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Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
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400:1mortal mind, which directly controls the body? When disease is once destroyed in this so-called mind, the fear 3of 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 6and morals can be removed. This error conquered, we can despoil the strong manof his goods, namely, of sin and disease.
9Mortals obtain the harmony of health, only as they forsake discord, acknowledge the supremacy of divine
Eradicate
error from
thought
Mind, and abandon their material beliefs.
12Eradicate the image of disease from the perturbed thought before it has taken tangible shape in conscious thought, alias the body, and you pre15vent 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 18it. By lifting thought above error, or disease, and contending persistently for truth, you destroy error.
When we remove disease by addressing the disturbed 21mind, giving no heed to the body, we prove that thought
Mortal mind
controlled
alone creates the suffering.
Mortal mind rules all that is mortal. We see in the body 24the 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 27destroyed by the divine Mind to bring out the harmony of being. Without divine control there is discord, manifest as sin, sickness, and death.
30The 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 401:1mighty works because of their unbeliefin Truth. Any human error is its own enemy, and works against itself; 3
Mortal mind
not a healer
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, 6but it engenders disease and death.
If faith in the truth of being, which you impart mentally while destroying error, causes chemicalization (as 9
Effect of
opposites
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.
12This 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 15materially.
What I term chemicalization is the upheaval produced when immortal Truth is destroying erroneous mortal be18lief. Mental chemicalization brings sin and sickness to the surface, forcing impurities to pass away, as is the case with a fermenting fluid.
21The only effect produced by medicine is dependent upon mental action. If the mind were parted from the body,
Medicine
and brain
could you produce any effect upon the brain 24or body by applying the drug to either?
Would the drug remove paralysis, affect organization, or restore will and action to cerebrum and cerebellum?
27Until the advancing age admits the efficacy and supremacy of Mind, it is better for Christian Scientists to leave
Skilful
surgery
surgery and the adjustment of broken bones 30and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, while the mental healer confines himself chiefly to mental reconstruction and to the prevention of inflammation.
402:1Christian Science is always the most skilful surgeon, but surgery is the branch of its healing which will be last 3acknowledged. 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 6mental surgery alone, of broken bones, dislocated joints, and spinal vertebræ.
The time approaches when mortal mind will forsake 9its corporeal, structural, and material basis, when im
Indestructible
life of man
mortal Mind and its formations will be apprehended in Science, and material beliefs will 12not 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 15mortal 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 18Mind. The material body manifests only what mortal mind believes, whether it be a broken bone, disease, or sin.
We say that one human mind can influence another and 21in this way affect the body, but we rarely remember that
The evil of
mesmerism
we govern our own bodies.
The error, mesmerism or hypnotism, to use the recent term 24illustrates 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 27to 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 30both disorder and order. The involuntary pleasure or pain of the person under hypnotic control is proved to be a belief without a real cause.
403:1So the sick through their beliefs have induced their own diseased conditions. The great difference between vol3
Wrong-doer
should suffer
untary and involuntary mesmerism is that voluntary mesmerism is induced consciously and should and does cause the perpetrator to suffer, while self-6mesmerism is induced unconsciously and by his mistake a man is often instructed.
In the first instance it is understood that the difficulty is a mental illusion, while in the 9second it is believed that the misfortune is a material effect. The human mind is employed to remove the illusion in one case, but matter is appealed to in the other. In real12ity, both have their origin in the human mind, and can be healed only by the divine Mind.
You command the situation if you understand that 15mortal existence is a state of self-deception and not the
Error’s power
imaginary
truth of being.
Mortal mind is constantly producing on mortal body the results of false 18opinions; and it will continue to do so, until mortal error is deprived of its imaginary powers by Truth, which sweeps away the gossamer web of mortal illusion. 21The most Christian state is one of rectitude and spiritual understanding, and this is best adapted for healing the sick. Never conjure up some new discovery from 24dark forebodings regarding disease and then acquaint your patient with it.
The mortal so-called mind produces all that is unlike 27the immortal Mind. The human mind determines the
Disease-
production
nature of a case, and the practitioner improves or injures the case in proportion to the truth 30or error which influences his conclusions.
