# Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898)/06 Christian Science and Spiritualism

CHAPTER VI.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALISM.
* And when they shall say unto you,
* Seek unto them that have familiar spirits,
* And unto wizards that peep and that mutter:
* Should not a people seek unto their God?
* For the living to the dead? — Isaiah.
Verily, verily I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. — Jesus.
MORTAL existence is an enigma. Every day is a mystery. The testimony of the corporeal senses One Spirit. cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures of Truth. Whatever is false or sinful can never enter the atmosphere of Spirit. There is but one Spirit. Man is never God; but spiritual man, made in His likeness, reflects God. In this Scientific reflection the Ego and the Father are inseparable. The supposition that corporeal beings are spirits, or that there are good and evil spirits, is a mistake.
The divine Mind maintains all identities as distinct Identities. and eternal, from a blade of grass to a star. The question is, What are God's identities? What is Soul? Does life or soul exist in the thing formed?
​Nothing is Spirit, nothing is real and eternal, but God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense.
The identity, or idea, of all reality continues forever; but the Soul, or Principle, of all is not in its formations. Soul is the creative, governing, infinite Principle, outside of finite form, which forms only reflect.
Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see a flower, — that you touch and smell it. Thus you learn Dream-lessons. that the flower is a product of mind, a formation of thought, rather than of matter. Close them again, and you may see landscapes, men, and women. Thus you learn that these also are images, which mortal mind holds and evolves, which simulate mind, life, and intelligence. From dreams also you may learn that matter is not the image or likeness of God, and that Mind is not in matter.
In proportion as the Science of Mind is understood, Spiritualism will be found mainly erroneous, having Found wanting. no Scientific basis or origin in Principle, and having no proof or power outside of human testimony and belief. It is clearly the offspring of the physical senses, instead of Science.
The basis and structure of Spiritualism are alike material and physical. Its spirits are so many corporealities, Materiality. limited and finite in character and quality. Spiritualism therefore presupposes spirit to be capable of dwelling in finite forms, — a theory contrary to Christian Science.
There is but one spiritual existence, even the Life of which corporeal sense can take no cognizance. The ​Principle of man speaks through immortal sense. If a material body — alias mortal, material sense — were permeated by Spirit, that body would disappear to these senses. A condition precedent to communion with Spirit is the gain of spiritual Life.
So-called spirits are but corporeal communicators. As light destroys darkness, and in its place all is light, so Spirits. (in absolute Science) Soul, or God, is the only truth-giver to man. His presence destroys mortality, and brings to light immortality. Mortal belief (the material sense of life) and immortal Truth (the spiritual sense) are the tares and wheat, which are not united by progress, but separated.
Perfection is not expressed through imperfection. Spirit is not made manifest through matter. There are no convenient sieves which can strain Truth through error.
All real effects are based on a demonstrable Principle, explained in Science. Phenomena produced by Phenomena. belief are destitute of Principle and Science. Error is a network of mystery, which cannot be united with Truth or Immortality. Absolute Truth only is true; and absolute error is more readily detected than beliefs which are partly true and partly false.
The notion that there can be a union of such opposites as Spirit and matter, the Infinite and finite, leads to the Amalgamation. errors seen in sin, disease, and death, and is exemplified in the mistakes of Spiritualism. As readily can you mingle fire and frost as Spirit and matter. In either case, one must destroy the other.
Spiritualism calls one person, living in this world, matter, but another, who has died, but inhabits earth, ​it calls spirit; when the fact remains that neither the one nor the other corporeality is spiritual, for Spirit is one, and is God.
The belief that one man, as spirit, can control another man, as matter, upsets both the individuality and Control. Science of man. God controls all, as manifesting Mind, not matter. He is the only Spirit. Any other control or attraction of so-called spirit is a mortal belief, an error which ought to be known by its fruits, the perpetuity of evil.
If Spirit, or God, communed with or controlled mortals through electricity, or any other form of matter, this would destroy the divine order and the Science of omnipotent Mind.
The belief that material bodies return to dust, hereafter to rise up as spiritual bodies, with material Death and freedom. sensations and desires, is incorrect. Equally incorrect is the belief that spirit is confined here in a finite, material body, from which it is freed by death, and that, when it is freed, the spirit retains the sensations belonging to the body.
It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part of the reality of existence, or that Spirit and matter, Mediumship. Intelligence and non-intelligence, can ever commune together. This error, progress in Science will destroy. The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece of the spiritual, nor the finite become the channel of the Infinite. The gulf is impassable which separates so-called material existence from spiritual Life, which is not subject to death.
