The Trial Participants

After reading the trial in the lower court of Error and the higher court of Spirit, I wanted a breakdown of who was who (or what was what).

Begins on Page 430

Mortal Man vs Personal Sense

Charge	Liver complaint: The prisoner watched with the sick friend every night in the week. When the sick mortal was thirsty, the prisoner gave him drink. During all this time the prisoner attended to his daily labors, partaking of food at irregular intervals, sometimes going to sleep immediately after a heavy meal. At last he committed liver-complaint. At the time of the arrest the prisoner summoned Physiology, Materia Medica, and Hypnotism to prevent punishment. The struggle on their part was long. Materia Medica held out the longest, but at length all these assistants resigned to Health laws.
Expected Punishment	Death
Defendant	Mortal Man
Arrested by	Health laws
Plaintiff	Personal Sense

Court of Error

Defendant’s Attorney	none
Plaintiff’s Attorney	False Belief
Jury	Mortal Minds, Materia Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Hypnotism, Envy, Greed, Ingratitude
Sheriff	Fear
Judge	Medicine
Witnesses for the Defense	none
Witnesses for the Plaintiff	Health laws, Coated Tongue, Sallow Skin, Nerve (State Commissioner for Mortal Man), Mortality (Governor of the Province of Body), Death
Verdict	1) Guilty of Benevolence in the first degree; which led to 2) Guilty of liver-complaint in the first degree.
Sentence	Tortured until Death

Supreme Court of Spirit

Defendant’s Attorney	Christian Science
Jury	Spiritual Senses
Judge	Justice
Sheriff	Progress
Verdict	Innocent because no physical laws exist.

Day 223: The Trial (Day 6 – last)

440:33-442:32

This is the wrap up of the trial. There are several lines that popped out at me:

any so-called law, which undertakes to punish aught but sin, is null and void

That’s a sweeping statement. I need to keep that one close by. It is said another way, in case you need a variation:

Man is adjudged innocent of transgressing physical laws, because there are no such laws.

Day 222: The Trial (Day 5)

438:18-440:32

This part of the trial focuses on Personal Sense and False Belief. I love how False Belief is the attorney in the case for Personal Sense. Talk about a conflict of interest. At one point, MBE refers to the masked Personal Sense. I thought that idea that the character of Personal Sense as masked or hidden or hiding was interesting. I marked:

Mortal Minds were deceived by your attorney, False Belief, and were influenced to give a verdict delivering Mortal Man to Death.

Day 221: The Trial (day 4)

436:15-438:17

The idea of this reading is that the principal witness, Nerve, perjured his testimony. Here are the ideas that were very interesting to me:

It was Fear [the sheriff] who handcuffed Mortal Man and would now punish him.

Thus the Court of Error construed obedience to the law of divine Love as disobedience to the law of Life.

I proclaim this witness, Nerve, to be destitute of intelligence and truth and to be a false witness.

Day 220: The Trial (day 3)

434:8-436:14

I feel I must apologize for my irregular posts. August is the month where I live and material life (gardening, trips to the beach, house projects) are front and center. Soon the weather will turn and I’ll be more consistent with my posts.

The trial is moved from the Court of Error to the Court of Spirit.

I liked (and will come back to when I need it):

Mortal Man has had no proper counsel in the case. All the testimony has been on the side of Personal Sense

acting within the limits of the divine law, and in obedience thereto. Upon this statute hangs all the law and testimony. Giving a cup of cold water in Christ’s name, is a Christian service. Laying down his life for a good deed, Mortal Man should find it again. Such acts bear their own justification, and are under the protection of the Most High.

Day 219: The Trail (day 2)

432:9-434:7

I’m more focused on the trail today. I read it and thought how literal it was in that diseased Mortal Man is treated as a criminal – as though the disease is the natural reaction to fit the (usually) unknown crime.

I also stopped to consider the jury of Mortal Minds. While this is an allegory in the book, it is a very real phenomenon in the material world. It is very hard to silence our own thoughts at times, so I could only imagine the dire circumstances someone would feel if the jury of public opinion termed on him. Or worse, a situation leading to mental malpractice.

Day 218: (Not really) The Trial, Day 1

430:13-432:8

Today’s reading is the trial Mortal Man. It’s an interesting way to visualize the intellectual play that happens in thought. I read it and thought was an illusion it is.

