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Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
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390:1spairingly of herself. The next minute she said, My food is all digested, and I should like something more 3to eat.
We cannot deny that Life is self-sustained, and we should never deny the everlasting harmony of Soul, sim6
Ultimate
harmony
ply because, to the mortal senses, there is seeming discord.
It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and 9the right understanding of Him restores harmony. Truth will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures and pains of sense for the joys of Soul.
12When the first symptoms of disease appear, dispute the testimony of the material senses with divine Science. Let
Unnecessary
prostration
your higher sense of justice destroy the false 15process of mortal opinions which you name law, and then you will not be confined to a sick-room nor laid upon a bed of suffering in payment of the last far18thing, the last penalty demanded by error.
Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him. Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon 21the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin. You have no 24law of His to support the necessity either of sin or sickness, but you have divine authority for denying that necessity and healing the sick.
27Agree to disagreewith approaching symptoms of chronic or acute disease, whether it is cancer, consump
Treatment
of disease
tion, or smallpox.
Meet the incipient stages 30of disease with as powerful mental opposition as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman law. Rise in the conscious strength of the 391:1spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit. 3Blot out the images of mortal thought and its beliefs in sickness and sin. Then, when thou art delivered to the judgment of Truth, Christ, the judge will say, Thou 6art whole!
Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against 9
Righteous
rebellion
them.
Banish the belief that you can possibly entertain a single intruding pain which cannot be ruled out by the might of Mind, and in this way 12you can prevent the development of pain in the body. No law of God hinders this result. It is error to suffer for aught but your own sins. Christ, or Truth, will de15stroy all other supposed suffering, and real suffering for your own sins will cease in proportion as the sin ceases.
Justice is the moral signification of law. Injustice de18clares the absence of law. When the body is supposed
Contradict
error
to say, I am sick,never plead guilty.
Since matter cannot talk, it must be mortal mind 21which speaks; therefore meet the intimation with a protest. If you say, I am sick,you plead guilty. Then your adversary will deliver you to the judge (mortal 24mind), and the judge will sentence you. Disease has no intelligence to declare itself something and announce its name. Mortal mind alone sentences itself. Therefore 27make your own terms with sickness, and be just to yourself and to others.
Mentally contradict every complaint from the body, 30
Sin to be
overcome
and rise to the true consciousness of Life as Love, as all that is pure, and bearing the fruits of Spirit.
Fear is the fountain of sickness, 392:1and you master fear and sin through divine Mind; hence it is through divine Mind that you overcome disease. 3Only while fear or sin remains can it bring forth death. To cure a bodily ailment, every broken moral law should be taken into account and the error be rebuked. Fear, 6which is an element of all disease, must be cast out to readjust the balance for God. Casting out evil and fear enables truth to outweigh error. The only course is to 9take antagonistic grounds against all that is opposed to the health, holiness, and harmony of man, God’s image.
The physical affirmation of disease should always be 12met with the mental negation. Whatever benefit is pro
Illusions
about nerves
duced on the body, must be expressed mentally, and thought should be held fast to this 15ideal.
If you believe in inflamed and weak nerves, you are liable to an attack from that source. You will call it neuralgia, but we call it a belief. If you think that con18sumption is hereditary in your family, you are liable to the development of that thought in the form of what is termed pulmonary disease, unless Science shows you 21otherwise. If you decide that climate or atmosphere is unhealthy, it will be so to you. Your decisions will master you, whichever direction they take.
24Reverse the case. 2Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in
Guarding
the door
bodily results, you will control yourself har27moniously.
When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office 30as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them. The issues of pain or 393:1pleasure must come through mind, and like a watchman forsaking his post, we admit the intruding belief, forget3ting that through divine help we can forbid this entrance.
The body seems to be self-acting, only because mortal mind is ignorant of itself, of its own actions, and of their 6
The strength
of Spirit
results, ignorant that the predisposing, remote, and exciting cause of all bad effects is a law of so-called mortal mind, not of matter.
Mind is the 9master of the corporeal senses, and can conquer sickness, sin, and death. Exercise this God-given authority. Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. 12Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on 15man.
2Be firm in your understanding that the divine Mind governs, and that in Science man reflects God’s govern18
No pain
in matter
ment.
Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have 21no pain nor inflammation. Your body would suffer no more from tension or wounds than the trunk of a tree which you gash or the electric wire which you stretch, 24were it not for mortal mind.
When Jesus declares that the light of the body is the eye,he certainly means that light depends upon Mind, 27not upon the complex humors, lenses, muscles, the iris and pupil, constituting the visual organism.
Man is never sick, for Mind is not sick and matter 30
No real
disease
cannot be.
A false belief is both the tempter and the tempted, the sin and the sinner, the disease and its cause. It is well to be calm in sickness; 394:1to be hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real and that Truth can destroy its seeming 3reality, is best of all, for this understanding is the universal and perfect remedy.
By conceding power to discord, a large majority of 6doctors depress mental energy, which is the only real
Recuperation
mental
recuperative power.
Knowledge that we can accomplish the good we hope for, stimu9lates the system to act in the direction which Mind points out. The admission that any bodily condition is beyond the control of Mind disarms man, prevents him from 12helping himself, and enthrones matter through error. To those struggling with sickness, such admissions are discouraging, as much so as would be the advice to a man 15who is down in the world, that he should not try to rise above his difficulties.
