Belief: Reversal, Relapse, Rebound
by Bicknell Young
An Address to Students — 1931
In giving a Christian Science treatment, it is important to handle the forms of animal magnetism that claim to nullify the treatment. Such aggressive mental suggestions can be classified as reversal, relapse, and rebound.
Reversal: Belief claims to be a law of reversal to the unfolding idea called a Christian Science treatment. It declares as a law that every declaration of the fact of the unfolding idea shall produce an effect or phenomena exactly the reverse of that which it is supposed to produce. Does it reverse the unfolding idea? No! It doesn’t reverse anything. It is just the belief claiming to be mind-power, claiming to be a law laying down its claims of law to the Christian Science treatment, to the unfolding idea. It declares as law that the unfolding idea has the very reverse or opposite effect. Then you should declare that the unfolding idea, unfolding as your consciousness, as your treatment, is law, the only law to the belief; it is law and operates as law to the belief claiming to be law and claiming to be phenomena; it operates as law to the belief of law and to its claim of producing phenomena. “It cannot be done,” is the law to the belief that it can do something. Job says, “Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.”
Any declaration of the fact is law, so that the fact is that belief cannot do a thing and the declaration of the fact is the operation of the law. In Isaiah we read, “And now…I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down: And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged: but there shall come briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry. Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant. Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!”
The declaration that there is no such law as the law of reversal to the unfolding idea and its power to produce phenomena, is law to the belief of a law, and annuls it. Balaam said, “Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it.” In other words, “God hath blessed and I [the belief] cannot reverse it.” Continuing with this line of thought, “Because thy rage against me and thy tumult is come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way which thou camest.” “By the way he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.” In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Neither animal magnetism nor hypnotism enters into the practice of Christian Science, in which truth cannot be reversed, but the reverse of error is true.”
There is no reversal to unfoldment; there is no power that can reverse an unfoldment. Belief, then, would reverse the manifestation of a Christian Science treatment. The unfolding idea is already manifested, and cannot keep from manifesting itself. Hence, it has already been manifested; it destroys the belief that it could be kept from being manifested. It is already manifested, so the idea is ahead of the belief always. It is not until the idea is manifested that the belief claims to be a law against it.
Relapse: The belief claims to be a law of relapse to a Christian Science treatment. If a Christian Science treatment has already produced the phenomena of healing, the belief argues, in the face of the fact, that the healing shall relapse, and the case shall not stay healed. Belief declares that healing phenomena shall be changed, and there shall be a return of the old phenomena or visible belief. To handle this claim, you would declare that there is no such law as a relapse to a Christian Science treatment, the unfolding idea; but the unfolding idea is law, and the only law there is; and it operates as law to this belief of a law of relapse and its claims of determining phenomena.
This belief of a law of relapse was formulated years ago — that Christian Scientists should have relapses, or they should have irritation of the mucous membrane. Since the mucous membrane lines the body on the inside, it would claim to produce any phenomena from a cold or inflammation of the mucous membrane to any discordant phenomenon. There is no such law, and the declaration of the fact that there is no such law, renders the claim null and void.
The declaration that there is no such law, annuls its claims of a law of relapse and its claim of determining phenomena. If you had made it self-evidently apparent in healing a case the first time, that nothing had ever been sick and therefore nothing had ever been healed, do you think relapse ever could appear through any such belief? It cannot appear except through the belief that the claim had not really been healed.
This belief is one of mental assassination working to destroy the unfolding idea and its phenomena. Belief, claiming to be law, is always a hatred of Divine Science. You can agree with the belief that nothing has ever been healed because nothing ever has been sick, and there is nothing that can suffer relapse. No belief can ever return because it never was. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, “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. Christ, Truth, gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the material, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man is clothed and fed spiritually. St. Paul says, ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling:’ Jesus said, ‘Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’ This truth is Christian Science.”
This liberated belief, claiming to be a law against Christian Science treatment, needs to be reversed and replaced with the unfolding of the counterfact of the one law, the only law there is. The unfolding idea is law, and operates as law to the belief of a law called a law of relapse. There is no such law! The declaration that there is no such law, does away with the claim of any such law.
What would claim to be the phenomena of this belief operating as hatred of Divine Science, declaring, “The case shall relapse”? It would be a relapse of hatred knocking at the door of consciousness, and if you or the practitioner could be made to doubt whether the case was fully healed; and so if you fear and worry that it was not entirely healed and might reappear, then you would be opening the door to the belief claiming to be a law that it had not been healed. This would produce phenomena called depression, a discordant sense, an uncertain sense to make you discouraged and make the patient doubtful as to whether he was fully healed. If that belief is being entertained in consciousness, it could produce discordant phenomena in you or in the patient; the belief would be liable to be along the same line as before, or along the line that you were most familiar with.