To be on communicable terms with Spirit, persons must be free from organic bodies; and their return to ​that material condition, after having once left it, would be as impossible as the restoration of the acorn, already The oak and acorn. absorbed into a sprout which has risen above the soil, to its primitive condition. The seed which has germinated has a new form and state of existence. When the belief of life in matter is gone, the error which has held it dissolves with it, and never returns to the old condition. No correspondence or communion can exist between persons in such opposite dreams as the belief of having died and left a material body, and the belief of still living in an organic, material body. The author always discredited mediumship.
The caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful insect, is no longer a worm, nor does it return to fraternize with Bridgeless division. or control the worm. Such a backward transformation is impossible in Science. Darkness and light, infancy and manhood, sickness and health, are opposites, — different beliefs, which never blend. Who will say that infancy can utter the ideas of manhood, that darkness can represent light, that we are in Europe when we are in the opposite hemisphere? There is no bridge across the gulf which divides two such opposite conditions as the spiritual, or incorporeal, and the physical, or corporeal.
In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step, or return to positions outgrown. The so-called dead and living cannot commune together, if they are in separate states of existence, or consciousness.
This simple truth lays bare the mistake that man Investiture. dies as matter, but comes to life as spirit. The so-called dead, in order to reappear to those still in the existence visible to the physical senses, ​must be tangible and material, — must still have a material investiture, — or these lower senses could take no cognizance of them.
Spiritualism would transfer men from the spiritual sense of existence back into its material sense. This gross materialism is Scientifically impossible, since to Spirit there can be no matter.
Jesus said of Lazarus: “He is not dead, but sleepeth.” He restored Lazarus by the understanding that Raising the dead. he had never died, not by an admission that his body had died, and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, he would have stood on the same plane of belief with those who buried the body, and he could not therefore have resuscitated it.
When you can waken yourself or others out of the belief that all must die, you can then exercise Jesus' spiritual power to reproduce the presence of those who thought they had died, — but not otherwise.
There is one possible moment when those called dead and the living can commune together, and that is the Dying sight. moment previous to the transition, — the moment when the link between their opposite beliefs is being sundered. In the vestibule through which we pass from one dream to another dream, or when we wake from earth's sleep to the grand verities of Life, the departing may hear the glad welcome of those gone before. The dying may whisper this vision, name the face that smiles on them, and the hand which beckons them; as one at Niagara, with eyes open only to that wonder, forgets all else, and breathes aloud his rapture.
​When Being is understood, Life will be recognized as neither material nor finite, but as infinite, — as God, Real Life. universal Good; and the belief that life, or mind, was ever in a finite form, or good in evil, will be destroyed. Then it will be understood that Spirit never entered matter, and was therefore never raised from it. When advanced to Spiritual Being and the understanding of God, man can no longer commune with matter; neither can he return to it, any more than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will he be corporeal; but he will be an individual consciousness, characterized by Mind and not by matter.
Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs — which last as long as the beliefs of soul in body, or intelligence in matter, remain — prove material existence to be without divine authority.
The sinless joy, the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, — possessing unlimited divine beauty and Immaterial pleasure. goodness, without a single bodily pleasure or pain, — constitute the only veritable man. This state of existence is Scientific and intact, — a perfection discernible only by those who have the final understanding of Divine Science. Death can never hasten it, for death must be overcome, not submitted to, before immortality appears.
The recognition of Spirit and Infinity comes not suddenly, here or hereafter. The pious Polycarp Polycarp. said: “I cannot turn at once from Good to evil.” Neither do other mortals accomplish the change at a single bound.
Existence continues to be a belief of corporeal sense, until the Science of Being is reached. Error brings its ​own self-destruction on that plane as well as on this, for mortal mind creates its own physical conditions. Second death. Death will occur on the next plane of existence as on this, until the understanding of Life is reached. Then “the second death hath no power.”
The period required for this dream of material life, embracing its so-called pleasures and pains, to vanish A dream vanishing. from consciousness, “no man knoweth, not the Son, but the Father.” It will be of longer or shorter duration, according to the tenacity of its error. Of what advantage, then, would it be to us, or to the departed, to prolong the material state, and so prolong the illusion of a soul in sense, and a mind fettered to materiality?
