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

view of the conceded falsity of this

testimony. The refutation becomes arduous,

not because the testimony of sin or disease is 396:18 true, but solely on account of the tenacity of belief in its

truth, due to the force of education and the overwhelming weight of opinions on the wrong side, - all teaching 396:21 that the body suffers, as if matter could have sensation.

 

Healthful explanation

 

At the right time explain to the sick the power which

their beliefs exercise over their bodies. Give them divine 396:24 and wholesome understanding, with which to

combat their erroneous sense, and so efface the

images of sickness from mortal mind. Keep distinctly in 396:27 thought that man is the offspring of God, not of man;

that man is spiritual, not material; that Soul is Spirit,

outside of matter, never in it, never giving the body life 396:30 and sensation. It breaks the dream of disease to understand that sickness is formed by the human mind, not by

matter nor by the divine Mind.

 

Misleading methods

397:1 By not perceiving vital metaphysical points, not seeing

how mortal mind affects the body, - acting beneficially 397:3 or injuriously on the health, as well as on the

morals and the happiness of mortals, - we are

misled in our conclusions and methods. We throw the 397:6 mental influence on the wrong side, thereby actually injuring those whom we mean to bless.

 

Remedy for accidents

 

Suffering is no less a mental condition than is enjoy-397:9 ment. You cause bodily sufferings and increase them

by admitting their reality and continuance,

as directly as you enhance your joys by be-397:12 lieving them to be real and continuous. When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, “I am hurt!”

Your thought is more powerful than your words, more 397:15 powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury

real.

 

Now reverse the process. Declare that you are not hurt 397:18 and understand the reason why, and you will find the

ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your

disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine meta-397:21 physics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures

declare Him to be.

 

Independent mentality

 

To heal the sick, one must be familiar with the great 397:24 verities of being. Mortals are no more material in their

waking hours than when they act, walk, see,

hear, enjoy, or suffer in dreams. We can 397:27 never treat mortal mind and matter separately, because

they combine as one. Give up the belief that mind

is, even temporarily, compressed within the skull, and 397:30 you will quickly become more manly or womanly. You

will understand yourself and your Maker better than

before.

 

Naming maladies

398:1 Sometimes Jesus called a disease by name, as when he

said to the epileptic boy, “Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I 398:3 charge thee, come out of him, and enter no

more into him.” It is added that “the spirit

[error] cried, and rent him sore and came out of him, and 398:6 he was as one dead,” - clear evidence that the malady

was not material. These instances show the concessions

which Jesus was willing to make to the popular ignorance 398:9 of spiritual Life-laws. Often he gave no name to the

distemper he cured. To the synagogue ruler’s daughter,

whom they called dead but of whom he said, “she is not 398:12 dead, but sleepeth,” he simply said, “Damsel, I say unto

thee, arise!” To the sufferer with the withered hand

he said, “Stretch forth thine hand,” and it “was restored 398:15 whole, like as the other.”

 

The action of faith

 

Homoeopathic remedies, sometimes not containing a

particle of medicine, are known to relieve the symptoms 398:18 of disease. What produces the change? It is

the faith of the doctor and the patient, which

reduces self-inflicted sufferings and produces a new effect 398:21 upon the body. In like manner destroy the illusion of

pleasure in intoxication, and the desire for strong drink

is gone. Appetite and disease reside in mortal mind, not 398:24 in matter.

 

So also faith, cooperating with a belief in the healing

effects of time and medication, will soothe fear and change 398:27 the belief of disease to a belief of health. Even a blind

faith removes bodily ailments for a season, but hypnotism

changes such ills into new and more difficult forms of dis-398:30 ease. The Science of Mind must come to the rescue,

to work a radical cure. Then we understand the process.

The great fact remains that evil is not mind. Evil has 399:1 no power, no intelligence, for God is good, and therefore

good is infinite, is All.

 

Corporeal combinations

399:3 You say that certain material combinations produce

disease; but if the material body causes disease, can

matter cure what matter has caused? Mortal 399:6 mind prescribes the drug, and administers it.

Mortal mind plans the exercise, and puts the body through

certain motions. No gastric gas accumulates, not a se-399:9 cretion nor combination can operate, apart from the

action of mortal thought, alias mortal mind.

 

Automatic mechanism

 

So-called mortal mind sends its despatches over its 399:12 body, but this so-called mind is both the service and

message of this telegraphy. Nerves are unable to talk, and matter can return no an-399:15 swer to immortal Mind. If Mind is the only actor, how

can mechanism be automatic? Mortal mind perpetuates

its own thought. It constructs a machine, manages it, 399:18 and then calls it material. A mill at work or the action

of a water-wheel is but a derivative from, and continua—

tion of, the primitive mortal mind. Without this force 399:21 the body is devoid of action, and this deadness shows

that so-called mortal life is mortal mind, not matter.

 

Mental strength

 

Scientifically speaking, there is no mortal mind out of 399:24 which to make material beliefs, springing from illusion.