“Unless the fever-picture, drawn by millions of mortals and imaged on the body through the belief that mind is in matter and discord is as real as harmony, is destroyed through Science, it may rest at length on some receptive thought, and become a fever case.” (Science and Health) Such an illness would not be the return of the old claim; it would be a brand new claim. If the practitioner recognizes this, the old subtle claims of relapse would be done away with easily. The new claim is one of jealousy, envy, hatred, revenge, polarity against the unfolding idea formulated by your Christian Science treatment. Unless you recognize what it is at work in this malicious operation, it will tend to deceive you, claiming that you have not healed your patient.
If it mesmerizes you to believe in relapse, and that every patient you ever had might relapse, it would be only because you had done such wonderful work, such beautiful healing, and the belief is hating you; then you would not try to heal the old trouble; you would not argue with this liberated belief, but would cast it out. “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity,” Jesus said. Relapse is not the old claim at all; it is a claim of hatred of Divine Science, in the form of envy, jealousy, and polarity to the unfolding idea. It would claim to produce phenomena of electrical vibration, so-called electrical phenomena, such as high blood-pressure, conflicting ideas acting as poison which would produce blood poisoning. If you did not recognize this belief, you might ask yourself, “Why can’t I heal?”
Whenever you feel depressed or irritable, it is the hatred of the unfolding idea knocking at the door of your consciousness as hatred of you, because you are that “altogether lovely idea.” You do not have to heal the belief of bad disposition; there is only one disposition; the only disposition there is, is in heaven. Then do not waste time in self-examination. If there seems to be no unfoldment, it is hatred of the unfolding idea. Then watch and see that you do not let in the belief. Be smart enough to detect its game and not think of yourself as discouraged or depressed. Reverse the belief in hatred of divine metaphysics. That is all there is of the so-called disease.
Would seemingly harmless beliefs knock at the door of consciousness if the liberated belief was not sending them? No! If you handled the old claim instead of the belief in relapse, you would not be touching it at all. Relapse is a new belief claiming to be a law. All there is to the case, as far as the practitioner is concerned, is the belief the practitioner is entertaining. Declare there is no such law of relapse, and that it cannot fool you. The declaration that it cannot fool you, keeps it from seeming to do so. It cannot do a thing, “Therefore the rule is, heal the sick when called upon for aid, and save the victims of the mental assassins.” (Science and Health)
The claim of more than one law needs to be replaced by the fact that the unfolding idea is the one infinite and omnipresent law, the only law there is. In Luke, we read how Jesus was confronted with the devil saying, “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth, art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ.” “And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” “And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.”
Divine Science is the only law. It is the law to itself and its phenomena, and it operates as law to every belief claiming to operate against the divine law. The belief says, as it said to Jesus, “I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.” It is then liberated from its ignorance and knows enough to know the unfolding idea. However Isaiah wrote, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.” And in Nehemiah we read, “They which builded on the wall, and they that bore burdens, with those that laded, every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon.” The unfolding idea carried its vision in one hand and its weapon in the other. It is two-fold; it reveals the fact and exposes the belief. Paul wrote in Thessalonians, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”
Rebound: The belief claims to be a law of rebound. Rebound is the reverse of the fact. The unfolding idea is not conscious of beliefs, but rejects them and causes the belief to rebound, to return whence it came, to rebound to itself, as it were, to rebound to its own nothingness and not determine any phenomena. Even so, the belief claims to be a law of rebound to the unfolding idea, a law that the unfolding idea shall rebound upon itself, shall return whence it came, and not go forth with power where it is sent, to determine the phenomena of healing, or accomplish its purpose, or prosper in the way God sends it. “For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” That is from Isaiah.
The belief claims to operate as law that the belief shall go forth with power to accomplish its purpose, instead of the unfolding idea going forth with power to determine the outward and the actual phenomena. “Remembering the sweat of agony which fell in holy benediction on the grass of Gethsemane, shall the humblest disciple murmer when he drinks from the same cup, and think, or even wish, to escape the exhalting ordeal of sin’s revenge on its destroyer?” (Science and Health) In other words, the law of rebound claims that Christian Science treatment shall rebound on itself and not go where God sends it to heal the patient; but that belief shall go where belief sends it to produce its phenomena on the patient; that the unfolding idea shall not produce the phenomena of good to the belief; that the person who is opposed to Christian Science shall get the benefit of the treatment, while the patient shall get all the discordant phenomena that the belief is putting forth. It uses the Christian Science treatment to work evil to the patient and to work good to the error. For example, two neighbors living side by side, one a Christian Scientist, and the other not, both seeming to be ill with consumption. The more treatment was given, the worse the Christian Scientist became, while the neighbor had a complete healing. This was a belief of a law of rebound. What was the problem? The practitioner did not know enough to recognize it as a claim of rebound to the Christian Scientist, to discern that which was probably being declared against Christian Science.
Cases are not healed because they are difficult, but because of the lack of scientific understanding. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, “Uncover error, and it turns the lie upon you. Until the fact concerning error — namely, its nothingness — appears, the moral demand will not be met, and the ability to make nothing of error will be wanting. We should blush to call that real which is only a mistake. The foundation of evil is laid on a belief in something besides God. This belief tends to support two opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth alone. The mistake of thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error.” “But this only impelled the idea to rise to the zenith of demonstration.” “As of old, evil still charges the spiritual idea with error’s own nature and methods. This malicious animal instinct, of which the dragon is the type, incites mortals to kill morally and physically even their fellow-mortals, and worse still, to charge the innocent with the crime. This last infirmity of sin will sink its perpetrator into a night without a star.”
She also tells us in Miscellaneous Writings, “Jesus’ wisdom ofttimes was shown by his forbearing to speak, as well as by speaking, the whole truth. Haply he waited for a preparation of the human heart to receive startling announcements.
This wisdom, which characterized his sayings, did not prophesy his death, and thereby hasten or permit it. The disciples and prophets thrust disputed points on minds unprepared for them. This cost them their lives, and the world’s temporary esteem; but the prophecies were fulfilled, and their motives were rewarded by growth and more spiritual understanding, which dawns by degrees on mortals.”
If that consciousness in which you are uncovering error was not prepared to receive the uncovering — if the belief was not yet ready to yield to the unfolding of the idea — it might be a belief of rebound back against your uncovering, a belief of polarity against yourself. You had better let the patient find out these things for himself, rather than to tell it to him. Uncovering error seems to set up a law of polarity. Do not uncover error humanly to anyone. Let the unfolding idea, the progressing, unfolding idea, bring these uncoverings to the individual. All that you are called upon to do is to get rid of the beliefs in your own consciousness, and trust the unfolding idea to get rid of the beliefs in everyone’s consciousness. If you try to uncover the workings of error before another has seen the workings of error in his own experience, what you may say to the person seems so big and so mysterious and so real, that he is liable to accept and take it in — then discordant phenomena results. Let Truth uncover error through progressive unfoldment.
The belief would like to cause the unfolding idea to rebound in its direction and get the benefit; then it would claim to go forth against the unfolding idea in the form of discordant phenomena. This is the belief claiming to malpractice on the idea. If you uncover error humanly, when it is not ready to yield to the unfolding idea, the belief claims to rebound against you; that is a direct rebound.
Sometimes when you throw a ball, instead of it coming back directly to you, it glances off in some other direction. All that the individual consciousness includes in the radius of its thinking constitutes the individual — its home, children, husband, patients. Then suppose the belief claims to rebound against the practitioner, but she is keeping her thought free from error. Then it would glance off in the direction of some person in the radius of her thinking and produce discordant phenomena. This would be a belief claiming to rebound against the practitioner, and so against anyone included in her thinking; against anyone near and dear to her.
All there is to you is your thinking; so the protection of your thinking should include all those in the radius of your thinking. Practitioners should protect their patients from rebound. Any hatred of Divine Science would claim to rebound — rebound to God’s unfolding idea. The whole purpose of the belief is to keep the idea from unfolding. No so-called law of reversal, relapse, rebound, shall prosper; cast it out; do not try to heal it.
The beliefs were going out against Mrs. Eddy to break down her work and herself. She stood as the unfolding idea, cutting off the beliefs so they could not get into her consciousness to produce phenomena; but she told her students who were working against these beliefs that were going against her, that they must not make anything of these beliefs, or make any reality of them, but to reverse them with the unfolding idea. The tendency was to feel indignant, but indignation would mean admitting the whole belief, and the beliefs intended against her might rebound against them.
How shall we deal with beliefs that we do not know anything about or recognize? How would you deal with liberated beliefs? Hatred of the unfolding idea is all liberating belief. Would you reason with it? No. Cast it out and “flee as a bird to your mountain”! Gather yourself up in Love’s omnipresence. You do not have to do anything: just be in the “secret place of the Most High.” Belief doesn’t know anything about you — what you are, or where you are. Gather yourself up in God, and neither animal magnetism, sin, disease, nor death can touch you. The realization of this fact annuls the belief that animal magnetism can touch you.
It is the conscious atonement (at-one-ment) with God that protects. Mrs. Eddy has said that it is the activity of Love that heals the most difficult case. “Divine Love supplies all good. The miracle of grace is no miracle to Love. Jesus demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the infinite ability of Spirit, thus helping erring human sense to flee from its own convictions and seek safety in Divine Science. Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Science of man’s eternal harmony breaks their illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being. Love is the liberator. The plea of False Belief we deem unworthy of a hearing. Let what False Belief utters, now and forever fall into oblivion, ‘unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown’.” (Science and Health)
Consciousness is not really healed until we experience that regeneration of consciousness which is the new birth. The consciousness that we are born of God, saves us from all beliefs. In Hebrews we read, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Doubt is the belief that claims to cut off demonstration. Belief claims to have manifestation. Idea unfolded determines the outward and the actual. Then doubt would be a belief of reversing demonstration. It is recorded in Matthew, “And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord.”
Because the unfolding idea is law, it is not under the law. Then you stand as the unfolding consciousness of good, and are not under the law; you are the law, and the declaration of the fact is the enforcement of the law. The unfolding of the idea is the enforcement of the law and its phenomena. You, as the unfolding idea, are the enforcing of the law to every belief that is entertained in thought about you, whether you know what the belief is or not. You are a law to all that criticism or condemnation may be. God is the only law there is, and you are law as the unfolding idea — a law to yourself and all your affairs and all phenomena. The textbook instructs us, “Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake.” (Science and Health)
Knowing that you cannot be harmed, is the enforcing of the law. The declaration of the law, is the enforcing of the law. Mental malpractice is the liberated belief claiming to be Mind and to be able to harm you. We are never asleep when we seem to be asleep. Two times two is always operating. Belief cannot be entertained in your consciousness to make you displace yourself, to take you out of a right place and put you in a wrong place. There is no law of apostasy to turn you or anyone away from Christian Science, or to turn anyone away from you as a practitioner, or away from the good you have to express. Are there many trees or just one? The idea of one tree is enough, because it is infinite in its unfoldment.
Science and Health records, “Our Master read mortal mind on a scientific basis, that of the omnipresence of Mind. An approximation of this discernment indicates spiritual growth and union with the infinite capacities of the one Mind. Jesus could injure no one by his Mind-reading. The effect of his Mind was always to heal and to save, and this is the only genuine Science of reading mortal mind. His holy motives and aims were traduced by the sinners of that period, as they would be today if Jesus were personally present. Paul said, ‘To be spiritually minded is life.’ We approach God, or Life, in proportion to our spirituality, our fidelity to Truth and Love; and in that ratio we know all human need and are able to discern the thought of the sick and the sinning for the purpose of healing them. Error of any kind cannot hide from the law of God. Whoever reaches this point of moral culture and goodness cannot injure others, and must do them good. The greater or lesser ability of a Christian Scientist to discern thought scientifically, depends upon his genuine spirituality. This kind of mind-reading is not clairvoyance, but it is important to success in healing, and is one of the special characteristics thereof.” (Science and Health 94:28-18) In Miscellany we read, “The church is the mouthpiece of Christian Science — its law and gospel are according to Christ Jesus; its rules are health, holiness, and immortality, — equal rights and privileges, equality of the sexes, rotation in office.”
All belief can be summed up in one word, ignorance; so do away with it as a belief of ignorance — ignorance of the unfolding idea. All of liberated belief is ignorance. If it would be liberated from all of its ignorance, it would be the unfolding idea. All of the liberated belief is the belief of human will-power, mind-power, the counter belief of the counter fact — the unfolding idea. All belief is a belief of human will and mortal mind’s electrical vibrations that claim to produce phenomena, such as high blood pressure or any abnormal vibrations. All of belief is a belief of polarity. Then you would declare that the liberated belief cannot operate as a belief of electrical vibration, or a law of polarity. The belief of liberated will-power is called demonology. Another name for it is animal magnetism, or magnetic belief; and if the belief is malicious, we call it malicious animal magnetism; and if it is a liberated belief, we call it malicious malpractice.
All belief is a belief of poison. Our attitude should be at-one-ment, not with the belief — with M.D., D.D., or R.C. — but with God. In the Manual of The Mother Church, we read, “Teachers shall instruct their pupils how to defend themselves against mental malpractice, never to return evil for evil, but to know the truth that makes free, and thus to be a law, not unto others, but to themselves.” (Art. 26: Sect.3)
If consciousness always recognizes that belief is a belief, it would not accept it; and so belief has to come in the guise of a right idea. If you recognize it as a belief, you will not stop to reason with it and convince yourself that it is not true; you just cast it out! If it isn’t included in the one infinite Mind, it is not true, and you say, “Get thee hence!” If the belief claims to come persistently to you, declare, “I know what you are, and you know that I know what you are, and I know that you know that I know what you are!”
The fact is law to the belief. We read in Science and Health, “Healing is easier than teaching, if the teaching if faithfully done. The fear of disease and the love of sin are the sources of man’s enslavement.” “These opposite qualities are the tares and wheat, which never really mingle, though (to mortal sight) they grow side by side until the harvest; then Science separates the wheat from the tares, through the realization of God as ever-present and of man as reflecting the divine likeness.” And in Miscellaneous Writings we find this statement, “The Christian Scientist cannot heal the sick, and take error along with Truth, either in the recognition or approbation of it. This would prevent the possibility of destroying the tares: they must be separated from the wheat before they can be burned, and Jesus foretold the harvest hour and the final destruction of error through this very process, — the sifting and the fire.”
“Peals that should startle the slumbering thought from its erroneous dream are partially unheeded; but the last trump has not sounded, or this would not be so. Marvels, calamities, and sin will much more abound as truth urges upon mortals its resisted claims; but the awful daring of sin destroys sin, and foreshadows the triumph of truth. God will overturn, until ‘He come whose right it is.’ Longevity is increasing and the power of sin diminishing, for the world feels the alterative effect of truth through every pore. As the crude footprints of the past disappear from the dissolving paths of the present, we shall better understand the Science which governs these changes.” (Science and Health)
All that goes by the false name ‘metaphysics’ is just a belief of disloyalty to Divine Science and to the Revelator, Mary Baker Eddy. “Man is not God, and God is not man. Again, God, or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the opposite of good — that is, evil — which seems to make men capable of wrong-doing. Hence, evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis. Evil is a false belief. God is not its author. The supposititious parent of evil is a lie.” “Therefore the rule is, heal the sick when called upon for aid, and save the victims of the mental assassins.” “The inoculation of evil human thoughts ought to be understood and guarded against.” (Science and Health)
“Never fear the mental malpractitioner, the mental assassin, who, in attempting to rule mankind, 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 rise into higher and holier consciousness. If it is found necessary to treat against relapse, know that disease or its symptoms cannot change forms, nor go from one part to another, for Truth destroys disease. There is no metastasis, no stoppage of harmonious action, no paralysis. Truth not error, Love not hate, Spirit not matter, governs man. If students do not readily heal themselves, they should 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 unnatural reluctance.” (Science and Health)
False metaphysics is a belief called apostasy to Christian Science and its Revelator. It was liberated against Christian Science and its Revelator by a belief called apostasy because of the great distance between the belief and the unfolding idea; it has the Judas quality. Many false forms of Christian Science are abroad today. Even though they use the teaching of Christian Science, it is not Divine Science, because all there is of it is the thought, and it is a thought of polarity to the unfolding idea. If such thought had been the unfolding idea, it would never have left Christian Science. You can never attach it to persons; it is hatred of the revelation; it is the Judas quality of belief that had deceived consciousness into deceiving itself. It is a subtle belief, but the belief would have to come in the guise of a right idea to deceive you.
Belief, in order to be admitted into consciousness, would first have to get us to entertain harmless beliefs before we would entertain harmful ones. When belief knocks at the door of consciousness, it would have to find something within that seems to be at-one with the belief, such as pride, egotism, superiority; this is the way belief begins to set up operation in consciousness. Through belief of clairvoyance, it claims to find out what there is in consciousness that could be used as a channel to work through; when it finds such beliefs, it uses them. The Judas quality is the quality of thought that belief uses to produce disloyalty. If you occupy a high place or a permanent position in the movement, than that belief will seek to gain entrance to corrupt and deceive you. Liberated beliefs will send its beliefs to your door of consciousness to see if it can trip you up.