My mind has been elsewhere today. I was looking at something, I can’t even remember what, thinking ‘it’s just an idea.’ I’m just an idea. A flower is an idea. Everything is just a whole bunch of ideas. I’ve also been thinking about purpose lately so I thought if we are all ideas, what of it? I had children (ideas), what is my purpose there? To nurture these ideas. If I have a job, what is my purpose there? To nurture the ideas (people, work, etc) there. I saw everything and everyone as just ideas and our only job to nurture all the other ideas. I’m not sure where I’m going with that but I haven’t been able to let it go.

Day 217: Great Quotes

428:3-430:12

Some days, I underline most of the reading. Today is one of those days but for this blog, I’ll just pick out a few:

Man’s privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.”

To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, – this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true.

eternal building

everlasting Father

We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material.

We must hold forever the consciousness of existence

We must being, however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the soon we begin the better.

if we are wise, we look beyond a single step in the line of spiritual advancement

Faith should enlarge its borders and strengthen its base by resting upon Spirit instead of matter.

Day 216: Death

426:5-428:2

A side note: I’ve had 216+ days so far to think about how I want to continue this journal next year. Mainly, I’m focusing on making the tasks less time consuming so that I can spend more time on reading and thinking about each day’s reading instead of the mechanics of how to blog about it. One step is to move off of blogger. Another step is to get all the days’ readings mapped out and linked up before the next year. I’m a little concerned this might be some sort of copyright issue if I do that. While I’m not ‘copying’ the content, you could say I’m breaking the spirit of the copyright. I do burn a lot of time with that process and if it were available, other’s might join in the blog-journal year with me. So, copyright violation? Moral violation? Or seems practical and helpful? Thoughts?

Today’s reading covers death as “another phase of the dream that existence can be material.” Some little idea popped in the back of my mind; its sitting there waiting for me to know it. I don’t know when I dropped the fear of death. Maybe I never had it. I just didn’t seem relevant. And I wasn’t worried about anyone I left behind until I had kids. But that too is not a huge nagging issue for me. But the whole death as another phase implies that there is the ability to side-step the dream altogether. That’s the new idea.

I don’t mean in the Jesus didn’t die way but something even larger than that -- something completely outside of life as we believe we know it.

Day 215: Accidents & Heredity

424:5-426:4

Mary Baker Eddy’s discussion of accidents is a great argument against chance, luck, or fate:

Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of change to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony.

Heredity is a tricky one. Somehow the illness seems more personal, hidden, and inevitable. Mary Baker Eddy says:

If you have sound and capacious lungs and want them to remain so, be always ready with the mental protest against the opposite belief in heredity.

I think the point for me is to understand that God’s law is inevitable and always working, instead of heredity.

Day 214: Symptoms Aggravated

422:5-424:4

Today’s reading covers two points that have become more real to me, instead of being a memory or a quote in the book.

The first is the idea that a person’s physical or moral state, while reading the book, will grow worse. Mary Baker Eddy says “these indications are favorable.”

For the patient, that’s not good but for the long-term, it doesn’t indicate a change happening in the mind. Well, that’s been the last few months for me. Random, weird physical problems have popped up. At first, they are alarming, then I lean back on my readings and my general arguments for practice. While I’m not quick about it as I should be, I do seem to get there.

The second idea is that all is mental causation. Lately, I’ve struggled with materiality, not just in the above-mentioned aggravated symptoms but in the more subtler ways of sin. Sin is a big word and leads people to think about the major sins but I’ve been working on the minor ones: selfishness, and self-centeredness. These are delicate in the balance of the whole parent-child structure of my life where everything feels like it happens because, for or with the kids. Where is the me time? I’ve been working a lot more on harmony and that being a mental status as well.

Day 213: Random instructions for Treatment

420:10-422:4

divine Love gives them all power over every physical action and condition

vehemently tell you patient that he must awake. Turn his gaze from the false evidence of the senses to the harmonious facts of Soul and immortal being.

Insist vehemently on the great fact which covers the whole ground, that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside Him.

Day 212: Harmony as part of Treatment

418:12-420:9

A few points about treatment:

By the truthful arguments you employ, and especially by the spirit of Truth and Love which you entertain, you will heal the sick.

Include moral as well as physical belief in your efforts to destroy error. Cast out all manner of evil.