The mental conception and development of disease are not understood by the patient, but the physician should be familiar 404:1with mental action and its effect in order to judge the case according to Christian Science.
3If a man is an inebriate, a slave to tobacco, or the special servant of any one of the myriad forms of sin, meet and
Appetites to
be abandoned
destroy these errors with the truth of being, 6by exhibiting to the wrong-doer the suffering which his submission to such habits brings, and by convincing him that there is no real pleasure in false appe9tites.
A corrupt mind is manifested in a corrupt body. Lust, malice, and all sorts of evil are diseased beliefs, and you can destroy them only by destroying the wicked 12motives which produce them. If the evil is over in the repentant mortal mind, while its effects still remain on the individual, you can remove this disorder as God’s law is 15fulfilled and reformation cancels the crime. The healthy sinner is the hardened sinner.
The temperance reform, felt all over our land, results 18from metaphysical healing, which cuts down every tree
Temperance
reform
that brings not forth good fruit.
This conviction, that there is no real pleasure in sin, 21is one of the most important points in the theology of Christian Science. Arouse the sinner to this new and true view of sin, show him that sin confers no pleasure, 24and this knowledge strengthens his moral courage and increases his ability to master evil and to love good.
Healing the sick and reforming the sinner are one and 27the same thing in Christian Science. Both cures require
Sin or fear
the root of
sickness
the same method and are inseparable in Truth.
Hatred, envy, dishonesty, fear, and so forth, 30make a man sick, and neither material medicine nor Mind can help him permanently, even in body, unless it makes him better mentally, and so delivers him 405:1from his destroyers. The basic error is mortal mind. Hatred inflames the brutal propensities. The indulgence 3of evil motives and aims makes any man, who is above the lowest type of manhood, a hopeless sufferer.
Christian Science commands man to master the pro6pensities, to hold hatred in abeyance with kindness,
Mental
conspirators
to conquer lust with chastity, revenge with charity, and to overcome deceit with hon9esty.
Choke these errors in their early stages, if you would not cherish an army of conspirators against health, happiness, and success. They will deliver you 12to the judge, the arbiter of truth against error. The judge will deliver you to justice, and the sentence of the moral law will be executed upon mortal mind and 15body. Both will be manacled until the last farthing is paid, until you have balanced your account with God. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 18reap. The good man finally can overcome his fear of sin. This is sin’s necessity, to destroy itself. Immortal man demonstrates the government of God, good, 21in which is no power to sin.
It were better to be exposed to every plague on earth than to endure the cumulative effects of a guilty con24
Cumulative
repentance
science.
The abiding consciousness of wrong-doing tends to destroy the ability to do right. If sin is not regretted and is not lessening, then it is 27hastening on to physical and moral doom. You are conquered by the moral penalties you incur and the ills they bring. The pains of sinful sense are less harmful than its 30pleasures. Belief in material suffering causes mortals to retreat from their error, to flee from body to Spirit, and to appeal to divine sources outside of themselves.
406:1The Bible contains the recipe for all healing. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3
The leaves
of healing
Sin and sickness are both healed by the same Principle. The tree is typical of man’s divine Principle, which is equal to every emergency, offering 6full salvation from sin, sickness, and death. Sin will submit to Christian Science when, in place of modes and forms, the power of God is understood and demonstrated 9in the healing of mortals, both mind and body. Perfect Love casteth out fear.
The Science of being unveils the errors of sense, and 12spiritual perception, aided by Science, reaches Truth.
Sickness
will abate
Then error disappears. Sin and sickness will abate and seem less real as we approach the 15scientific period, in which mortal sense is subdued and all that is unlike the true likeness disappears. The moral man has no fear that he will commit a murder, and he 18should be as fearless on the question of disease.
Resist evil error of every sort and it will flee from you. Error is opposed to Life. We can, and ultimately 21
Resist to
the end
shall, so rise as to avail ourselves in every direction of the supremacy of Truth over error, Life over death, and good over evil, and this growth will go 24on until we arrive at the fulness of God’s idea, and no more fear that we shall be sick and die.
Inharmony of any kind involves weakness and suffering, a loss of 27control over the body.
The depraved appetite for alcoholic drinks, tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, is destroyed only by Mind’s mastery 30
Morbid
cravings
of the body.
