Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy [the dot read aloud .TXT] 📗

Mind, and man is found in His image.

 

Embryonic sinful thoughts

188:3 What is termed disease does not exist. It is neither

mind nor matter. The belief of sin, which has grown

terrible in strength and influence, is an uncon-188:6 scious error in the beginning, - an embryonic

thought without motive; but afterwards it

governs the so-called man. Passion, depraved appetites, 188:9 dishonesty, envy, hatred, revenge ripen into action, only to

pass from shame and woe to their final punishment.

 

Disease a dream

 

Mortal existence is a dream of pain and pleasure in 188:12 matter, a dream of sin, sickness, and death; and it is like

the dream we have in sleep, in which every one

recognizes his condition to be wholly a state of 188:15 mind. In both the waking, and the sleeping dream, the

dreamer thinks that his body is material and the suffering

is in that body.

188:18 The smile of the sleeper indicates the sensation produced physically by the pleasure of a dream. In the

same way pain and pleasure, sickness and care, are 188:21 traced upon mortals by unmistakable signs.

 

Sickness is a growth of error, springing from mortal

ignorance or fear. Error rehearses error. What causes 188:24 disease cannot cure it. The soil of disease is mortal

mind, and you have an abundant or scanty crop of disease,

according to the seedlings of fear. Sin and the fear of 188:27 disease must be uprooted and cast out.

 

Sense yields to understanding

 

When darkness comes over the earth, the physical

senses have no immediate evidence of a sun. 188:30 The human eye knows not where the orb of

day is, nor if it exists. Astronomy gives the

desired information regarding the sun. The human or 189:1 material senses yield to the authority of this science, and

they are willing to leave with astronomy the explanation of 189:3 the sun’s influence over the earth. If the eyes see no sun

for a week, we still believe that there is solar light and

heat. Science (in this instance named natural) raises 189:6 the human thought above the cruder theories of the

human mind, and casts out a fear.

 

In like manner mortals should no more deny the power 189:9 of Christian Science to establish harmony and to explain

the effect of mortal mind on the body, though the cause

be unseen, than they should deny the existence of the sun-189:12 light when the orb of day disappears, or doubt that the sun

will reappear. The sins of others should not make good

men suffer.

 

Ascending the scale

189:15 We call the body material; but it is as truly mortal

mind, according to its degree, as is the material brain

which is supposed to furnish the evidence 189:18 of all mortal thought or things. The human

mortal mind, by an inevitable perversion, makes all

things start from the lowest instead of from the highest 189:21 mortal thought. The reverse is the case with all the

formations of the immortal divine Mind. They proceed

from the divine source; and so, in tracing them, we con-189:24 stantly ascend in infinite being.

 

Human reproduction

 

From mortal mind comes the reproduction of the

species, - first the belief of inanimate, and then of ani-189:27 mate matter. According to mortal thought,

the development of embryonic mortal mind

commences in the lower, basal portion of the brain, and 189:30 goes on in an ascending scale by evolution, keeping always

in the direct line of matter, for matter is the subjective

condition of mortal mind.

190:1 Next we have the formation of so-called embryonic

mortal mind, afterwards mortal men or mortals, - all this 190:3 while matter is a belief, ignorant of itself, ignorant of what

it is supposed to produce. The mortal says that an inanimate unconscious seedling is producing mortals, both body 190:6 and mind; and yet neither a mortal mind nor the immortal

Mind is found in brain or elsewhere in matter or in mortals.

 

Human stature

 

This embryonic and materialistic human belief called 190:9 mortal man in turn fills itself with thoughts

of pain and pleasure, of life and death, and

arranges itself into five so-called senses, which presently 190:12 measure mind by the size of a brain and the bulk of a

body, called man.

 

Human frailty

 

Human birth, growth, maturity, and decay are as the 190:15 grass springing from the soil with beautiful green blades,

afterwards to wither and return to its native

nothingness. This mortal seeming is temporal; 190:18 it never merges into immortal being, but finally disappears, and immortal man, spiritual and eternal, is found

to be the real man. 190:21 The Hebrew bard, swayed by mortal thoughts, thus

swept his lyre with saddening strains on human existence:

 

As for man, his days are as grass: 190:24 As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;

And the place thereof shall know it no more.

190:27 When hope rose higher in the human heart, he sang:

 

As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness:

I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.

 

… . .

190:30 For with Thee is the fountain of life;

In Thy light shall we see light.

191:1 The brain can give no idea of God’s man. It can take

no cognizance of Mind. Matter is not the organ of infi-191:3 nite Mind.

 

As mortals give up the delusion that there is more than

one Mind, more than one God, man in God’s likeness will 191:6 appear, and this eternal man will include in that likeness

no material element.