Observe mind instead of body, lest aught unfit for development enter thought. Think less of material conditions and more of spiritual.

Then something that seemed more about my struggles with harmony:

There is no metastatis, no stoppage of harmonious action, no paralysis. Truth not error, Love not hate, Spirit not matter, governs man.

Day 211: More Treatment Instructions

416:16-418:11

Specific points:

Turn their thoughts away from their bodies to higher objects. Teach them that their being is sustained by Spirit, not by matter, and that they find health, peace and harmony in God, divine Love.

Maintain the facts of Christian Science, – that Spirit is God, and therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed matter cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting through spiritual law.

Show them that the conquest over sickness as well as over sin, depends on mentally destroying all belief in material pleasure or pain.

Please with an honest conviction of truth and a clear perception of the unchanging, unerring, and certain effect of divine Science.

Day 210: More Instruction about Treatments

414:15-416:15

These two points stood out:

Christian Science declares that Mind is substance, also that matter neither feels, suffers, nor enjoys. Hold these points strongly in view. Keep in mind the verity of being,--that man is the image and likeness of God, in whom all being is painless and permanent. Remember that man's perfection is real and unimpeachable, whereas imperfection is blameworthy, unreal, and is not brought about by divine Love.

And:

To remove the error producing disorder, you must calm and instruct mortal mind with immortal Truth.

Day 209: Steps of a Treatment

412:16-414:14

This is a note to myself so I can find this again easily.

To prevent disease or to cure it, the power of Truth, of divine Spirit, must break the dream of the material senses. To heal by argument, find the type of the ailment, get its name, and array your mental plea against the physical. Argue at first mentally, not audibly, that the patient has no disease, and conform the argument so as to destroy the evidence of disease. Mentally insist that harmony is the fact, and that sickness is a temporal dream. Realize the presence of health and the fact of harmonious being, until the body corresponds with the normal conditions of health and harmony.

Day 208: Mental Treatment Illustrated

410:22-412:15

I was surprised by the section title (also this post’s title) because I didn’t remember it. I took class instruction and somewhere in the back of my mind thought I learned about treatments in class, not in Science & Health. Why do I think that? I have no idea. A few points stuck out for me:

Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed.

Silently reassure them as to their exemption from disease and danger.

The great face that God lovingly governs all, never punishing aught but sin, is your standpoint, from which to advance and destroy the human fear of sickness.

Day 207: Life

408:28-410:21

In this reading, everlasting life is defined as:

a present knowledge of God and himself [Jesus], – the knowledge of Love, Truth, and Life.

So more work for me in controlling my thought. Then:

the stronger never yields to the weaker, except through fear or choice

This is going to be one of my favorite quotes from the book for now. Is this original to MBE or is she paraphrasing?

Day 206: The Passions

407:6-408:27

Another day where I'm following Mary Baker Eddy and the selected reading closely. The two topics that I've been praying about are what MBE refers to as the passions, and the affects of age. The passions are: [1] passion (I assume lust or sexuality is meant), [2] selfishness, [3] envy, [4] hatred, [5] revenge. These all live within mortal mind. I've been praying for a calmer, more peaceful interior thought so this list of passions is a good reminder of what to watch out for:

If man is not victorious over the passions, they crush out happiness, health, and manhood. 

The second area of age I've been praying about is loosing the use of my body or mind through was can only be described as culturally accepting aging. MBE says:

No faculty of Mind is lost.

And:

Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite.

I thought this last quote tied back nicely to the passions of mortal mind.

Day 205: Master the Propensities

405:5-407:5

I don’t know if I’m following Mary Baker Eddy so closely that the questions in the book are falling into my life or the questions from my life are running ahead and jumping into the book. I’m going to assume this is a good step.

I’ve been thinking about my general mental state. Things tend to bother me and I brood on them. Then I stupidly act on them: say something dumb, do something selfish or thoughtless. So my mental skills need work. Mary Baker Eddy listed those things I’ve been working on (how did she know?):

Christian Science commands man to master the propensities, -- [1] to hold hatred in abeyance with kindness, [2] to conquer lust with chastity, [3] revenge with charity, and [4] to overcome deceit with honesty.

Then something to think about as I try to calm my mind:

Inharmony of any kind involves weakness of suffering, – a loss of control over the body.