Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📖

>embracing its so-called pleasures and pains, to vanish 77:15 from consciousness, “knoweth no man …

neither the Son, but the Father.” This period

will be of longer or shorter duration according to the 77:18 tenacity of error. Of what advantage, then, would it be

to us, or to the departed, to prolong the material state and

so prolong the illusion either of a soul inert or of a sinning, 77:21 suffering sense, - a so-called mind fettered to matter.

 

Progress and purgatory

 

Even if communications from spirits to mortal consciousness were possible, such communications would 77:24 grow beautifully less with every advanced stage

of existence. The departed would gradually

rise above ignorance and materiality, and Spiritualists 77:27 would outgrow their beliefs in material spiritualism.

Spiritism consigns the so-called dead to a state resembling

that of blighted buds, - to a wretched purgatory, where 77:30 the chances of the departed for improvement narrow

into nothing and they return to their old standpoints of

matter.

 

Unnatural deflections

78:1 The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak,

the ferocious beast, - like the discords of disease, sin, 78:3 and death, - are unnatural. They are the falsities of sense, the changing deflections of mortal mind; they are not the eternal realities of Mind.

 

Absurd oracles

78:6 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! 78:9 If the departed are in rapport with mortality, or matter, they are not spiritual, but must still

be mortal, sinning, suffering, and dying. Then why 78:12 look to them - even were communication possible - for

proofs of immortality, and accept them as oracles? Communications gathered from ignorance are pernicious in 78:15 tendency.

 

Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would

destroy the supremacy of Spirit. If Spirit pervades all 78:18 space, it needs no material method for the transmission

of messages. Spirit needs no wires nor electricity in order

to be omnipresent.

 

Spirit intangible

78:21 Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it

communicate with man through electric, material effects?

How can the majesty and omnipotence of 78:24 Spirit be lost? God is not in the medley

where matter cares for matter, where spiritism makes

many gods, and hypnotism and electricity are claimed 78:27 to be 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 78:30 comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the

effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling

in eternal Science.

 

Thought regarding death

79:1 The act of describing disease - its symptoms, locality,

and fatality - is not scientific. Warning people against 79:3 death is an error that tends to frighten into

death those who are ignorant of Life as God.

Thousands of instances could be cited of health restored 79:6 by changing the patient’s thoughts regarding death.

 

Fallacious hypotheses

 

A scientific mental method is more sanitary than the

use of drugs, and such a mental method produces perma-79:9 nent health. Science must go over the whole

ground, and dig up every seed of error’s sowing. Spiritualism relies upon human beliefs and hy-79:12 potheses. Christian Science removes these beliefs and

hypotheses through the higher understanding of God, for

Christian Science, resting on divine Principle, not on ma-79:15 terial personalities, in its revelation of immortality, introduces the harmony of being.

 

Jesus cast out evil spirits, or false beliefs. The Apostle 79:18 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 de-79:21 scribed disease, so far as can be learned from the Gospels,

but he healed disease.

 

Mistaken methods

 

The unscientific practitioner says: “You are ill. Your 79:24 brain is overtaxed, and you must rest. Your body is

weak, and it must be strengthened. You have

nervous prostration, and must be treated for it.” 79:27 Science objects to all this, contending for the rights of intelligence and asserting that Mind controls body and brain.

 

Divine strength

 

Mind-science teaches that mortals need “not be weary 79:30 in well doing.” It dissipates fatigue in doing

good. Giving does not impoverish us in the

service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us. 80:1 We have strength in proportion to our apprehension of

the truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving 80:3 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 denial of immortality

80:6 A communication purporting to come from the late

Theodore Parker reads as follows: “There never was,

and there never will be, an immortal spirit.” 80:9 Yet the very periodical containing this sentence repeats weekly the assertion that spirit-communications are our only proofs of immortality.

 

Mysticism unscientific

80:12 I entertain no doubt of the humanity and philanthropy

of many Spiritualists, but I cannot coincide with their

views. It is mysticism which gives spiritual-80:15 ism its force. Science dispels mystery and

explains extraordinary phenomena; but Science never

removes phenomena from the domain of reason into the 80:18 realm of mysticism.

 

Physical falsities

 

It should not seem mysterious that mind, without the

aid of hands, can move a table, when we already know 80:21 that it is mind-power which moves both table

and hand. Even planchette - the French toy

which years ago pleased so many people - attested the con-80:24 trol of mortal mind over its substratum, called matter.

 

It is mortal mind which convulses its substratum, matter.

These movements arise from the volition of human belief, 80:27 but they are neither scientific nor rational. Mortal mind

produces table-tipping as certainly as table-setting, and

believes that this wonder emanates from spirits and elec-80:30 tricity. This belief rests on the common conviction that

mind and matter cooperate both visibly and invisibly,

hence that matter is intelligent.

 

Poor post-mortem evidence

81:1 There is not so much evidence to prove intercommunication between the so-called dead and the living, as there 81:3 is to show the sick that matter suffers and has

sensation; yet this latter evidence is destroyed by

the Mind-science. If Spiritualists understood the 81:6 Science of being, their belief in mediumship would vanish.

 

No proof of immortality

 

At the very best and on its own theories, spiritualism

can only prove that certain individuals have a continued 81:9 existence after death and maintain their affili—

ation with mortal flesh; but this fact affords

no certainty of everlasting life. A man’s assertion that 81:12 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 81:15 teach immortality. Life, Love, Truth, is the only proof

of immortality.

 

Mind’s manifestations immortal

 

Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science can-81:18 not help being immortal. Though the grass seemeth to

wither and the flower to fade, they reappear.

Erase the figures which express number, silence 81:21 the tones of music, give to the worms the body

called man, and yet the producing, governing, divine

Principle lives on, - in the case of man as truly as in 81:24 the case of numbers and of music, - despite the so-called

laws of matter, which define man as mortal. Though

the inharmony resulting from material sense hides the 81:27 harmony of Science, inharmony cannot destroy the divine

Principle of Science. In Science, man’s immortality depends upon that of God, good, and follows as a necessary 81:30 consequence of the immortality of good.

 

Reading thoughts

 

That somebody, somewhere, must have known the

deceased person, supposed to be the communicator, is 82:1 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 82:3 present. It is no more difficult to read the

absent mind than it is to read the present.

Chaucer wrote centuries ago, yet we still read his thought 82:6 in his verse. What is classic study, but discernment of

the minds of Homer and Virgil, of whose personal existence we may be in doubt?

 

Impossible intercommunion

82:9 If spiritual life has been won by the departed, they

cannot return to material existence, because different

states of consciousness are involved, and one 82:12 person cannot exist in two different states of

consciousness at the same time. In sleep we

do not communicate with the dreamer by our side despite 82:15 his physical proximity, because both of us are either unconscious or are wandering in our dreams through different mazes of consciousness.

82:18 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 82:21 state of consciousness must be different from ours. We

are not in their state, nor are they in the mental realm

in which we dwell. Communion between them and 82:24 ourselves would be prevented by this difference. The

mental states are so unlike, that intercommunion is as

impossible as it would be between a mole and a human 82:27 being. Different dreams and different awakenings be—

token a differing consciousness. When wandering in

Australia, do we look for help to the Esquimaux in their 82:30 snow huts?

 

In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a

greater development of power, it is wise earnestly to 83:1 consider whether it is the human mind or the divine

Mind which is influencing one. What the prophets of 83:3 Jehovah did, the worshippers of Baal failed to do; yet

artifice and delusion claimed that they could equal the

work of wisdom.

83:6 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 83:9 days. Nothing is more antagonistic to Christian Science

than a blind belief without understanding, for such a

belief hides Truth and builds on error.

 

Natural wonders

83:12 Miracles are impossible in Science, and here Science

takes issue with popular religions. The scientific manifestation of power is from the divine nature 83:15 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 83:18 that occasionally Spirit sets aside these laws, - this belief belittles omnipotent wisdom, and gives to matter the

precedence over Spirit.

 

Conflicting standpoints

83:21 It is contrary to Christian Science to suppose that life

is either material or organically spiritual. Between

Christian Science and all forms of superstition 83:24 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 83:27 of divine purpose through spiritual understanding, by

which man gains the divine Principle and explanation of

all things. Mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind-83:30 reading are distinctly opposite standpoints, from which

cause and effect are interpreted. The act of reading

mortal mind investigates and touches only human beliefs. 84:1 Science is immortal and coordinate neither with the

premises nor with the conclusions of mortal beliefs.

 

Scientific foreseeing

84:3 The ancient prophets gained their foresight from a

spiritual, incorporeal standpoint, not by foreshadowing

evil and mistaking fact for fiction, - predict-84:6 ing 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 84:9 become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled not

by demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit.

It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and