 

The immortal birth

 

As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a 191:9 misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine

Principle of man dawns upon human thought,

and leads it to “where the young child was,” 191:12 - even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual

sense of being and of what Life includes. This the whole

earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, 191:15 chasing away the darkness of error.

 

Spiritual freedom

 

The human thought must free itself from self-imposed

materiality and bondage. It should no longer 191:18 ask of the head, heart, or lungs: What are

man’s prospects for life? Mind is not helpless. Intelligence is not mute before non-intelligence.

191:21 By its own volition, not a blade of grass springs up, not

a spray buds within the vale, not a leaf unfolds its fair

outlines, not a flower starts from its cloistered cell.

191:24 The Science of being reveals man and immortality as

based on Spirit. Physical sense defines mortal man as

based on matter, and from this premise infers the mor-191:27 tality of the body.

 

No physical affinity

 

The illusive senses may fancy affinities with their opposites; but in Christian Science, Truth never mingles 191:30 with error. Mind has no affinity with matter,

and therefore Truth is able to cast out the ills

of the flesh. Mind, God, sends forth the aroma of Spirit, 192:1 the atmosphere of intelligence. The belief that a pulpy

substance under the skull is mind is a mockery of intelli-192:3 gence, a mimicry of Mind.

 

We are Christian Scientists, only as we quit our reliance

upon that which is false and grasp the true. We are not 192:6 Christian Scientists until we leave all for Christ. Human

opinions are not spiritual. They come from the hearing

of the ear, from corporeality instead of from Principle, 192:9 and from the mortal instead of from the immortal. Spirit

is not separate from God. Spirit is God.

 

Human power a blind force

 

Erring power is a material belief, a blind miscalled force, 192:12 the offspring of will and not of wisdom, of the mortal mind

and not of the immortal. It is the headlong

cataract, the devouring flame, the tempest’s 192:15 breath. It is lightning and hurricane, all that is selfish,

wicked, dishonest, and impure.

 

The one real power

 

Moral and spiritual might belong to Spirit, who holds 192:18 the “wind in His fists;” and this teaching accords with

Science and harmony. In Science, you can

have no power opposed to God, and the physi-192:21 cal senses must give up their false testimony. Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into

the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you 192:24 the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a

mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness

and falls, never to rise.

192:27 We walk in the footsteps of Truth and Love by following the example of our Master in the understanding of

divine metaphysics. Christianity is the basis of true heal-192:30 ing. Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed

love, receives directly the divine power.

 

Mind cures hip-disease

 

I was called to visit Mr. Clark in Lynn, who had been 193:1 confined to his bed six months with hip-disease, caused by

a fall upon a wooden spike when quite a boy. On enter-193:3 ing the house I met his physician, who said that

the patient was dying. The physician had just

probed the ulcer on the hip, and said the bone was carious 193:6 for several inches. He even showed me the probe, which

had on it the evidence of this condition of the bone. The

doctor went out. Mr. Clark lay with his eyes fixed and 193:9 sightless. The dew of death was on his brow. I went to

his bedside. In a few moments his face changed; its

death-pallor gave place to a natural hue. The eyelids 193:12 closed gently and the breathing became natural; he was

asleep. In about ten minutes he opened his eyes and

said: “I feel like a new man. My suffering is all gone.” 193:15 It was between three and four o’clock in the afternoon

when this took place.

 

I told him to rise, dress himself, and take supper with 193:18 his family. He did so. The next day I saw him in the

yard. Since then I have not seen him, but am informed

that he went to work in two weeks. The discharge from 193:21 the sore stopped, and the sore was healed. The diseased

condition had continued there ever since the injury was

received in boyhood. 193:24 Since his recovery I have been informed that his physician claims to have cured him, and that his mother has

been threatened with incarceration in an insane asylum 193:27 for saying: “It was none other than God and that woman

who healed him.” I cannot attest the truth of that

report, but what I saw and did for that man, and what 193:30 his physician said of the case, occurred just as I have

narrated.

 

It has been demonstrated to me that Life is God 194:1 and that the might of omnipotent Spirit shares not its

strength with matter or with human will. Review-194:3 ing this brief experience, I cannot fail to discern the

coincidence of the spiritual idea of man with the divine

Mind.

 

Change of belief

194:6 A change in human belief changes all the physical symptoms, and determines a case for better or for

worse. When one’s false belief is corrected 194:9 Truth sends a report of health over the body.

 

Destruction of the auditory nerve and paralysis of the

optic nerve are not necessary to ensure deafness and blind-194:12 ness; for if mortal mind says, “I am deaf and blind,” it

will be so without an injured nerve. Every theory opposed to this fact (as I learned in metaphysics) would 194:15 presuppose man, who is immortal in spiritual understanding, a mortal in material belief.

 

Power of habit

 

The authentic history of Kaspar Hauser is a useful hint