Part 27 (1/2)

182:12 It is impossible to work from two standpoints. If we attempt it, we shall presently ”hold to the one, and despise the other.”

182:15 The hypotheses of mortals are antagonistic to Science and cannot mix with it. This is clear to those, who heal the sick on the basis of Science.

No material law

182:18 Mind's government of the body must supersede the so- called laws of matter. Obedience to material law pre- vents full obedience to spiritual law, - the law 182:21 which overcomes material conditions and puts matter under the feet of Mind. Mortals entreat the di- vine Mind to heal the sick, and forthwith shut out the aid 182:24 of Mind by using material means, thus working against themselves and their prayers and denying man's G.o.d- given ability to demonstrate Mind's sacred power. Pleas 182:27 for drugs and laws of health come from some sad incident, or else from ignorance of Christian Science and its tran- scendent power.

182:30 To admit that sickness is a condition over which G.o.d has no control, is to presuppose that omnipotent power is powerless on some occasions. The law of Christ, or 183:1 Truth, makes all things possible to Spirit; but the so- called laws of matter would render Spirit of no avail, and 183:3 demand obedience to materialistic codes, thus departing from the basis of one G.o.d, one lawmaker. To suppose that G.o.d const.i.tutes laws of inharmony is a mistake; dis- 183:6 cords have no support from nature or divine law, however much is said to the contrary.

Can the agriculturist, according to belief, produce a 183:9 crop without sowing the seed and awaiting its germina- tion according to the laws of nature? The answer is no, and yet the Scriptures inform us that sin, or error, first 183:12 caused the condemnation of man to till the ground, and indicate that obedience to G.o.d will remove this necessity.

Truth never made error necessary, nor devised a law to 183:15 perpetuate error.

Laws of nature spiritual

The supposed laws which result in weariness and dis- ease are not His laws, for the legitimate and only possible 183:18 action of Truth is the production of harmony.

Laws of nature are laws of Spirit; but mortals commonly recognize as law that which hides the power of 183:21 Spirit. Divine Mind rightly demands man's entire obe- dience, affection, and strength. No reservation is made for any lesser loyalty. Obedience to Truth gives man 183:24 power and strength. Submission to error superinduces loss of power.

Belief and understanding

Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods 183:27 with the actual spiritual law, - the law which gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame. If Christian 183:30 Science dishonors human belief, it honors spir- itual understanding; and the one Mind only is ent.i.tled to honor.

184:1 The so-called laws of health are simply laws of mortal belief. The premises being erroneous, the conclusions 184:3 are wrong. Truth makes no laws to regulate sickness, sin, and death, for these are unknown to Truth and should not be recognized as reality.

184:6 Belief produces the results of belief, and the penal- ties it affixes last so long as the belief and are insepara- ble from it. The remedy consists in probing the trouble 184:9 to the bottom, in finding and casting out by denial the error of belief which produces a mortal disorder, never honoring erroneous belief with the t.i.tle of law nor yield- 184:12 ing obedience to it. Truth, Life, and Love are the only legitimate and eternal demands on man, and they are spiritual lawgivers, enforcing obedience through divine 184:15 statutes.

Laws of human belief

Controlled by the divine intelligence, man is harmoni- ous and eternal. Whatever is governed by a false belief 184:18 is discordant and mortal. We say man suffers from the effects of cold, heat, fatigue. This is human belief, not the truth of being, for matter cannot 184:21 suffer. Mortal mind alone suffers, - not because a law of matter has been transgressed, but because a law of this so-called mind has been disobeyed. I have demonstrated 184:24 this as a rule of divine Science by destroying the delusion of suffering from what is termed a fatally broken physical law.

184:27 A woman, whom I cured of consumption, always breathed with great difficulty when the wind was from the east. I sat silently by her side a few moments. Her 184:30 breath came gently. The inspirations were deep and nat- ural. I then requested her to look at the weather-vane.

She looked and saw that it pointed due east. The wind 185:1 had not changed, but her thought of it had and so her diffi- culty in breathing had gone. The wind had not produced 185:3 the difficulty. My metaphysical treatment changed the action of her belief on the lungs, and she never suffered again from east winds, but was restored to health.

A so-called mind-cure

185:6 No system of hygiene but Christian Science is purely mental. Before this book was published, other books were in circulation, which discussed ”mental 185:9 medicine” and ”mind-cure,” operating through the power of the earth's magnetic currents to regulate life and health. Such theories and such systems of so-called 185:12 mind-cure, which have sprung up, are as material as the prevailing systems of medicine. They have their birth in mortal mind, which puts forth a human conception 185:15 in the name of Science to match the divine Science of im- mortal Mind, even as the necromancers of Egypt strove to emulate the wonders wrought by Moses. Such theories 185:18 have no relations.h.i.+p to Christian Science, which rests on the conception of G.o.d as the only Life, substance, and intelligence, and excludes the human mind as a spiritual 185:21 factor in the healing work.

Jesus and hypnotism

Jesus cast out evil and healed the sick, not only with- out drugs, but without hypnotism, which is 185:24 the reverse of ethical and pathological Truth- power.

Erroneous mental practice may seem for a time to bene- 185:27 fit the sick, but the recovery is not permanent. This is because erroneous methods act on and through the ma- terial stratum of the human mind, called brain, which is 185:30 but a mortal consolidation of material mentality and its suppositional activities.

False stimulus

A patient under the influence of mortal mind is healed 186:1 only by removing the influence on him of this mind, by emptying his thought of the false stimulus 186:3 and reaction of will-power and filling it with the divine energies of Truth.

Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the 186:6 understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work determines health. Erring human mind-forces can work only evil under whatever name or pretence they are em- 186:9 ployed; for Spirit and matter, good and evil, light and darkness, cannot mingle.

Evil negative and self-destructive

Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth.