Part 29 (1/2)

Dangerous shoals avoided

Such books as will rule disease out of mortal mind, - 196:21 and so efface the images and thoughts of dis- ease, instead of impressing them with forcible descriptions and medical details, - will help 196:24 to abate sickness and to destroy it.

Many a hopeless case of disease is induced by a single _post mortem_ examination, - not from infection nor from 196:27 contact with material virus, but from the fear of the disease and from the image brought before the mind; it is a mental state, which is afterwards outlined on the 196:30 body.

Pangs caused by the press

The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giv- 197:1 ing names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A 197:3 new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it. A minutely described dis- 197:6 ease costs many a man his earthly days of comfort. What a price for human knowledge! But the price does not ex- ceed the original cost. G.o.d said of the tree of knowledge, 197:9 which bears the fruit of sin, disease, and death, ”In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Higher standard for mortals

The less that is said of physical structure and laws, and 197:12 the more that is thought and said about moral and spiritual law, the higher will be the stand- ard of living and the farther mortals will be re- 197:15 moved from imbecility or disease.

We should master fear, instead of cultivating it. It was the ignorance of our forefathers in the departments 197:18 of knowledge now broadcast in the earth, that made them hardier than our trained physiologists, more honest than our sleek politicians.

Diet and dyspepsia

197:21 We are told that the simple food our forefathers ate helped to make them healthy, but that is a mistake.

Their diet would not cure dyspepsia at this 197:24 period. With rules of health in the head and the most digestible food in the stomach, there would still be dyspeptics. Many of the effeminate const.i.tutions 197:27 of our time will never grow robust until individual opin- ions improve and mortal belief loses some portion of its error.

Harm done by physicians

197:30 The doctor's mind reaches that of his patient. The doctor should suppress his fear of disease, else his belief in its reality and fatality will harm his patients even more 198:1 than his calomel and morphine, for the higher stratum of mortal mind has in belief more power to harm man than 198:3 the substratum, matter. A patient hears the doctor's verdict as a criminal hears his death- sentence. The patient may seem calm under it, but he is 198:6 not. His fort.i.tude may sustain him, but his fear, which has already developed the disease that is gaining the mastery, is increased by the physician's words.

Disease depicted

198:9 The materialistic doctor, though humane, is an art- ist who outlines his thought relative to disease, and then fills in his delineations with sketches from text- 198:12 books. It is better to prevent disease from forming in mortal mind afterwards to appear on the body; but to do this requires attention. The thought of 198:15 disease is formed before one sees a doctor and before the doctor undertakes to dispel it by a counter-irritant, - perhaps by a blister, by the application of caustic or 198:18 croton oil, or by a surgical operation. Again, giving an- other direction to faith, the physician prescribes drugs, until the elasticity of mortal thought haply causes a 198:21 vigorous reaction upon itself, and reproduces a picture of healthy and harmonious formations.

A patient's belief is more or less moulded and formed 198:24 by his doctor's belief in the case, even though the doctor says nothing to support his theory. His thoughts and his patient's commingle, and the stronger thoughts rule the 198:27 weaker. Hence the importance that doctors be Christian Scientists.

Mind over matter

Because the muscles of the blacksmith's arm are 198:30 strongly developed, it does not follow that exercise has produced this result or that a less used arm must be weak. If matter were the cause 199:1 of action, and if muscles, without volition of mortal mind, could lift the hammer and strike the anvil, it 199:3 might be thought true that hammering would enlarge the muscles. The trip-hammer is not increased in size by exercise. Why not, since muscles are as material as 199:6 wood and iron? Because n.o.body believes that mind is producing such a result on the hammer.

Muscles are not self-acting. If mind does not move 199:9 them, they are motionless. Hence the great fact that Mind alone enlarges and empowers man through its mandate, - by reason of its demand for and supply of 199:12 power. Not because of muscular exercise, but by rea- son of the blacksmith's faith in exercise, his arm becomes stronger.

Latent fear subdued

199:15 Mortals develop their own bodies or make them sick, according as they influence them through mortal mind.

To know whether this development is produced 199:18 consciously or unconsciously, is of less impor- tance than a knowledge of the fact. The feats of the gym- nast prove that latent mental fears are subdued by him.

199:21 The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible. Exceptions only confirm this rule, proving that failure is occasioned by a too feeble 199:24 faith.

Had Blondin believed it impossible to walk the rope over Niagara's abyss of waters, he could never have 199:27 done it. His belief that he could do it gave his thought- forces, called muscles, their flexibility and power which the unscientific might attribute to a lubricating oil. His 199:30 fear must have disappeared before his power of putting resolve into action could appear.

Homer and Moses

When Homer sang of the Grecian G.o.ds, Olympus was 200:1 dark, but through his verse the G.o.ds became alive in a nation's belief. Pagan wors.h.i.+p began with muscularity, 200:3 but the law of Sinai lifted thought into the song of David. Moses advanced a nation to the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d in Spirit instead of matter, and il- 200:6 l.u.s.trated the grand human capacities of being bestowed by immortal Mind.