Experience has proved to the author the fallacy of 18material systems in general, that their theories are sometimes pernicious, and that their denials are better than their affirmations. Will you bid a man let evils 21overcome him, assuring him that all misfortunes are from God, against whom mortals should not contend? Will you tell the sick that their condition is hopeless, unless it 24can be aided by a drug or climate? Are material means the only refuge from fatal chances? Is there no divine permission to conquer discord of every kind with harmony, 27with Truth and Love?
We should remember that Life is God, and that God
Arguing
wrongly
is omnipotent.
Not understanding Christian 30Science, the sick usually have little faith in it till they feel its beneficent influence. This shows that faith is not the healer in such cases. The sick 395:1unconsciously argue for suffering, instead of against it. They admit its reality, whereas they should deny it. 3They should plead in opposition to the testimony of the deceitful senses, and maintain man’s immortality and eternal likeness to God.
6Like the great Exemplar, the healer should speak to disease as one having authority over it, leaving Soul to
Divine
authority
master the false evidences of the corporeal 9senses and to assert its claims over mortality and disease.
The same Principle cures both sin and sickness. When divine Science overcomes faith in a car12nal mind, and faith in God destroys all faith in sin and in material methods of healing, then sin, disease, and death will disappear.
15Prayers, in which God is not asked to heal but is besought to take the patient to Himself, do not benefit the
Aids in
sickness
sick.
An ill-tempered, complaining, or deceit18ful person should not be a nurse. The nurse should be cheerful, orderly, punctual, patient, full of faith, receptive to Truth and Love.
21It is mental quackery to make disease a reality to hold it as something seen and felt and then to attempt
Mental
quackery
its cure through Mind.
It is no less erroneous 24to believe in the real existence of a tumor, a cancer, or decayed lungs, while you argue against their reality, than it is for your patient to feel these ills in 27physical belief. Mental practice, which holds disease as a reality, fastens disease on the patient, and it may appear in a more alarming form.
30The knowledge that brain-lobes cannot kill a man nor affect the functions of mind would prevent the brain from becoming diseased, though a moral offence is indeed the 396:1worst of diseases. One should never hold in mind
Effacing
images of
disease
the thought of disease, but should efface from 3thought all forms and types of disease, both for one’s own sake and for that of the patient.
Avoid talking illness to the patient. Make no unne6cessary inquiries relative to feelings or disease. Never
Avoid talking
disease
startle with a discouraging remark about recovery, nor draw attention to certain symp9toms as unfavorable, avoid speaking aloud the name of the disease.
Never say beforehand how much you have to contend with in a case, nor encourage in the patient’s 12thought the expectation of growing worse before a crisis is passed.
The refutation of the testimony of material sense is 15not a difficult task in view of the conceded falsity of this
False testimony
refuted
testimony.
The refutation becomes arduous, not because the testimony of sin or disease is 18true, 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 21that the body suffers, as if matter could have sensation.
At the right time explain to the sick the power which their beliefs exercise over their bodies. Give them divine 24
Healthful
explanation
and wholesome understanding, with which to combat their erroneous sense, and so efface the images of sickness from mortal mind.
Keep distinctly in 27thought 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 30and 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.
397:1By not perceiving vital metaphysical points, not seeing how mortal mind affects the body, acting beneficially 3
Misleading
methods
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 6mental influence on the wrong side, thereby actually injuring those whom we mean to bless.
Suffering is no less a mental condition than is enjoy9ment. You cause bodily sufferings and increase them
Remedy for
accidents
by admitting their reality and continuance, as directly as you enhance your joys by be12lieving 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 15powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real.
Now reverse the process. Declare that you are not hurt 18and 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 meta21physics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be.
To heal the sick, one must be familiar with the great 24verities of being. Mortals are no more material in their
Independent
mentality
waking hours than when they act, walk, see, hear, enjoy, or suffer in dreams.
We can 27never 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 30you will quickly become more manly or womanly. You will understand yourself and your Maker better than before.
398:1Sometimes Jesus called a disease by name, as when he said to the epileptic boy, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I 3
Naming
maladies
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 6he 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 9of 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 12dead, 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 15whole, like as the other.
Homœopathic remedies, sometimes not containing a particle of medicine, are known to relieve the symptoms 18
The action
of faith
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 21upon 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 24in matter.
So also faith, cooperating with a belief in the healing effects of time and medication, will soothe fear and change 27the 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 dis30ease. 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 399:1no power, no intelligence, for God is good, and therefore good is infinite, is All.
3You say that certain material combinations produce disease; but if the material body causes disease, can
Corporeal
combinations
matter cure what matter has caused?
Mortal 6mind prescribes the drug, and administers it. Mortal mind plans the exercise, and puts the body through certain motions. No gastric gas accumulates, not a se9cretion nor combination can operate, apart from the action of mortal thought, alias mortal mind.
So-called mortal mind sends its despatches over its 12body, but this so-called mind is both the service and
Automatic
mechanism
message of this telegraphy.
Nerves are unable to talk, and matter can return no an15swer 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, 18and then calls it material. A mill at work or the action of a water-wheel is but a derivative from, and continuation of, the primitive mortal mind. Without this force 21the body is devoid of action, and this deadness shows that so-called mortal life is mortal mind, not matter.
Scientifically speaking, there is no mortal mind out of 24which to make material beliefs, springing from illusion.
Mental
strength
This misnamed mind is not an entity. It is only a false sense of matter, since matter is not 27sensible. The one Mind, God, contains no mortal opinions. All that is real is included in this immortal Mind.
Our Master asked: How can one enter into a strong 30
Confirmation
in a parable
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

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