Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 69

Mindless methods

484:6 _Question_. - Does Christian Science, or metaphysical healing, include medication, material hygiene, mesmer- ism, hypnotism, theosophy, or spiritualism?

484:9 _Answer_. - Not one of them is included in it. In di- vine Science, the supposed laws of matter yield to the law of Mind. What are termed natural 484:12 science and material laws are the objective states of mortal mind. The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals.

484:15 Physical force and mortal mind are one. Drugs and hygiene oppose the supremacy of the divine Mind.

Drugs and inert matter are unconscious, mindless. Cer- 484:18 tain results, supposed to proceed from drugs, are really caused by the faith in them which the false human con- sciousness is educated to feel.

Animal magnetism error

484:21 Mesmerism is mortal, material illusion. Animal mag- netism is the voluntary or involuntary action of error in all its forms; it is the human antipode 484:24 of divine Science. Science must triumph over material sense, and Truth over error, thus putting an end to the hypotheses involved in all false theories 484:27 and practices.

Error only ephemeral

_Question_. - Is materiality the concomitant of spirit- uality, and is material sense a necessary preliminary to 484:30 the understanding and expression of Spirit?

485:1 _Answer_. - If error is necessary to define or to reveal Truth, the answer is yes; but not otherwise. _Material 485:3 sense_ is an absurd phrase, for matter has no sensation. Science declares that Mind, not matter, sees, hears, feels, speaks. Whatever contradicts 485:6 this statement is the false sense, which ever betrays mortals into sickness, sin, and death. If the unimpor- tant and evil appear, only soon to disappear because 485:9 of their uselessness or their iniquity, then these ephem- eral views of error ought to be obliterated by Truth.

Why malign Christian Science for instructing mortals how 485:12 to make sin, disease, and death appear more and more unreal?

Scientific translations

Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not 485:15 to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth.

485:18 Not death, but the understanding of Life, makes man im- mortal. The belief that life can be in matter or soul in body, and that man springs from dust or from an egg, 485:21 is the result of the mortal error which Christ, or Truth, destroys by fulfilling the spiritual law of being, in which man is perfect, even as the "Father which is in heaven 485:24 is perfect." If thought yields its dominion to other powers, it cannot outline on the body its own beautiful images, but it effaces them and delineates foreign agents, 485:27 called disease and sin.

Material beliefs

The heathen G.o.ds of mythology controlled war and agriculture as much as nerves control sensation or 485:30 muscles measure strength. To say that strength is in matter, is like saying that the power is in the lever. The notion of any life or intelli- 486:1 gence in matter is without foundation in fact, and you can have no faith in falsehood when you have learned 486:3 falsehood's true nature.

Sense _versus_ Soul

Suppose one accident happens to the eye, another to the ear, and so on, until every corporeal sense is quenched.

486:6 What is man's remedy? To die, that he may regain these senses? Even then he must gain spiritual understanding and spiritual sense in order to 486:9 possess immortal consciousness. Earth's preparatory school must be improved to the utmost. In reality man never dies. The belief that he dies will not establish his 486:12 scientific harmony. Death is not the result of Truth but of error, and one error will not correct another.

Death an error

Jesus proved by the prints of the nails, that his body 486:15 was the same immediately after death as before. If death restores sight, sound, and strength to man, then death is not an enemy but a better friend 486:18 than Life. Alas for the blindness of belief, which makes harmony conditional upon death and matter, and yet supposes Mind unable to produce harmony! So long 486:21 as this error of belief remains, mortals will continue mor- tal in belief and subject to chance and change.

Permanent sensibility

Sight, hearing, all the spiritual senses of man, are 486:24 eternal. They cannot be lost. Their reality and immor- tality are in Spirit and understanding, not in matter, - hence their permanence. If this 486:27 were not so, man would be speedily annihilated. If the five corporeal senses were the medium through which to understand G.o.d, then palsy, blindness, and deafness 486:30 would place man in a terrible situation, where he would be like those "having no hope, and without G.o.d in the world;" but as a matter of fact, these calamities often 487:1 drive mortals to seek and to find a higher sense of happi- ness and existence.

Exercise of Mind-faculties

487:3 Life is deathless. Life is the origin and ultimate of man, never attainable through death, but gained by walk- ing in the pathway of Truth both before and 487:6 after that which is called death. There is more Christianity in seeing and hearing spiritually than materially. There is more Science in the perpetual 487:9 exercise of the Mind-faculties than in their loss. Lost they cannot be, while Mind remains. The apprehension of this gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf cen- 487:12 turies ago, and it will repeat the wonder.

Understanding _versus_ belief

_Question_. - You speak of belief. Who or what is it that believes?

487:15 _Answer_. - Spirit is all-knowing; this precludes the need of believing. Matter cannot believe, and Mind understands. The body cannot believe. The 487:18 believer and belief are one and are mortal.

Christian evidence is founded on Science or demonstrable Truth, flowing from immortal Mind, and 487:21 there is in reality no such thing as _mortal_ mind. Mere belief is blindness without Principle from which to ex- plain the reason of its hope. The belief that life is sen- 487:24 tient and intelligent matter is erroneous.

The Apostle James said, "Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works."

487:27 The understanding that Life is G.o.d, Spirit, lengthens our days by strengthening our trust in the deathless reality of Life, its almightiness and immortality.

Confirmation by healing

487:30 This faith relies upon an understood Principle. This Principle makes whole the diseased, and brings out the 488:1 enduring and harmonious phases of things. The result of our teachings is their sufficient confirmation. When, 488:3 on the strength of these instructions, you are able to banish a severe malady, the cure shows that you understand this teaching, and therefore you re- 488:6 ceive the blessing of Truth.

Belief and firm trust

The Hebrew and Greek words often translated _belief_ differ somewhat in meaning from that conveyed by the 488:9 English verb _believe_; they have more the sig- nificance of faith, understanding, trust, con- stancy, firmness. Hence the Scriptures often appear in 488:12 our common version to approve and endorse belief, when they mean to enforce the necessity of understanding.

All faculties from Mind

_Question_. - Do the five corporeal senses const.i.tute 488:15 man?

_Answer_. - Christian Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines 488:18 these so-called senses as _mortal beliefs_, the testimony of which cannot be true either of man or of his Maker. The corporeal senses can take no 488:21 cognizance of spiritual reality and immortality. Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief be- stows upon them, than the fibres of a plant. Mind alone 488:24 possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension.

Therefore mental endowments are not at the mercy of organization and decomposition, - otherwise the very 488:27 worms could unfas.h.i.+on man. If it were possible for the real senses of man to be injured, Soul could reproduce them in all their perfection; but they cannot be dis- 488:30 turbed nor destroyed, since they exist in immortal Mind, not in matter.

Possibilities of Life

489:1 The less mind there is manifested in matter the better.

When the unthinking lobster loses its claw, the claw grows 489:3 again. If the Science of Life were understood, it would be found that the senses of Mind are never lost and that matter has no sensation. Then the 489:6 human limb would be replaced as readily as the lobster's claw, - not with an artificial limb, but with the genuine one. Any hypothesis which supposes life to be in matter 489:9 is an educated belief. In infancy this belief is not equal to guiding the hand to the mouth; and as consciousness develops, this belief goes out, - yields to the reality of 489:12 everlasting Life.

Decalogue disregarded

Corporeal sense defrauds and lies; it breaks all the commands of the Mosaic Decalogue to meet its own de- 489:15 mands. How then can this sense be the G.o.d- given channel to man of divine blessings or understanding? How can man, reflecting G.o.d, be de- 489:18 pendent on material means for knowing, hearing, seeing?

Who dares to say that the senses of man can be at one time the medium for sinning against G.o.d, at another the me- 489:21 dium for obeying G.o.d? An affirmative reply would con- tradict the Scripture, for the same fountain sendeth not forth sweet waters and bitter.

Organic construction valueless

489:24 The corporeal senses are the only source of evil or error. Christian Science shows them to be false, be- cause matter has no sensation, and no organic 489:27 construction can give it hearing and sight nor make it the medium of Mind. Outside the material sense of things, all is harmony. A wrong sense 489:30 of G.o.d, man, and creation is _non-sense_, want of sense.

Mortal belief would have the material senses sometimes good and sometimes bad. It a.s.sures mortals that there 490:1 is real pleasure in sin; but the grand truths of Christian Science dispute this error.

Will-power an animal propensity

490:3 Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul.

490:6 Hence it cannot govern man aright. Chris- tian Science reveals Truth and Love as the motive-powers of man. Will - blind, stubborn, and head- 490:9 long - cooperates with appet.i.te and pa.s.sion. From this cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its pow- erlessness, since all power belongs to G.o.d, good.

Theories helpless

490:12 The Science of Mind needs to be understood. Until it is understood, mortals are more or less deprived of Truth. Human theories are helpless to make 490:15 man harmonious or immortal, since he is so already, according to Christian Science. Our only need is to know this and reduce to practice the real man's di- 490:18 vine Principle, Love

True nature and origin

"Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings."

Human belief - or knowledge gained from the so-called 490:21 material senses - would, by fair logic, anni- hilate man along with the dissolving elements of clay. The scientifically Christian explanations of the 490:24 nature and origin of man destroy all material sense with immortal testimony. This immortal testimony ushers in the spiritual sense of being, which can be obtained 490:27 in no other way.

Sleep an illusion

Sleep and mesmerism explain the mythical nature of material sense. Sleep shows material sense as either 490:30 oblivion, nothingness, or an illusion or dream.

Under the mesmeric illusion of belief, a man will think that he is freezing when he is warm, and that he 491:1 is swimming when he is on dry land. Needle-thrusts will not hurt him. A delicious perfume will seem intolerable.

491:3 Animal magnetism thus uncovers material sense, and shows it to be a belief without actual foundation or va- lidity. Change the belief, and the sensation changes.