“Judas conspired against Jesus. The world’s ingratitude and hatred towards that just man effected his betrayal. The traitor’s price was thirty pieces of silver and the smiles of the Pharisees. He chose his time, when the people were in doubt concerning Jesus’ teachings. A period was approaching which would reveal the infinite distance between Judas and his Master. Judas Iscariot knew this. He knew that the great goodness of that Master placed a gulf between Jesus and his betrayer, and this spiritual distance inflamed Judas’ envy. The greed for gold strengthened his ingratitude, and for a time quieted his remorse. He knew that the world generally loves a lie better than Truth; and so he plotted the betrayal of Jesus in order to raise himself in popular estimation. His dark plot fell to the ground, and the traitor fell with it. The disciples’ desertion of their Master in his last earthly struggle was punished; each one came to a violent death except St. John, of whose death we have no record.” (Science and Health)
We are all put to the test to see if the unfolding idea can stand as our consciousness; this is the demonstration we must make; and we must know that the idea can make the demonstration. Idea is the only thing that can stand; the belief cannot. Envy is a belief of inflammation. The whole error of liberated belief, coming through ignorant beliefs such as, doubt, fear, and so on, is intended to make Christian Scientists apostate to Christian Science. Judaism is a liberated belief as well as an ignorant one; it is a belief of polarity to the Christ idea — the unfolding idea. It is a very material belief, and it operates as liberated belief to corrupt the idea. Judaism stands as a belief of corruption in general, corrupting the idea; it is said that much of the claim of corruption is laid at the door of Judaism. It is a part of Jewish propaganda to corrupt salvation.
The unfolding idea uncovers the belief, and uncovers it as nothing. Belief claims to uncover belief, but it uncovers it as something. True chemicalization is a divine operation; it is the divine idea doing away with the belief, and revealing its nothingness. Painful chemicalization is resistance on the part of the belief to the divine idea. But it is the unfoldment doing it all, and not some awful thing happening. You should recognize it as idea, operating as law to the belief to dispel it. It is going on in the individual consciousness. The whole world is in a state of chemicalization, and some of it is painful; but it is the Truth doing it all; it isn’t the belief doing anything.
You should declare that belief is calling itself an evil mind, a liberated belief claiming to be Mind. It cannot operate even in belief, or at all through any kind of belief — a belief of Judaism, Japanese occultism, oriental priestcraft, Roman Catholic priestcraft, or materia medica. You should declare that belief, claiming to be Mind, cannot operate in belief at all, to produce phenomena, because belief has no origin, no basic principle. It cannot operate as law or cause; it has no substance, body, influence, function, control, or so-called will-power. It has no subject or object, no subject on which to act, and no object on which to act; no medium or channel, no impress or impact. It cannot operate in belief, or at all, to obstruct or delay the unfolding idea. It cannot operate as hatred of divine metaphysics, of Christian Science.
It cannot operate as envy of the unfolding idea, or jealousy, greed, slander, misrepresentation; it cannot discountenance the unfolding idea; it cannot operate through a belief of perversion; it cannot operate as penalty or curse; it cannot operate as poison, evil prediction, destructive electrical vibration or force. It cannot operate as pest or to produce phenomena of pest, plague, drought, failure, or lack of success. The denial of error nullifies the error, and the declaration of the fact demonstrates the fact. “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.” Jesus warned. The liberated belief is the claim of the unpardonable belief and willful resistance to the unfolding idea. John wrote, “And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.”
“Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.” (Luke) “In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?” (Psalms) Gather yourself up in the omnipresence, the unfolding idea of God, and refuse to reason with willful belief. Mrs. Eddy has been quoted as saying, “God alone handles animal magnetism.”
“Our proportionate admission of the claims of good or of evil determines the harmony of our existence, — our health, our longevity, and our Christianity,” we read in Science and Health. Christian Science treatment is the declaration of the fact about God; the realization of that fact about God which is reflected as the fact about everything. In a treatment, your only sense of practitioner and patient would be the unfolding idea; only the consciousness of the one unfolding idea is all that is going on either as practitioner or patient: otherwise it would be only a belief of thought transference. It is our conscious at-one-ment with God that saves us from all beliefs.
