure sin. The author has raised up the dying, partly because they were willing to be restored, while she has struggled long, and perhaps in 373:9 vain, to lift a student out of a chronic sin. Under all modes of pathological treatment, the sick recover more rapidly from disease than does the sinner from his sin.

373:12 Healing is easier than teaching, if the teaching is faithfully done.

Love frees from fear

The fear of disease and the love of sin are the sources 373:15 of man's enslavement. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," but the Scriptures also declare, through the exalted thought of John, that 373:18 "perfect Love casteth out fear."

The fear occasioned by ignorance can be cured; but to remove the effects of fear produced by sin, you must 373:21 rise above both fear and sin. Disease is expressed not so much by the lips as in the functions of the body. Es- tablish the scientific sense of health, and you relieve the 373:24 oppressed organ. The inflammation, decomposition, or deposit will abate, and the disabled organ will resume its healthy functions.

Mind circulates blood

373:27 When the blood rushes madly through the veins or languidly creeps along its frozen channels, we call these conditions disease. This is a misconception.

373:30 Mortal mind is producing the propulsion or the languor, and we prove this to be so when by mental means the circulation is changed, and returns to that standard 374:1 which mortal mind has decided upon as essential for health. Anodynes, counter-irritants, and depletion never 374:3 reduce inflammation scientifically, but the truth of being, whispered into the ear of mortal mind, will bring relief.

Mind can destroy all ills

Hatred and its effects on the body are removed by 374:6 Love. Because mortal mind seems to be conscious, the sick say: "How can my mind cause a disease I never thought of and knew nothing about, 374:9 until it appeared on my body?" The author has an- swered this question in her explanation of disease as origi- nating in human belief before it is consciously apparent 374:12 on the body, which is in fact the objective state of mortal mind, though it is called matter. This mortal blindness and its sharp consequences show our need of divine meta- 374:15 physics. Through immortal Mind, or Truth, we can destroy all ills which proceed from mortal mind.

Ignorance of the cause or approach of disease is no 374:18 argument against the mental origin of disease. You con- fess to ignorance of the future and incapacity to preserve your own existence, and this belief helps rather than 374:21 hinders disease. Such a state of mind induces sickness.

It is like walking in darkness on the edge of a precipice.

You cannot forget the belief of danger, and your steps 374:24 are less firm because of your fear, and ignorance of mental cause and effect.

Temperature is mental

Heat and cold are products of mortal mind. The body, 374:27 when bereft of mortal mind, at first cools, and after- wards it is resolved into its primitive mortal elements. Nothing that lives ever dies, and 374:30 _vice versa_. Mortal mind produces animal heat, and then expels it through the abandonment of a belief, or in- creases it to the point of self-destruction. Hence it is 375:1 mortal mind, not matter, which says, "I die." Heat would pa.s.s from the body as painlessly as gas dissipates 375:3 into the air when it evaporates but for the belief that in- flammation and pain must accompany the separation of heat from the body.

Science _versus _hypnotism

375:6 Chills and heat are often the form in which fever mani- fests itself. Change the mental state, and the chills and fever disappear. The old-school physician 375:9 proves this when his patient says, "I am better,"

but the patient believes that matter, not mind, has helped him. The Christian Scientist demonstrates 375:12 that divine Mind heals, while the hypnotist dispossesses the patient of his individuality in order to control him.

No person is benefited by yielding his mentality to any 375:15 mental despotism or malpractice. All unscientific mental practice is erroneous and powerless, and should be under- stood and so rendered fruitless. The genuine Christian 375:18 Scientist is adding to his patient's mental and moral power, and is increasing his patient's spirituality while restoring him physically through divine Love.