Part 60 (1/2)

You may call the disease by name when you mentally deny it; but by naming it audibly, you are liable under 412:12 some circ.u.mstances to impress it upon the thought. The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to un- 412:15 clasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death.

Insistence requisite

To prevent disease or to cure it, the power of Truth, of divine Spirit, must break the dream of the material 412:18 senses. To heal by argument, find the type of the ailment, get its name, and array your mental plea against the physical. Argue at first men- 412:21 tally, not audibly, that the patient has no disease, and conform the argument so as to destroy the evidence of disease. Mentally insist that harmony is the fact, and 412:24 that sickness is a temporal dream. Realize the presence of health and the fact of harmonious being, until the body corresponds with the normal conditions of health 412:27 and harmony.

The cure of infants

If the case is that of a young child or an infant, it needs to be met mainly through the parent's thought, silently 412:30 or audibly on the aforesaid basis of Christian Science. The Scientist knows that there can be no hereditary disease, since matter is not intelligent 413:1 and cannot transmit good or evil intelligence to man, and G.o.d, the only Mind, does not produce pain in matter.

413:3 The act of yielding one's thoughts to the undue contem- plation of physical wants or conditions induces those very conditions. A single requirement, beyond what is neces- 413:6 sary to meet the simplest needs of the babe is harmful.

Mind regulates the condition of the stomach, bowels, and food, the temperature of children and of men, and matter 413:9 does not. The wise or unwise views of parents and other persons on these subjects produce good or bad effects on the health of children.

Ablutions for cleanliness

413:12 The daily ablutions of an infant are no more natural nor necessary than would be the process of taking a fish out of water every day and covering it with dirt 413:15 in order to make it thrive more vigorously in its own element. ”Cleanliness is next to G.o.dliness,” but was.h.i.+ng should be only for the purpose of keeping the 413:18 body clean, and this can be effected without scrubbing the whole surface daily. Water is not the natural habitat of humanity. I insist on bodily cleanliness within and with- 413:21 out. I am not patient with a speck of dirt; but in caring for an infant one need not wash his little body all over each day in order to keep it sweet as the new-blown flower.

Juvenile ailments

413:24 Giving drugs to infants, noticing every symptom of flatulency, and constantly directing the mind to such signs, - that mind being laden with illusions 413:27 about disease, health-laws, and death, - these actions convey mental images to children's budding thoughts, and often stamp them there, making it probable 413:30 at any time that such ills may be reproduced in the very ailments feared. A child may have worms, if you say so, or any other malady, timorously held in the beliefs con- 414:1 cerning his body. Thus are laid the foundations of the belief in disease and death, and thus are children educated 414:3 into discord.

Cure of insanity

The treatment of insanity is especially interesting.

However obstinate the case, it yields more readily than 414:6 do most diseases to the salutary action of truth, which counteracts error. The argu- ments to be used in curing insanity are the same as in 414:9 other diseases: namely, the impossibility that matter, brain, can control or derange mind, can suffer or cause suffering; also the fact that truth and love will establish 414:12 a healthy state, guide and govern mortal mind or the thought of the patient, and destroy all error, whether it is called dementia, hatred, or any other discord.

414:15 To fix truth steadfastly in your patients' thoughts, ex- plain Christian Science to them, but not too soon, - not until your patients are prepared for the explanation, - 414:18 lest you array the sick against their own interests by troub- ling and perplexing their thought. The Christian Scien- tist's argument rests on the Christianly scientific basis of 414:21 being. The Scripture declares, ”The Lord He is G.o.d [good]; there is none else beside Him.” Even so, harmony is universal, and discord is unreal. Christian Science de- 414:24 clares that Mind is substance, also that matter neither feels, suffers, nor enjoys. Hold these points strongly in view. Keep in mind the verity of being, - that man is 414:27 the image and likeness of G.o.d, in whom all being is painless and permanent. Remember that man's perfec- tion is real and unimpeachable, whereas imperfection is 414:30 blameworthy, unreal, and is not brought about by divine Love.

Matter is not inflamed

Matter cannot be inflamed. Inflammation is fear, an 415:1 excited state of mortals which is not normal. Immor- tal Mind is the only cause; therefore disease is neither a 415:3 cause nor an effect. Mind in every case is the eternal G.o.d, good. Sin, disease, and death have no foundations in Truth. Inflamation as a mor- 415:6 tal belief quickens or impedes the action of the system, because thought moves quickly or slowly, leaps or halts when it contemplates unpleasant things, or when the in- 415:9 dividual looks upon some object which he dreads. In- flammation never appears in a part which mortal thought does not reach. That is why opiates relieve inflammation.

415:12 They quiet the thought by inducing stupefaction and by resorting to matter instead of to Mind. Opiates do not remove the pain in any scientific sense. They only ren- 415:15 der mortal mind temporarily less fearful, till it can master an erroneous belief.

Truth calms the thought

Note how thought makes the face pallid. It either re- 415:18 tards the circulation or quickens it, causing a pale or flushed cheek. In the same way thought in- creases or diminishes the secretions, the action 415:21 of the lungs, of the bowels, and of the heart. The mus- cles, moving quickly or slowly and impelled or palsied by thought, represent the action of all the organs of the hu- 415:24 man system, including brain and viscera. To remove the error producing disorder, you must calm and instruct mortal mind with immortal Truth.

Effects of etherization

415:27 Etherization will apparently cause the body to dis- appear. Before the thoughts are fully at rest, the limbs will vanish from consciousness. Indeed, the 415:30 whole frame will sink from sight along with surrounding objects, leaving the pain standing forth as distinctly as a mountain-peak, as if it were a separate 416:1 bodily member. At last the agony also vanishes. This process shows the pain to be in the mind, for the inflam- 416:3 mation is not suppressed; and the belief of pain will presently return, unless the mental image occasioning the pain be removed by recognizing the truth of being.

Sedatives valueless

416:6 A hypodermic injection of morphine is administered to a patient, and in twenty minutes the sufferer is qui- etly asleep. To him there is no longer any 416:9 pain. Yet any physician - allopathic, h.o.m.oe- opathic, botanic, eclectic - will tell you that the trouble- some material cause is unremoved, and that when the 416:12 soporific influence of the opium is exhausted, the pa- tient will find himself in the same pain, unless the belief which occasions the pain has meanwhile been changed.

416:15 Where is the pain while the patient sleeps?

The so-called physical ego

The material body, which you call _me_, is mortal mind, and this mind is material in sensation, even as the body, 416:18 which has originated from this material sense and been developed according to it, is mate- rial. This materialism of parent and child is only in 416:21 mortal mind, as the dead body proves; for when the mortal has resigned his body to dust, the body is no longer the parent, even in appearance.

Evil thought depletes