The realization that the one infinite consciousness knows itself only, shuts out all beliefs, and is reflected as your own infinite consciousness that knows itself only. The unfolding idea knows itself only, and so it does not know any beliefs. Thus in Miscellany Mrs. Eddy writes, “Animal magnetism, hypnotism, etc., are disarmed by the practitioner who excludes from his own consciousness, and that of his patients, all sense of the realism of any other cause or effect save that which cometh from God. And he should teach his students to defend themselves from all evil, and to heal the sick, by recognizing the supremacy and allness of good. This epitomizes what heals all manner of sickness and disease, moral and physical.” And in the Scriptures we read, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.” “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”
The consciousness that everything and everybody exists as God’s reflection, as states and stages of consciousness or unfoldment, saves us from malicious beliefs that knock at our door; saves us from the belief of polarity; while the belief in the existence of anything material would open the door to all the other beliefs in the polarity credence. Our defense lies in seeing everybody as different states and stages of consciousness all going along in the same direction — not in polarity to each other, but in a state of at-one-ment, receiving the same unfoldment — M.D., D.D., R.C., and C.S. This saves from the whole claim of polarity. But if we think of each other as material, it opens the door to the belief of polarity which results in the destruction to whatever belief believes it. “And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” “And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”
In Science and Health we find the following: “You will also learn that in Science there is no transfer of evil suggestions from one mortal to another, for there is but one Mind, and this ever-present omnipotent Mind is reflected by man and governs the entire universe. You will learn that in Christian Science the first duty is to obey God, to have one Mind, and to love another as yourself.” “Our Master read mortal mind on a scientific basis, that of the omnipresence of Mind. An approximation of this discernment indicates spiritual growth and union with the infinite capacities of the one Mind. Jesus could injure no one by his Mind-reading.” “This Mind-reading is the opposite of clairvoyance. It is the illumination of the spiritual understanding which demonstrates the capacity of Soul, not of material sense. This Soul-sense comes to the human mind when the latter yields to the divine Mind. Such intuitions reveal whatever constitutes and perpetuates harmony, enabling one to do good, but not evil. You will reach the perfect Science of healing when you are able to read the human mind after this manner and discern the error you would destroy. The Samaritan woman said: ‘Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?’ It is recorded that Jesus, as he once journeyed with his students, ‘knew their thoughts’, read them scientifically. In like manner he discerned disease and healed the sick.”
Liberated belief in our time claims that every prophecy has to be fulfilled; that all the evil prophecy announced as error shall have fulfillment, and as belief, calls Divine Science the error; liberated belief claims to be mind-power pronouncing those evil prophecies upon anything that does not stand for evil. Then that is the way you would protect Christian Science, by reversing the statements and replacing them. Another method by which liberated belief claims to be mind power and produce phenomena — by knocking at the door of consciousness to give it phenomena — is invultuation. The definition according to Webster: “Invultuation: A form of witchcraft in which an image of a person is made, usually of wax, and then stabbed with pins, thorns, or the like, or slowly melted before a fire; it being supposed that the person imaged will suffer injury or waste away in death in consequence. The superstition is as old as human culture, and spread throughout a great part of the world, still surviving even in Europe.”
“A courtier told Constantine that a mob had broken the head of his statue with stones. The emperor lifted his hands to his head, saying: ‘It is very surprising, but I don’t feel hurt in the least.’” (Miscellaneous Writings) Belief sets up an image which it calls you, and then does everything to that image which it would like to do to you. When it sets up and attacks a mental image of you, it is called mental manipulation. If some mental image seems to be in consciousness and you cannot get rid of it either as malpractice, or suggestion, declare that malicious mental malpractice or liberated belief claiming to be mind-power, cannot keep that belief before your thought; cannot hold it before your thought to keep it there. Then you have uncovered the belief in just the way it claims to operate, and the belief cannot play the game any longer. That is the belief of clairvoyance. Declare that belief cannot operate even in belief, or at all, as belief called ignorant animal magnetism, or as liberated belief called malicious animal magnetism, or as mental malpractice, to produce and determine any phenomena.
Auto-suggestion is the claim that belief originates in your own thinking. No belief ever originates in your own thinking. Watching means keeping out the beliefs that knock at the door. Praying means unfolding the idea. The belief called “disease” is the phenomena of some belief that is entertained and not reversed, whether you know anything about it or not. The outward and actual phenomena is the visible idea. Beliefs presented to Christian Scientists are only to be eliminated. Disease is not a thing; it is only the phenomena of belief.
The unfolding of the idea is law; and the unfoldment of the idea is the operating of the law; the unfolding of the idea is law to every belief about it, so the belief claims to be law and to operate as law to the unfolding idea. Just as the idea gives the belief a treatment, so the belief claims to give the idea a treatment. “And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before they were at enmity between themselves.” (Luke) Thus, false theology and false metaphysics combine as one belief against Divine Science (even as Pilate and Herod combined to destroy the Christ idea, the unfolding idea) in a determination to cast doubt on Christian Science healing. If Christian Science healing could be discredited, that would be the end of it. However, Christian Science will never be lost as long as it can be demonstrated, and it can be demonstrated as long as the Science of Truth and the Spirit of Truth are equally operative.
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, “Did this same book contain the revelation of Divine Science, the ‘right foot’ or dominant power of which was upon the sea, — upon elementary, latent error, the source of all error’s visible forms? The angel’s left foot was upon the earth; that is, a secondary power was exercised upon visible error and audible sin.” “Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.” “Unless the fever-picture, drawn by millions of mortals and imaged on the body through the belief that mind is in matter and discord is as real as harmony, is destroyed through Science, it may rest at length on some receptive thought, and become a fever case, which ends in a belief called death, which belief must be finally conquered by eternal Life.”
