Part 55 (1/2)

Cure for palsy

375:21 Palsy is a belief that matter governs mortals, and can paralyze the body, making certain portions of it motionless. Destroy the belief, show mortal 375:24 mind that muscles have no power to be lost, for Mind is supreme, and you cure the palsy.

Latent fear diagnosed

Consumptive patients always show great hopeful- 375:27 ness and courage, even when they are supposed to be in hopeless danger. This state of mind seems anomalous except to the expert in Christian 375:30 Science. This mental state is not understood, simply because it is a stage of fear so excessive that it amounts to fort.i.tude. The belief in consumption presents to mor- 376:1 tal thought a hopeless state, an image more terrifying than that of most other diseases. The patient turns involun- 376:3 tarily from the contemplation of it, but though unacknowl- edged, the latent fear and the despair of recovery remain in thought.

Insidious concepts

376:6 Just so is it with the greatest sin. It is the most subtle, and does its work almost self-deceived. The diseases deemed dangerous sometimes come from the 376:9 most hidden, undefined, and insidious beliefs.

The pallid invalid, whom you declare to be wasting away with consumption of the blood, should be told that blood 376:12 never gave life and can never take it away, - that Life is Spirit, and that there is more life and immortality in one good motive and act, than in all the blood which ever 376:15 flowed through mortal veins and simulated a corporeal sense of life.

Remedy for fever

If the body is material, it cannot, for that very reason, 376:18 suffer with a fever. Because the so-called material body is a mental concept and governed by mortal mind, it manifests only what that so-called 376:21 mind expresses. Therefore the efficient remedy is to destroy the patient's false belief by both silently and au- dibly arguing the true facts in regard to harmonious 376:24 being, - representing man as healthy instead of diseased, and showing that it is impossible for matter to suffer, to feel pain or heat, to be thirsty or sick. Destroy fear, 376:27 and you end fever. Some people, mistaught as to Mind- science, inquire when it will be safe to check a fever.

Know that in Science you cannot check a fever after ad- 376:30 mitting that it must have its course. To fear and admit the power of disease, is to paralyze mental and scientific demonstration.

377:1 If your patient believes in taking cold, mentally con- vince him that matter cannot take cold, and that thought 377:3 governs this liability. If grief causes suffering, convince the sufferer that affliction is often the source of joy, and that he should rejoice always in ever-present Love.

Climate harmless

377:6 Invalids flee to tropical climates in order to save their lives, but they come back no better than when they went away. Then is the time to cure them through 377:9 Christian Science, and prove that they can be healthy in all climates, when their fear of climate is exterminated.

Mind governs body

377:12 Through different states of mind, the body becomes suddenly weak or abnormally strong, showing mortal mind to be the producer of strength or weak- 377:15 ness. A sudden joy or grief has caused what is termed instantaneous death. Because a belief origi- nates unseen, the mental state should be continually 377:18 watched that it may not produce blindly its bad effects.

The author never knew a patient who did not recover when the belief of the disease had gone. Remove the 377:21 leading error or governing fear of this lower so-called mind, and you remove the cause of all disease as well as the mor- bid or excited action of any organ. You also remove in 377:24 this way what are termed organic diseases as readily as functional difficulties.

The cause of all so-called disease is mental, a mortal 377:27 fear, a mistaken belief or conviction of the necessity and power of ill-health; also a fear that Mind is helpless to defend the life of man and incompetent to control it. With- 377:30 out this ignorant human belief, any circ.u.mstance is of it- self powerless to produce suffering. It is latent belief in disease, as well as the fear of disease, which a.s.sociates sick- 378:1 ness with certain circ.u.mstances and causes the two to appear conjoined, even as poetry and music are repro- 378:3 duced in union by human memory. Disease has no in- telligence. Unwittingly you sentence yourself to suffer.

The understanding of this will enable you to commute this 378:6 self-sentence, and meet every circ.u.mstance with truth.

Disease is less than mind, and Mind can control it.

Latent power

Without the so-called human mind, there can be no 378:9 inflammatory nor torpid action of the system. Remove the error, and you destroy its effects. By looking a tiger fearlessly in the eye, Sir Charles 378:12 Napier sent it cowering back into the jungle. An ani- mal may infuriate another by looking it in the eye, and both will fight for nothing. A man's gaze, fastened 378:15 fearlessly on a ferocious beast, often causes the beast to retreat in terror. This latter occurrence represents the power of Truth over error, - the might of intelligence 378:18 exercised over mortal beliefs to destroy them; whereas hypnotism and hygienic drilling and drugging, adopted to cure matter, is represented by two material erroneous 378:21 bases.

Disease powerless

Disease is not an intelligence to dispute the empire of Mind or to dethrone Mind and take the government into 378:24 its own hands. Sickness is not a G.o.d-given, nor a self-const.i.tuted material power, which copes astutely with Mind and finally conquers it. G.o.d 378:27 never endowed matter with power to disable Life or to chill harmony with a long and cold night of discord.

Such a power, without the divine permission, is incon- 378:30 ceivable; and if such a power could be divinely directed, it would manifest less wisdom than we usually find dis- played in human governments.

Jurisdiction of Mind

379:1 If disease can attack and control the body without the consent of mortals, sin can do the same, for both 379:3 are errors, announced as partners in the be- ginning. The Christian Scientist finds only effects, where the ordinary physician looks for causes.

379:6 The real jurisdiction of the world is in Mind, controlling every effect and recognizing all causation as vested in divine Mind.

Power of imagination

379:9 A felon, on whom certain English students experi- mented, fancied himself bleeding to death, and died be- cause of that belief, when only a stream of 379:12 warm water was trickling over his arm. Had he known his sense of bleeding was an illusion, he would have risen above the false belief. Let the despairing in- 379:15 valid, inspecting the hue of her blood on a cambric hand- kerchief, think of the experiment of those Oxford boys, who caused the death of a man, when not a drop of his 379:18 blood was shed. Then let her learn the opposite state- ment of life as taught in Christian Science, and she will understand that she is not dying on account of the state of 379:21 her blood, but is suffering from her belief that blood is destroying her life. The so-called vital current does not affect the invalid's health, but her belief produces the 379:24 very results she dreads.