What are body and Soul? answer
Soul is the substance, Life, and intelligence of man, which is individualized, but not in matter.
Does brain think, and do nerves feel, and is there intelligence in matter? answer (answer cont’d tomorrow)
Matter cannot see, feel, hear, taste, nor smell. It is not self-cognizant,--cannot feel itself, see itself, nor understand itself. Take away so-called mortal mind, which constitutes matter's supposed selfhood, and matter can take no cognizance of matter.
Quotes from answer:
Man is spiritual and perfect; and be cause he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.
Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin.
Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements.
Is there no sin? answer
Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God. We learn in Christian Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illusion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming to be real and identical.
To Truth there is no error,--all is Truth. To infinite Spirit there is no matter,--all is Spirit, divine Principle and its idea.
Are doctrines and creeds a benefit to man? answer
What is error? answer
What are the demands of the Science of Soul?
What is the scientific statement of being?
A wonderful example of a treatment.
What is substance? A good reminder about discord and decay.
What is Life? A good start to working with time, age.
What is God? Are these terms synonymous?
Is there more than one God or Principle? answer
What are spirits and souls? answer
To decide quickly as to the proper treatment of error-- whether error is manifested in forms of sickness, sin, or death--is the first step towards destroying error. Our Master treated error through Mind. He never enjoined obedience to the laws of nature, if by these are meant laws of matter, nor did he use drugs. There is a law of God applicable to healing, and it is a spiritual law instead of material. The sick are not healed by inanimate matter or drugs, as they believe that they are. Such seeming medical effect or action is that of so-called mortal mind.
Anatomy, when conceived of spiritually, is mental self-knowledge, and consists in the dissection of thoughts to discover their quality, quantity, and origin. Are thoughts divine or human? That is the important question. This branch of study is indispensable to the excision of error. The anatomy of Christian Science teaches when and how to probe the self-inflicted wounds of selfishness, malice, envy, and hate. It teaches the control of mad ambition. It unfolds the hallowed influences of unselfishness, philanthropy, spiritual love. It urges the government of the body both in health and in sickness. The Christian Scientist, through understanding mental anatomy, discerns and deals with the real cause of disease.
Our system of Mind-healing rests on the apprehension of the nature and essence of all being,--on the divine Mind and Love's essential qualities. Its pharmacy is moral, and its medicine is intellectual and spiritual, though used for physical healing. Yet this most fundamental part of metaphysics is the one most difficult to understand and demonstrate, for to the material thought all is material, till such thought is rectified by Spirit.
The Christianly scientific man reflects the divine law, thus becoming a law unto himself. He does violence to no man. Neither is he a false accuser. The Christian Scientist wisely shapes his course, and is honest and consistent in following the leadings of divine Mind. He must prove, through living as well as healing and teaching, that Christ's way is the only one by which mortals are radically saved from sin and sickness.
One must abide in the morale of truth or he cannot demonstrate the divine Principle. So long as matter is the basis of practice, illness cannot be efficaciously treated by the metaphysical process. Truth does the work, and you must both understand and abide by the divine Principle of your demonstration.
God selects for the highest service [healing others] one who has grown into such a fitness for it as renders any abuse of the mission an impossibility. The All-wise does not bestow His highest trusts upon the unworthy. When He commissions a messenger, it is one who is spiritually near Himself. No person can misuse this mental power, if he is taught of God to discern it.
Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching. Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action. Love is priestess at the altar of Truth. Wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept. Patience must "have her perfect work."
All mental malpractice arises from ignorance or malice aforethought. It is the injurious action of one mortal mind controlling another from wrong motives, and it is practised either with a mistaken or a wicked purpose.
Show your student that mental malpractice tends to blast moral sense, health, and the human life. Instruct him how to bar the door of his thought against this seeming power,--a task not difficult, when one understands that evil has in reality no power.
The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death; and he will overcome them by understanding their nothingness and the allness of God, or good. Sickness to him is no less a temptation than is sin, and he heals them both by understanding God's power over them. The Christian Scientist knows that they are errors of belief, which Truth can and will destroy.
Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate. They must renounce aggression, oppression and the pride of power. Christianity, with the crown of Love upon her brow, must be their queen of life.
If the student adheres strictly to the teachings of Christian Science and ventures not to break its rules, he cannot fail of success in healing. It is Christian Science to do right, and nothing short of right doing has any claim to the name. To talk the right and live the wrong is foolish deceit, doing one's self the most harm. Fettered by sin yourself, it is difficult to free another from the fetters of disease. With your own wrists manacled, it is hard to break another's chains. A little leaven causes the whole mass to ferment. A grain of Christian Science does wonders for mortals, so omnipotent is Truth, but more of Christian Science must be gained in order to continue in well doing.