Even if spirit communications to material consciousness were possible, they would grow beautifully less Progress and purgatory. with every advanced stage of existence. The departed would gradually rise above ignorance and materiality, and Spiritualists would outgrow their beliefs in material Spiritualism. Spiritism consigns the dead to a state resembling that of blighted buds, — to a wretched purgatory, where their chances of improvement narrow into nothingness, and they return to their old standpoints of matter.
The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled Unnatural deflections. oak, the ferocious beast, — like the discords of disease, sin, and death, — are unnatural. They
are the falsities of sense, the changing deflections of mortal mind, and not the realities of Mind.
How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing out life and hastening to death, and that at the same ​time we are communing with Immortality? If the departed are in rapport with mortality, or matter, they Absurd oracles. are not spiritual, but must still be mortal, sinful, suffering, and dying. Then wherefore look to them — even were communication possible — for proofs of immortality, and accept them as oracles? Communications gathered from ignorance are pernicious in tendency.
Spiritualism, with its material accompaniments, would destroy the supremacy of Spirit. Truth pervades all space, and needs no material method for the transmission of messages. Spirit needs no wires or electricity in order to be omnipresent.
Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it communicate with man through electric, material effects? Intangibility. How can the majesty and omnipotence of Spirit lose themselves? God is not in the medley, where matter cares for matter, and Spiritism takes the place of Spirit, making hypnotism and electricity the agents of God's government.
Spirit blesses man, but man “cannot tell whence it cometh.” By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are comforted, and the sinful are reformed. These are the effects of one universal Good, and that Good is the invisible God.
The act of describing disease — its symptoms, locality, and fatality — is not scientific. Warning people against Descriptions of disease. death is an error that tends to frighten those who are ignorant of Life as God. Thousands of instances could be cited of health restored by changing the mental condition.
A scientific mental method is more sanitary than ​drugs, and produces permanent health. Science must go over the whole ground, and dig up every seed of their Hypotheses. sowing. Spiritualism relies upon human beliefs and hypotheses. Science removes these beliefs and hypotheses, through its higher understanding, for it rests on Principle in its revelation of immortality, not on material personalities, and so introduces the harmony of Being.
Jesus cast out evil spirits, or false beliefs. The Apostle Paul bade men have the Mind that was in the Christ. Jesus did his own work by the one Spirit. He said: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” He never described disease, so far as can be learned from the Gospels, but he healed it.
The unscientific practitioner says: “You are ill. Your brain is overtaxed, and you must rest. Your body Mistaken methods. is weak, and it must be strengthened. You have nervous prostration, and must be treated for it.” Science objects to all this, contending for the rights of Intelligence, and asserting that Mind controls body and brain.
Mind-Science teaches that mortals need “not be weary in well-doing.” It dissipates fatigue in doing good. Giving Strength. does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us. We have strength in proportion to our Truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving utterance to Truth. A cup of coffee or tea is not the equal of Truth, whether for the inspiration of a sermon or for the support of bodily endurance.
A communication, purporting to come from the late Theodore Parker, reads as follows: “There never was, ​and there never will be, an immortal spirit.” Yet the A denial of immortality. very periodical containing this sentence repeats weekly the assertion that spirit-communications are our only proofs of immortality.
I entertain no doubt of the humanity and philanthropy of many Spiritualists, but I cannot coincide with their Mysticism. views. It is mysticism that gives Spiritualism its force. Science removes mystery, and explains extraordinary phenomena, but Science never removes such phenomena from the domain of reason into the realm of mysticism.
It should not seem mysterious that mind, without hands, can move a table, when we already know that it is Physical displays. mind-power which moves both table and hand. Even Planchette — the French toy which years ago pleased so many people — attested the control of mortal mind over its lower substratum, called matter.
It is mortal mind which convulses its substratum called matter. These movements arise from the volition of belief, but are neither Scientific nor rational. Mortal mind produces table-tipping, and believes that this wonder emanates from spirits and electricity; and this belief rests on the common conviction that matter acts upon matter, both visibly and invisibly.
There is not so much evidence to prove any intercommunication between the so-called dead and the living, Evidence. as there is to show the sick that matter suffers and has sensation; yet this latter evidence is destroyed by Mind-Science. If Spiritualists understood the Science of Being, their belief in mediumship would vanish.
At the very best, on its own theories, Spiritualism can ​only prove that certain individuals have a continued existence after death, and maintain their affiliation No proof of immortality. with mortal flesh; but Spiritualism affords no certainty of everlasting life. A man's assertion that he is immortal no more proves him to be so, than the opposite assertion, that he is mortal, would prove immortality a lie. Nor is the case improved when alleged spirits teach immortality. Life, Love, and Truth are the only evidences of immortality.
Man in the likeness of God, as revealed in Science, cannot help being immortal. Though the grass seemeth Decay. to wither and the flower to fade, they reappear. Erase the figures which express number, silence the tones of music, give to the worms the body called man, and yet the producing and governing Principle lives on, — in the one case as truly as in the other, — despite the so-called laws of matter, which define man as mortal. Though the inharmony resulting from material sense hides the harmony of Science, it cannot destroy the Principle, God. In Science, man's immortality depends on that of God, and follows it as a necessary consequence.
That somebody, somewhere, must have known the deceased person, supposed to be the communicator, is Communications. evident, and it is as easy to read distant thoughts as near. We think of an absent friend as easily as we do of one present. It is no more difficult to read the absent mind than it is the present. Chaucer wrote centuries ago, yet we still read his thought in his verse. What is classic study, but so much discernment of the minds of Homer and Virgil, of whose personal existence we may be in doubt?
​If spiritual life has been won by the departed, they cannot return to material existence; because different Dreaming. states of consciousness are involved, and one person cannot exist in two different states of consciousness at the same time. In sleep we do not communicate with the dreamer at our side, despite this proximity, because, though both of us are dreamers, we are wandering through different mazes of consciousness.
In like manner it would follow, even if our departed friends were near us, and were in as conscious a state of existence as before the change we call death, that their state of consciousness must be different from ours. We are not in their state, nor are they in the mental realm wherein we dwell. Communion between them and ourselves would be prevented by this difference. The mental planes are so unlike, that intercommunion is as impossible as it would be between a mole and a human being. Different dreams and different awakenings betoken differing consciousness. When wandering in Australia, do we look for help to the Esquimaux in their snow huts?
In an age of sin and sensuality, hastening to a greater development of power, it is wise to consider whether it Baal and Jehovah. the human mind or the divine Mind which is influencing you. What the prophets of Jehovah did, the worshippers of Baal failed to do; yet artifice and delusion claimed that they could equal the work of Wisdom.
Science only can explain the incredible good and evil elements now coming to the surface. Mortals must find refuge in Truth, in order to escape the error of these ​latter days. Nothing is more antagonistic to Christian Science than belief without understanding, for it blinds us to Truth, and builds on error.
Miracles are impossible in Science, and here it takes issue with popular religions. The highest manifestation Miracles. of Life, or Truth, is from the divine nature, and is not supernatural, since Science is an explication of nature. The belief that the universe, including man, is governed in general by material laws, but that occasionally Spirit sets aside these laws, — this belief belittles omnipotent Wisdom, and gives to matter the precedence over Spirit.
It is contrary to Christian Science to suppose that life is either material or organically spiritual. Between Conflicting standpoints. Christian Science and all forms of superstition a great gulf is fixed, as impassable as that between Dives and Lazarus. There is mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind-reading. The latter is a revelation of divine purpose, through the understanding, by which we gain the Principle and explanation of all things. These are distinctly opposite standpoints, whence cause and effect are interpreted. The act of reading mortal mind investigates and influences human beliefs only. Science is co-ordinate neither with the premises nor conclusions of human belief.
The ancient prophets gained their foresight from a spiritual, incorporeal standpoint; but men foreshadow Prophecy. evil, and mistake fact for fiction, when they predict the future from a groundwork of corporeality and human belief. When sufficiently advanced in Science to be in harmony with the Truth of Being, men become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled not ​by demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit. It is the prerogative of ever-present Mind, and of thought which is in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, present, and the future.
Acquaintance with the Science of Being enables us to commune more largely with the one Mind, to foresee and foretell events which concern the universal welfare, to be divinely inspired, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.
To understand that Mind is not bounded by corporeality, is not dependent upon the ear and eye for sound The Mind unbounded. and sight, or upon muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards Mind-Science, whereby we discern man's real nature and existence. This true conception of Being destroys the belief of Spiritualism at its very inception; for, without the concession of a corporeal personality, Spiritualism has no basis to build upon.
All we correctly know of Mind comes from God, divine Principle, and is learned through Christian Mind-reading. Science. If this Science has been thoroughly learned and properly digested, we can read mortal mind more accurately than the astronomer can read the stars or calculate an eclipse. This Mind-reading is the opposite of clairvoyance. It is the illumination of understanding, which demonstrates a capacity of Soul, not of material sense. This Soul-sense comes to the human mind, when the latter yields to the divine Mind.