This misnamed mind is not an entity. It is

only a false sense of matter, since matter is not 399:27 sensible. The one Mind, God, contains no mortal opinions. All that is real is included in this immortal Mind.

 

Confirmation in a parable

 

Our Master asked: “How can one enter into a strong 399:30 man’s house and spoil his goods, except he first

bind the strong man?” In other words: How

can I heal the body, without beginning with so-called 400:1 mortal mind, which directly controls the body? When

disease is once destroyed in this so-called mind, the fear 400:3 of disease is gone, and therefore the disease is thoroughly cured. Mortal mind is “the strong man,” which

must be held in subjection before its influence upon health 400:6 and morals can be removed. This error conquered, we

can despoil “the strong man” of his goods, - namely, of

sin and disease.

 

Eradicate error from thought

400:9 Mortals obtain the harmony of health, only as they

forsake discord, acknowledge the supremacy of divine

Mind, and abandon their material beliefs. 400:12 Eradicate the image of disease from the perturbed thought before it has taken tangible

shape in conscious thought, alias the body, and you pre-400:15 vent the development of disease. This task becomes easy,

if you understand that every disease is an error, and has

no character nor type, except what mortal mind assigns to 400:18 it. By lifting thought above error, or disease, and contending persistently for truth, you destroy error.

 

Mortal mind controlled

 

When we remove disease by addressing the disturbed 400:21 mind, giving no heed to the body, we prove that thought

alone creates the suffering. Mortal mind

rules all that is mortal. We see in the body 400:24 the images of this mind, even as in optics we see painted

on the retina the image which becomes visible to the

senses. The action of so-called mortal mind must be 400:27 destroyed by the divine Mind to bring out the harmony

of being. Without divine control there is discord, manifest as sin, sickness, and death.

 

Mortal mind not a healer

400:30 The Scriptures plainly declare the baneful influence of

sinful thought on the body. Even our Master felt this.

It is recorded that in certain localities he did not many 401:1 mighty works “because of their unbelief” in Truth. Any

human error is its own enemy, and works against itself; 401:3 it does nothing in the right direction and much

in the wrong. If so-called mind is cherishing

evil passions and malicious purposes, it is not a healer, 401:6 but it engenders disease and death.

 

Effect of opposites

 

If faith in the truth of being, which you impart mentally while destroying error, causes chemicalization (as 401:9 when an alkali is destroying an acid), it is because the truth of being must transform the

error to the end of producing a higher manifestation. 401:12 This fermentation should not aggravate the disease, but

should be as painless to man as to a fluid, since matter

has no sensation and mortal mind only feels and sees 401:15 materially.

 

What I term chemicalization is the upheaval produced

when immortal Truth is destroying erroneous mortal be-401:18 lief. Mental chemicalization brings sin and sickness to

the surface, forcing impurities to pass away, as is the case

with a fermenting fluid.

 

Medicine and brain

401:21 The only effect produced by medicine is dependent upon

mental action. If the mind were parted from the body,

could you produce any effect upon the brain 401:24 or body by applying the drug to either? Would

the drug remove paralysis, affect organization, or restore

will and action to cerebrum and cerebellum?

 

Skilful surgery

401:27 Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian Scientists to leave

surgery and the adjustment of broken bones 401:30 and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon,

while the mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental

reconstruction and to the prevention of inflammation. 402:1 Christian Science is always the most skilful surgeon, but

surgery is the branch of its healing which will be last 402:3 acknowledged. However, it is but just to say that the

author has already in her possession well-authenticated

records of the cure, by herself and her students through 402:6 mental surgery alone, of broken bones, dislocated joints,

and spinal vertebrae.

 

Indestructible life of man

 

The time approaches when mortal mind will forsake 402:9 its corporeal, structural, and material basis, when immortal Mind and its formations will be apprehended in Science, and material beliefs will 402:12 not interfere with spiritual facts. Man is indestructible

and eternal. Sometime it will be learned that mortal

mind constructs the mortal body with this mind’s own 402:15 mortal materials. In Science, no breakage nor dislocation

can really occur. You say that accidents, injuries, and

disease kill man, but this is not true. The life of man is 402:18 Mind. The material body manifests only what mortal

mind believes, whether it be a broken bone, disease, or sin.

 

The evil of mesmerism

 

We say that one human mind can influence another and 402:21 in this way affect the body, but we rarely remember that

we govern our own bodies. The error, mesmerism - or hypnotism, to use the recent term 402:24 - illustrates the fact just stated. The operator would

make his subjects believe that they cannot act voluntarily

and handle themselves as they should do. If they yield 402:27 to this influence, it is because their belief is not better

instructed by spiritual understanding. Hence the proof

that hypnotism is not scientific; Science cannot produce 402:30 both disorder and order. The involuntary pleasure or

pain of the person under hypnotic control is proved to be

a belief without a real cause.

 

Wrong-doer should suffer

403:1 So the sick through their beliefs have induced their own

diseased conditions. The great difference