Part 69 (1/2)

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.