Such intuitions reveal whatever constitutes and perpetuates harmony, enabling one to do good, but not evil. You will reach the perfect Science of Healing when able ​to read the human mind after this manner, and discern the error you would destroy. The Intuition. Samaritan woman said: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did! Is not this the Christ?”
It is recorded that Jesus, as he once journeyed with his students, “knew their thoughts,” — discerned them spiritually. In like manner he read disease and healed the sick. After the same method, events of great moment were foretold by the Hebrew Prophets. Our Master rebuked the lack of this power when he said: “Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”
The Jews had acute corporeal senses, but they were wanting in spiritual sense. Jesus knew the generation to be wicked and adulterous, seeking the Hypocrisy. material and hating the spiritual. His thrusts at materialism were sharp, but needful. He never spared hypocrisy the sternest condemnation. He said: “These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone.” The great Teacher of Christian Science knew both cause and effect, knew that Truth communicates itself, but never imparts error.
Jesus once asked, “Who hath touched me?” Supposing this inquiry to be occasioned by physical contact Mental contact. alone, his disciples answered, “The people throng thee.” Jesus knew, as others did not, that it was not matter, but mortal mind, whose touch called for aid. Repeating his inquiry, he was answered by the faith of a sick woman. His quick apprehension of this mental call illustrated his spirituality. The disciples' misconception of it betrayed their materiality. ​He possessed more spiritual susceptibility than the disciples. Opposites come from contrary directions, and produce unlike results.
Mind evolves images of thought. These may appear to the ignorant to be apparitions; but they are mysterious Spectres. only because it is unusual to see thoughts, though we can always feel their influence. Haunted houses, ghostly voices, unusual noises, and apparitions brought out in dark seances, either involve feats by tricksters, or they are images and sounds evolved involuntarily by mortal mind here. Seeing is no less a quality of physical sense than feeling is. Then why is it more difficult to see a thought than to feel it? Education alone determines the difference. In reality there is none.
Portraits, landscape-paintings, fac-similes of penmanship, peculiarities of expression, recollected sentences, can Phenomena explained. all be taken from pictorial thought and memory, as readily as from objects cognizant to the senses. Mortal mind sees what it believes, as certainly as it believes what it sees. It feels, hears, and sees its own thoughts. Pictures are mentally formed before the artist can convey them to canvas. So is it with all material conceptions. Mind-readers perceive these pictures of thought. They copy or reproduce them, even when lost to the memory of the mind in which they are discoverable.
It is needless for the thought or person holding the transferred picture to be individually and consciously Distance. present. Though individuals have passed away, their mental environment remains, to be discerned, described, and transmitted. Though bodies ​are leagues apart, and their associations forgotten, they float in the general atmosphere of human mind.
The Scotch call such vision Second Sight, when really it is first sight instead of second, for it presents primal Second Sight. facts to mortal mind. Science enables one to read the human mind, but not as a clairvoyant. It enables one to heal through Mind, but not as a mesmerist.
The mine knows naught of the emeralds within its rocks; the sea is ignorant of the gems within its Buried secrets. caverns, of the corals, of its sharp reefs, of the tall ships that float on its bosom, or whose carcasses lie buried in its sands; yet these are all there. Do not suppose that any mental concept is gone because you do not think of it. The true concept is never lost. The strong impressions produced on mortal mind by friendship, or any intense feeling, are lasting, and mind-readers can perceive and reproduce these impressions.
Memory may reproduce voices long since silent. We have but to close the eyes, and forms rise before us Recollection. which are thousands of miles away, or altogether gone from physical sight and sense, — and this not in dreamy sleep. In our day-dreams we recall what the poet felt, —
* the touch of the vanished hand,
* And the sound of the voice that is still.
The mind may even be cognizant of a present flavor and odor, when no viand touches the palate, and no scent salutes the nostrils.
How are veritable ideas to be distinguished from illusions? By learning their origin. Ideas are emanations ​of Spirit. Thoughts, proceeding from the brain or from matter, — illusions of mortal mind, — are beliefs. Ideas and illusions. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Beliefs proceed from the material senses, which at one time are supposed to be substance-matter, and at another are called spirit.
To love one's neighbor as one's self is a divine idea; but this idea can never be seen, felt, or understood through the physical senses. Excite the organ of veneration, religious faith, and the individual manifests profound adoration. Excite the opposite development, and he blasphemes. These effects, however, do not proceed from Christianity, nor are they spiritual phenomena; for both arise from mortal belief.
Eloquence re-echoes the strains of Truth and Love. It is inspiration, rather than erudition. It shows the Trance-speaking. possibilities derived from Mind, though it is said to be a gift whose endowment is obtained from books, or received from the impulsion of departed spirits. When eloquence proceeds from the belief that a departed spirit is speaking, who can tell what the unaided medium is incapable of knowing or uttering, this only shows that the beliefs of mortal mind are loosed. Forgetting her ignorance, in the belief that another mind is speaking through her, the devotee may become unwontedly eloquent. Having more faith in others than herself, and believing that somebody else possesses her tongue and mind, she talks freely.
Destroy her belief in outside aid, and her eloquence disappears. The former limits of her belief return. She says, “I am incapable of words that glow, for I am uneducated.” This familiar instance reaffirms the ​Scriptural word, “As a man thinketh, so is he.” If one believes that he cannot be an orator without study or a superinduced condition, the body responds to this belief, and the tongue grows mute which before was eloquent.
Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational processes. It possesses of itself all beauty and poetry, Improvisation. and the power of expressing them. Soul, God, is heard when the senses are silent. We are all capable of more than we do. The influence or action of Soul confers a freedom which explains the phenomena of improvisation, and the fervor of untutored lips.
Matter is neither intelligent nor creative. The tree is not the author of itself. Sound is not the originator of Origination. music, and man is not the father of man. Cain concluded, very naturally, that if life was in the body, and man gave it, man had the right to take it away. This incident shows that the belief of life in matter was “a murderer from the beginning.” If seed is necessary to produce wheat, and wheat to produce flour, or if one animal can originate another, how then can we account for their primal origin? How were the loaves and fishes multiplied on the shores of Galilee, — and that, too, without meal or monad, from which loaf or fish could come?
The earth's orbit, and the imaginary line called the equator, are not substance. The earth's motion and Unseen orbits. position are sustained alone by Mind. Divest yourself of the thought that there can ever be substance in matter, and then the movements and transitions, now possible for mortal mind, will be ​found to be equally possible for the body. Then Being will be recognized as spiritual, and death will be obsolete; though now we insist that death is the necessary prelude to immortality.
In dreams we fly to Europe and meet a far-off friend. The looker-on sees the body in bed, but the supposed Dreamy delusions. inhabitant of that body carries it through the air and over the ocean. This shows the possibilities of thought. Opium and hashish eaters mentally travel far and work wonders; yet their bodies stay in one place. This shows what mortal mentality and knowledge are.
The admission to one's self that man is God's own likeness, sets one free to master the infinite idea. This Finalities. conviction shuts the door on death, and opens it wide towards immortality. The understanding and recognition of Spirit must finally come, and we might as well improve our time in solving the mysteries of Being, through an apprehension of Principle. At present we know not fully what man is; but we certainly shall know this when man reflects God.
The Revelator tells us of “a new Heaven and a new earth.” Have you ever pictured this Heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme Wisdom?
Let us rid ourselves of the belief that man is separated from God, and obey only the divine Principle, Life and Love. Here is the great point of departure for all true spiritual growth.
It is difficult for the sinner to accept Divine Science, Selfhood. because it exposes his nothingness; but the sooner error is reduced to its native nothingness, the sooner man's great reality will appear, and his ​genuine Being will be understood. The destruction of error is by no means the destruction of Truth or Life, but is their acknowledgment.
Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind. The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man's spiritual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge gained from matter, or through what are termed the material senses.
Certain erroneous postulates should be here considered, Erroneous postulates. in order that the spiritual facts may be better apprehended. The first erroneous
postulate of belief is, that substance, life, and intelligence are something apart from God.
The second erroneous postulate is, that man is both mental and material.
The third erroneous postulate is, that mind is both evil and good; when the real Mind cannot be evil, or the medium of evil, for Mind is God.
The fourth erroneous postulate is, that matter is intelligent, and that man has a material body, which is part of himself.
The fifth erroneous postulate is, that matter holds in itself the issues of life and death, — that it is not only capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but also of imparting these sensations. From the illusion implied In this last postulate arises the decomposition of mortal bodies in what is termed death.
Mind is not an entity within the cranium, with power of sinning now and forever.