This normal control is gained through divine strength and understanding. There is no enjoyment in getting drunk, in becoming a 407:1fool or an object of loathing; but there is a very sharp remembrance of it, a suffering inconceivably terrible to 3man’s self-respect. Puffing the obnoxious fumes of tobacco, or chewing a leaf naturally attractive to no creature except a loathsome worm, is at least disgusting.
6Man’s enslavement to the most relentless masters passion, selfishness, envy, hatred, and revenge is con
Universal
panacea
quered only by a mighty struggle.
Every 9hour of delay makes the struggle more severe. If man is not victorious over the passions, they crush out happiness, health, and manhood. Here Christian 12Science is the sovereign panacea, giving strength to the weakness of mortal mind, strength from the immortal and omnipotent Mind, and lifting humanity above 15itself into purer desires, even into spiritual power and good-will to man.
Let the slave of wrong desire learn the lessons of Chris18tian Science, and he will get the better of that desire, and ascend a degree in the scale of health, happiness, and existence.
21If delusion says, I have lost my memory,contradict it. No faculty of Mind is lost. In Science, all
Immortal
memory
being is eternal, spiritual, perfect, harmoni24ous in every action.
Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite. This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, 27and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your consciousness.
There are many species of insanity. All sin is insan30
Sin a form
of insanity
ity in different degrees.
Sin is spared from this classification, only because its method of madness is in consonance with common mortal belief. 408:1Every sort of sickness is error, that is, sickness is loss of harmony. This view is not altered by the fact 3that sin is worse than sickness, and sickness is not acknowledged nor discovered to be error by many who are sick.
6There is a universal insanity of so-called health, which mistakes fable for fact throughout the entire round of the material senses, but this general craze cannot, in a scien9tific diagnosis, shield the individual case from the special name of insanity. Those unfortunate people who are committed to insane asylums are only so many distinctly 12defined instances of the baneful effects of illusion on mortal minds and bodies.
The supposition that we can correct insanity by the use 15of purgatives and narcotics is in itself a mild species of
Drugs and
brain-lobes
insanity.
Can drugs go of their own accord to the brain and destroy the so-called inflam18mation of disordered functions, thus reaching mortal mind through matter? Drugs do not affect a corpse, and Truth does not distribute drugs through the blood, and 21from them derive a supposed effect on intelligence and sentiment. A dislocation of the tarsal joint would produce insanity as perceptibly as would congestion of the brain, 24were it not that mortal mind thinks that the tarsal joint is less intimately connected with the mind than is the brain. Reverse the belief, and the results would be perceptibly 27different.
The unconscious thought in the corporeal substratum of brain produces no effect, and that condition of 30
Matter and
animate error
the body which we call sensation in matter is unreal.
Mortal mind is ignorant of itself, ignorant of the errors it includes and of their 409:1effects. Intelligent matter is an impossibility. You may say: But if disease obtains in matter, why do 3you insist that disease is formed by mortal mind and not by matter? Mortal mind and body combine as one, and the nearer matter approaches its final state6ment, animate error called nerves, brain, mind, the more prolific it is likely to become in sin and disease-beliefs.
9Unconscious mortal mind alias matter, brain cannot dictate terms to consciousness nor say, I am sick.
Dictation
of error
The belief, that the unconscious substratum 12of mortal mind, termed the body, suffers and reports disease independently of this so-called conscious mind, is the error which prevents mortals from knowing 15how to govern their bodies.
The so-called conscious mortal mind is believed to be superior to its unconscious substratum, matter, and 18
So-called
superiority
the stronger never yields to the weaker, except through fear or choice.
The animate should be governed by God alone. The real man is 21spiritual and immortal, but the mortal and imperfect so-called children of menare counterfeits from the beginning, to be laid aside for the pure reality. This 24mortal is put off, and the new man or real man is put on, in proportion as mortals realize the Science of man and seek the true model.
27We have no right to say that life depends on matter now, but will not depend on it after death. We cannot
Death no
benefactor
spend our days here in ignorance of the Science 30of Life, and expect to find beyond the grave a reward for this ignorance.
Death will not make us harmonious and immortal as a recompense for ignorance.

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