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

the troublesome material cause is unremoved, and that when the 416:12 soporific influence of the opium is exhausted, the patient will find himself in the same pain, unless the belief

which occasions the pain has meanwhile been changed. 416:15 Where is the pain while the patient sleeps?

 

The so-called physical ego

 

The material body, which you call me, is mortal mind,

and this mind is material in sensation, even as the body, 416:18 which has originated from this material sense

and been developed according to it, is material. This materialism of parent and child is only in 416:21 mortal mind, as the dead body proves; for when the

mortal has resigned his body to dust, the body is no

longer the parent, even in appearance.

 

Evil thought depletes

416:24 The sick know nothing of the mental process by

which they are depleted, and next to nothing of the

metaphysical method by which they can be 416:27 healed. If they ask about their disease, tell

them only what is best for them to know. Assure them

that they think too much about their ailments, and 416:30 have already heard too much on that subject. Turn

their thoughts away from their bodies to higher objects. Teach them that their being is sustained by 417:1 Spirit, not by matter, and that they find health, peace,

and harmony in God, divine Love.

 

Helpful encouragement

417:3 Give sick people credit for sometimes knowing more

than their doctors. Always support their trust in the

power of Mind to sustain the body. Never 417:6 tell the sick that they have more courage

than strength. Tell them rather, that their strength

is in proportion to their courage. If you make the sick 417:9 realize this great truism, there will be no reaction from

over-exertion or from excited conditions. Maintain

the facts of Christian Science, - that Spirit is God, and 417:12 therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed matter

cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting

through spiritual law. Then hold your ground with 417:15 the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and

you will win. When you silence the witness against your

plea, you destroy the evidence, for the disease disap-417:18 pears. The evidence before the corporeal senses is not

the Science of immortal man.

 

Disease to be made unreal

 

To the Christian Science healer, sickness is a dream 417:21 from which the patient needs to be awakened. Disease should not appear real to the physician,

since it is demonstrable that the way to 417:24 cure the patient is to make disease unreal to him. To

do this, the physician must understand the unreality

of disease in Science.

417:27 Explain audibly to your patients, as soon as they can

bear it, the complete control which Mind holds over the

body. Show them how mortal mind seems to induce 417:30 disease by certain fears and false conclusions, and how

divine Mind can cure by opposite thoughts. Give your

patients an underlying understanding to support them 418:1 and to shield them from the baneful effects of their own

conclusions. Show them that the conquest over sickness, 418:3 as well as over sin, depends on mentally destroying all

belief in material pleasure or pain.

 

Christian pleading

 

Stick to the truth of being in contradistinction to the 418:6 error that life, substance, or intelligence can be in matter.

Plead with an honest conviction of truth and

a clear perception of the unchanging, unerr-418:9 ing, and certain effect of divine Science. Then, if your

fidelity is half equal to the truth of your plea, you will

heal the sick.

 

Truthful arguments

418:12 It must be clear to you that sickness is no more

the reality of being than is sin. This mortal dream

of sickness, sin, and death should cease 418:15 through Christian Science. Then one disease would be as readily destroyed as another. Whatever the belief is, if arguments are used to destroy it, 418:18 the belief must be repudiated, and the negation must extend to the supposed disease and to whatever decides its

type and symptoms. Truth is affirmative, and confers 418:21 harmony. All metaphysical logic is inspired by this simple rule of Truth, which governs all reality. By the

truthful arguments you employ, and especially by the 418:24 spirit of Truth and Love which you entertain, you will

heal the sick.

 

Morality required

 

Include moral as well as physical belief in your efforts 418:27 to destroy error. Cast out all manner of evil. “Preach

the gospel to every creature.” Speak the

truth to every form of error. Tumors, ulcers, 418:30 tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are waking dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought, which

flee before the light of Truth.

419:1 A moral question may hinder the recovery of the sick.

Lurking error, lust, envy, revenge, malice, or hate will 419:3 perpetuate or even create the belief in disease. Errors

of all sorts tend in this direction. Your true course is

to destroy the foe, and leave the field to God, Life, Truth, 419:6 and Love, remembering that God and His ideas alone

are real and harmonious.

 

Relapse unnecessary

 

If your patient from any cause suffers a relapse, meet 419:9 the cause mentally and courageously, knowing that

there can be no reaction in Truth. Neither

disease itself, sin, nor fear has the power to 419:12 cause disease or a relapse. Disease has no intelligence

with which to move itself about or to change itself from

one form to another. If disease moves, mind, not mat-419:15 ter, moves it; therefore be sure that you move it off.

Meet every adverse circumstance as its master. Observe mind instead of body, lest aught unfit for develop-419:18 ment enter thought. Think less of material conditions

and more of spiritual.