In old Scriptural pictures we see the Tree of Knowledge, with a serpent coiled around it, speaking to Adam ​and Eve. This represents the serpent in the act of commending to our first parents the knowledge of good Serpent. and evil, a knowledge gained from matter, or evil, instead of Spirit. The portrayal is still graphically accurate, for the common conception of manhood — a burlesque of God's man — is an outgrowth of human knowledge, a mere offshoot of material sense.
Uncover error, and it turns the lie on you. Until the fact concerning error — namely, its nothingness — Opposing power. appears, the moral demand will not be met, and the ability to make nothing of error will be wanting. We should blush to call that real which is only a mistake. The foundation of evil is laid on a belief in something besides God. This belief tends to support two opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth alone. The mistake of thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of Truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error.
Do you say the time has not yet come in which to recognize Soul as substantial, and able to control the The age's privilege. body? Remember Jesus, who, over eighteen centuries ago, demonstrated the power of Spirit, and said, “The works that I do, ye shall do;” and who also said, “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.” “Behold, now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation,” said Paul.
Divine logic and revelation coincide. If we find this to be otherwise, we may be sure that our logic is at Logic and revelation. fault, or that we have misinterpreted revelation. Good itself never causes evil, or creates aught that can cause evil.
​Good does not create a mind susceptible of causing evil, for evil is the opposing error, and not the Truth of creation. Destructive electricity is not the offspring of infinite Good. Whatever contradicts the real nature of the divine esse, though human faith may clothe it with angelic vestments, is without foundation.
The belief that Spirit is finite as well as infinite has darkened all history. In Christian Science, Spirit, as a Derivatives of spirit. proper noun, is the name of Being. It means quantity and quality, and applies exclusively to God. The modifying derivatives of the word spirit refer only to quality, not Being. Man is spiritual. He is not God, Spirit. If man were Spirit, then men would be spirits, gods. Finite spirit would be mortal; and this is the error embodied in the belief that the Infinite can be contained in the finite. This belief tends to becloud our apprehension of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the reign of harmony in the Science of Being.
Jesus taught but one God, one Spirit. Spirit makes man in the image and likeness of Himself, — of Spirit, Personality. not of matter. Man reflects infinite Truth, Life, and Love. The nature of man, thus understood, includes more than is implied by the term person as commonly used. The truly Christian and Scientific statement of personality, and the relation of man to God, with the demonstration which accompanied it, incensed the rabbis, and they said: “Crucify him! He maketh himself as God. What further witness need we against him?”
The eastern Empires and nations owe their false government to the misconceptions of Deity there prevalent. Tyranny, intolerance, and bloodshed, wherever found, ​arise from the belief that the Infinite is formed after the pattern of mortal personality, passion, and impulse.
The progress of Truth confirms its claims, and our Master confirmed his words by his works. His healing-powers Ingratitude. evoked denial, ingratitude, and betrayal, arising from sensuality. Of the ten lepers whom Jesus healed, but one returned to give God thanks, — that is, to acknowledge the Principle which healed him.
Our Master easily read the thoughts of mankind, and this insight better enabled him to direct those thoughts Insight. aright; but what would be said, at this period, of an infidel blasphemer who should hint that Jesus used his incisive power injuriously? Our Master read mortal mind on a Scientific basis, — the omnipresence of Mind. An approximation toward this discernment indicates spiritual growth, and a union with the infinite capacities of the one Mind. Jesus could injure no one by his Mind-reading. The effect of his Mind was always to heal and save. This is the only genuine Science of reading mortal mind. His holy motives and aims were traduced by the sinners of that period, as they would be to-day, if Jesus were personally present. Paul said, “To be spiritually minded is Life.” We approach God, or Life, in the ratio of our spirituality, our fidelity to Truth and Love; and in that ratio we are able to discern the thoughts of the sick and the sinful, in order to heal them. Error of any kind cannot hide from the law of Wisdom.
Whoever reaches this point of moral culture cannot injure others, and must do them good. The greater or less ability of a Christian Scientist, to discern thought. ​depends on his genuine spirituality. This kind of mind-reading is not clairvoyance; but it is important to our success in healing, and is one of the special characteristics of that success.
We welcome the increase of knowledge, even though it lead into error, because sinful human invention must Christ's reappearance. have its day, and we want that day to be over. Midnight foretells the dawn. Led by a
solitary star amid the darkness, the Magi of old foretold the Messiahship of Truth. Is the wise man of to-day believed, when he beholds the light which heralds Christ's eternal dawn, and describes its effulgence ?
Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. Awakening. Material sense cannot at once enter upon the unknown reality of Spirit. As a criminal it will be punished by an unlooked-for doom. Humanity advances out of material sense into spiritual understanding slowly, because unwillingness to learn clogs the footsteps and loads Christendom with chains.
Love will finally mark the hour of harmony; and spiritualization will follow, for Love is Spirit. Before error The darkest hours of all. is wholly destroyed, there will be interruptions in the general material routine. Earth will become dreary and desolate, but summer and winter, seedtime and harvest (though in changed forms), will continue unto the end, — until the final spiritualization of all things. “The darkest hour just precedes the dawn.”
This material world is even now becoming the arena of conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other there will be Science and ​peace. In the breaking up of material beliefs, there will be famine and pestilence. Sickness and death will Arena of contest. assume sudden phases, and their nothingness be understood. These disturbances will continue until the end, when all material discord will be swallowed up in spiritual harmony.
Mortal error will vanish in a moral chemicalization. This mental fermentation has begun, and will continue until all errors of belief yield to understanding. Belief is changeable, but understanding is spiritually changeless.
As this consummation draws nearer, he who hath shaped his course in accordance with Christian Science Consummation. will find harmony established at the very threshold of his career. As material knowledge diminishes, and spiritual understanding increases, sensible objects will be apprehended mentally instead of physically.
During this final conflict, wicked minds will endeavor to find means whereby to accomplish more evil; but those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection.
In reality, the more closely error simulates Truth, and so-called matter resembles its essence, mortal mind, the Dangerous resemblances. more impotent error becomes as a belief. The lightning is fierce and the electric current swift, yet in Christian Science the flight of one and the blow of the other are harmless. The more ethereal matter becomes, the more its nothingness appears, until it reaches its mortal zenith in illusion, the source of all evil. The nearer a belief approaches Truth, without passing ​the boundary where it ceases to be an illusion, having been corrected by the understanding, the riper it becomes for destruction. The more material the belief, the more obvious it is, until Divine Science, supreme in its domain, destroys it, and man is found in the likeness of his heavenly Father.
The broadest facts array the most falsities against themselves, for they bring error out from under cover. It requires courage to utter Truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error scream, until its inarticulate sound is forever silenced, smothered in oblivion.
“He uttered His voice; the earth melted.” This Scripture indicates that all falsity, or matter, will disappear before the supremacy of Spirit,
Christianity is again demonstrating the Life that is Truth, and the Truth that is Life, by the apostolic work Christianity still rejected. of casting out error and healing the sick. Earth has no repayment for the persecutions which attend a new step in Christianity; but their spiritual recompense is assured in the elevation of existence above mortal discord, and the gift of immortal harmony to Being.
The prophet of to-day beholds in the mental horizon the signs of these times, the reappearance of the Timely signs. Christianity which heals the sick and destroys error, “and no other sign shall be given.” Body cannot be saved, except through Mind. Christianity is misinterpreted by this material age; for it is the healing influence of Spirit (not spirits) which the material senses cannot comprehend, and which can only be spiritually discerned. Creeds and doctrines ​and beliefs do not express it, much less can they demonstrate it.
Beyond the frail premises of Spiritualism, above the grasp of creeds, the divine demonstration of Mind-healing Elevation. stands as a revealed and practical reality, imperious throughout all ages, — a system of Truth and Love, for every man to understand and practise.
For centuries — yea, always — natural science has been considered no part of any religion, Christianity Science as foreign to all religion. not excepted. Even now multitudes consider that what they call science has no proper connection with faith and piety. Mystery enshrouds the popular systems of religion. Religion is made theoretical and fragmentary, rather than practical and complete, and so is deprived of its essential vitality.
The way through which Immortality and Life are learned is not ecclesiastical, but Christian, not human, Keys of Heaven. but divine, not physical, but metaphysical, not material, but Scientifically spiritual. Human philosophy, doctrines, ethics, and ecclesiasticism afford no demonstrable principle, whereby mortals can escape from sin; yet this is what the Bible demands. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” says the apostle; yet he straightway adds: “for it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Philippians, ii. 12, 13). Truth has furnished the key to the kingdom, and with this key Christian Science has opened the door of the humai; understanding. None may pick the lock, or enter by some other door.
​The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations whereof are harmony, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material life are seen to be a bald imposition, and materiality gives everlasting place to the Scientific demonstration of Spirit.