The heavenly law is broken by trespassing upon man's individual right of self-government. We have no authority in Christian Science and no moral right to attempt to influence the thoughts of others, except it be to benefit them. In mental practice you must not forget that erring human opinions, conflicting selfish motives, and ignorant attempts to do good may render you incapable of knowing or judging accurately the need of your fellow-men. Therefore the rule is, heal the sick when called upon for aid, and save the victims of the mental assassins.
The teacher must make clear to students the Science of healing, especially its ethics:
We have no trials for sickness before the tribunal of divine Spirit. There, Man is adjudged innocent of transgressing physical laws, because there are no such laws.
An improved belief cannot retrograde. When Christ changes a belief of sin or of sickness into a better belief, then belief melts into spiritual understanding, and sin, disease, and death disappear.
Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake.
In the presence of the Supreme Lawgiver, standing at the bar of Truth, and in accordance with the divine statutes, I repudiate the false testimony of Personal Sense. I ask that he be forbidden to enter against Mortal Man any more suits to be tried at the Court of Material Error. I appeal to the just and equitable decisions of divine Spirit to restore to Mortal Man the rights of which he has been deprived.
It was Fear who handcuffed Mortal Man and would now punish him.
the Court of Error construed obedience to the law of divine Love as disobedience to the law of Life.
One of the principal witnesses, Nerve, testified that he was a ruler of Body, in which province Mortal Man resides. He also testified that he was on intimate terms with the plaintiff, and knew Personal Sense to be truthful
I proclaim this witness, Nerve, to be destitute of intelligence and truth and to be a false witness.
Man self-destroyed; the testimony of matter respected; Spirit not allowed a hearing; Soul a criminal though recommended to mercy; the helpless innocent body tortured,--these are the terrible records of your Court of Error, and I ask that the Supreme Court of Spirit reverse this decision.
Then Christian Science proved the witness, Nerve, to be a perjurer. Instead of being a ruler in the Province of Body, in which Mortal Man was reported to reside, Nerve was an insubordinate citizen, putting in false claims to office and bearing false witness against Man.
Mortal Man versus Personal Sense
Defending your right to health:
These statements are wrong and should be contradicted with statements of Truth:
"Delay the execution; the prisoner is not guilty."
The trial is set up as an antagonistic fight between the accused, Mortal Man, and the plaintiff, Personal Sense. This reading calls the following witnesses: health laws, coated tongue, sallow skin, nerve, mortality.
I smiled when I read this. It is funny but it is also true. I check with these very witnesses sometimes when I’m not well and I know I shouldn’t. They aren’t speaking for me.
When man gives up his belief in death, he will advance more rapidly towards God, Life, and Love. Belief in sickness and death, as certainly as belief in sin, tends to shut out the true sense of Life and health.
Man's individual being can no more die nor disappear in unconsciousness than can Soul, for both are immortal. If man believes in death now, he must disbelieve in it when learning that there is no reality in death, since the truth of being is deathless. The belief that existence is contingent on matter must be met and mastered by Science, before Life can be understood and harmony obtained.
The great difficulty lies in ignorance of what God is. God, Life, Truth, and Love make man undying. Immortal Mind, governing all, must be acknowledged as supreme in the physical realm, so-called, as well as in the spiritual.
Mortal man will be less mortal, when he learns that matter never sustained existence and can never destroy God, who is man's Life. When this is understood, mankind will be more spiritual and know that there is nothing to consume, since Spirit, God, is All-in-all. What if the belief is consumption? God is more to a man than his belief, and the less we acknowledge matter or its laws, the more immortality we possess. Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew. You will never fear again except to offend God, and you will never believe that heart or any portion of the body can destroy you.
Incorrect approach to healing:
Not holding the reins of government in his own hands, he believes that something stronger than Mind--namely, matter--governs the case. His treatment is therefore tentative. This mental state invites defeat. The belief that he has met his master in matter and may not be able to mend the bone, increases his fear;
Correct approach to healing:
The Christian Scientist, understanding scientifically that all is Mind, commences with mental causation, the truth of being, to destroy the error.
The metaphysician, making Mind his basis of operation irrespective of matter and regarding the truth and harmony of being as superior to error and discord, has rendered himself strong, instead of weak, to cope with the case
Tell the sick that they can meet disease fearlessly, if they only realize that divine Love gives them all power over every physical action and condition.
Tell him that he suffers only as the insane suffer, from false beliefs.
Insist vehemently on the great fact which covers the whole ground, that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside Him. There is no disease.