 

Conquer beliefs and fears

 

Mind produces all action. If the action proceeds from 419:21 Truth, from immortal Mind, there is harmony; but mortal mind is liable to any phase of belief. A

relapse cannot in reality occur in mortals or 419:24 so-called mortal minds, for there is but one

Mind, one God. Never fear the mental malpractitioner,

the mental assassin, who, in attempting to rule mankind, 419:27 tramples upon the divine Principle of metaphysics, for God

is the only power. To succeed in healing, you must conquer your own fears as well as those of your patients, and 419:30 rise into higher and holier consciousness.

 

True government of man

 

If it is found necessary to treat against relapse, know

that disease or its symptoms cannot change forms, nor 420:1 go from one part to another, for Truth destroys disease.

There is no metastasis, no stoppage of harmonious 420:3 action, no paralysis. Truth not error, Love

not hate, Spirit not matter, governs man. If

students do not readily heal themselves, they should 420:6 early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid

them. If they are unwilling to do this for themselves,

they need only to know that error cannot produce this 420:9 unnatural reluctance.

 

Positive reassurance

 

Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims,

for if they will only accept Truth, they can resist disease 420:12 and ward it off, as positively as they can the

temptation to sin. This fact of Christian Science should be explained to invalids when they are in a 420:15 fit mood to receive it, - when they will not array themselves against it, but are ready to become receptive to the

new idea. The fact that Truth overcomes both disease 420:18 and sin reassures depressed hope. It imparts a healthy

stimulus to the body, and regulates the system. It increases or diminishes the action, as the case may require, 420:21 better than any drug, alterative, or tonic.

 

Proper stimulus

 

Mind is the natural stimulus of the body, but erroneous belief, taken at its best, is not promotive of health 420:24 or happiness. Tell the sick that they can

meet disease fearlessly, if they only realize

that divine Love gives them all power over every physical 420:27 action and condition.

 

Awaken the patient

 

If it becomes necessary to startle mortal mind to break

its dream of suffering, vehemently tell your patient that 420:30 he must awake. Turn his gaze from the false

evidence of the senses to the harmonious facts

of Soul and immortal being. Tell him that he suffers 421:1 only as the insane suffer, from false beliefs. The only

difference is, that insanity implies belief in a diseased 421:3 brain, while physical ailments (so-called) arise from the

belief that other portions of the body are deranged. Derangement, or disarrangement, is a word which conveys 421:6 the true definition of all human belief in ill-health, or disturbed harmony. Should you thus startle mortal mind

in order to remove its beliefs, afterwards make known 421:9 to the patient your motive for this shock, showing him

that it was to facilitate recovery.

 

How to treat a crisis

 

If a crisis occurs in your treatment, you must treat 421:12 the patient less for the disease and more for the mental

disturbance or fermentation, and subdue the

symptoms by removing the belief that this 421:15 chemicalization produces pain or disease. Insist vehemently on the great fact which covers the whole ground,

that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside 421:18 Him. There is no disease. When the supposed suffering is gone from mortal mind, there can be no pain; and

when the fear is destroyed, the inflammation will sub-421:21 side. Calm the excitement sometimes induced by chemicalization, which is the alterative effect produced by

Truth upon error, and sometimes explain the symptoms 421:24 and their cause to the patient.

 

No perversion of Mind-science

 

It is no more Christianly scientific to see disease than

it is to experience it. If you would destroy the sense 421:27 of disease, you should not build it up by

wishing to see the forms it assumes or by

employing a single material application for 421:30 its relief. The perversion of Mind-science is like asserting that the products of eight multiplied by five, and

of seven by ten, are both forty, and that their combined 422:1 sum is fifty, and then calling the process mathematics.

Wiser than his persecutors, Jesus said: “If I by Beelze-422:3 bub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them

out?”

 

Effect of this book

 

If the reader of this book observes a great stir through-422:6 out his whole system, and certain moral and physical

symptoms seem aggravated, these indications

are favorable. Continue to read, and the book 422:9 will become the physician, allaying the tremor which

Truth often brings to error when destroying it.

 

Disease neutralized

 

Patients, unfamiliar with the cause of this commotion 422:12 and ignorant that it is a favorable omen, may be alarmed.

If such be the case, explain to them the law

of this action. As when an acid and alkali 422:15 meet and bring out a third quality, so mental and moral

chemistry changes the material base of thought, giving

more spirituality to consciousness and causing it to depend 422:18 less on material evidence. These changes which go on

in mortal mind serve to reconstruct the body. Thus

Christian Science, by the alchemy of Spirit, destroys sin 422:21 and death.

 

Bone-healing by surgery

 

Let us suppose two parallel cases of bone-disease, both

similarly produced and attended by the same symptoms. 422:24 A surgeon is employed in one case, and a

Christian Scientist in the other. The surgeon, holding that matter forms its own conditions and 422:27 renders them fatal at certain points, entertains fears and

doubts as to the ultimate outcome of the injury. Not

holding the reins of government in his own hands, he 422:30 believes that something stronger than Mind - namely,

matter - governs the case. His treatment is therefore

tentative.