Reduce the phenomena as a thing, to a belief. Getting rid of the beliefs, gets rid of the phenomena. Liberated belief claims to be the one mind with power to determine phenomena called animal magnetism or mental malpractice; but it cannot operate even according to belief or as malicious malpractice, as mind-power, as power to determine phenomena through any belief or claim of material causation, material substance, material action, or material law. It cannot operate through ignorant belief called animal magnetism, such as fear, doubt, prenatal influence, and so on. It cannot operate through liberated belief called animal magnetism, such as spiritualism, mediumship, psychology, astrology, theosophy, thought transference, false metaphysics, clairvoyance, so-called Christian Science, priestcraft — either oriental or Roman Catholic, and all the rest. It cannot operate through any belief of law of mental malpractice called laws of reversal, relapse, rebound, obstruction, penalty, curse, or apostasy. Rebellion against the unfolding idea is the sin of witchcraft.
“For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubborness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou has rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.” (I Samuel) Because the lie has rejected the Word, it has no power. Absolutely none.
We should not fear the chemicalization resulting from our treatment. “This fermentation should not aggravate disease, but should be as painless to man as to a fluid, since matter has no sensation and mortal mind only feels and sees materially.” “Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. Material sense does not unfold the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into Truth. Humanity advances slowly out of sinning sense into spiritual understanding; unwillingness to learn things rightly, binds Christendom with chains.” (Science and Health 401:12-15; 95:28-3)
“Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.” (Isaiah) “Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” (John. See also Matthew 24:1-51) “Hence the enmity between Science and the senses, the impossibility of attaining perfect understanding till the errors of sense are eliminated.” (Science and Health) “To know the what, when, and how of error, destroys error. The error that is seen aright as error, has received its death-blow; but never until then.” (Miscellaneous Writings)
Knowing that God’s idea is protected (and that is what you are knowing), protects you from the beliefs that are sent to your door by so-called human will-power, false metaphysics, Christian Science (falsely so-called), or Roman Catholicism, Judaism, clairvoyance, theosophy, and all forms of demonology. This protects you from the beliefs that are sent to your door as pronouncement of penalty, curse, evil prophecy, through the belief of perversion, invultuation, mental manipulation, or any other belief. Clairvoyance is predictions not only by the so-called professional, but all of liberated belief that practices it. Demonology is clairvoyance; it is the belief of human will-power, which is the name for all liberated beliefs. It sets up in its consciousness some erroneous mental picture of a person in thought, just as a professional clairvoyant voices whatever comes to his thought. So mental malpractice or demonology sets up some mental picture of a person to be entertained in consciousness; it broadcasts this erroneous impression about that person whom belief would like to get rid of. It sends out that erroneous impression into circulation so as to get the impression of the worker entertained. It claims to detect what there is of weakness, and then preys upon that individual consciousness so as to break down the individual’s own unfolding idea, and then it puts out into the universal consciousness this false impression of the person. Then you would not heal the ignorant belief, but the willful belief that would not yield to the unfolding idea; you would cast it out and protect yourself from it by gathering yourself up in God’s omnipresence.
Since all belief is liberated belief, it is a belief of polarity to the unfolding idea; and the biggest part of our practice is the work of protecting from the liberated belief. It is the liberated belief that would kill through ignorant belief; so your protection from it is putting off the liberated beliefs, and this is healing. Because God is all, man also is all by reflection. Does this deify man? No. We must be careful that we do not make man, God. All the false systems of thought claim to deify man, and make man all, instead of God. All false systems deify man, because all false systems of thought do not recognize that the one infinite Mind is not material. Belief recognizes itself as the only mind; and saying it is all, really leaves God out. It is only the belief of a material god or a material will. “Man is God’s image and likeness; and whatever is possible to God, is possible to man as God’s reflection.” (Miscellaneous Writings) “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians)
Do these infinite ideas depend upon each other, or do they depend upon their source? Each idea is dependent on Mind, the source of being. Then no idea is dependent on any other idea. Thus, man is not an organized being or an organization, but unfoldment. If man were organic or organization, then every part would depend upon every other part. Belief about man is that man is organic, depending on man, instead of God. Man is not a material organization, but reflection, realization, unfoldment. Then man is Divine Science, because that is the revelation, the sum total of the unfolding idea. Mrs. Eddy assures us, “God holds man in the eternal bonds of Science, — in the immutable harmony of divine law. Man is a celestial; and in the spiritual universe he is forever individual and forever harmonious.” (No and Yes)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Bicknell Young was an outstanding teacher and lecturer during the early years of the movement. Reading his papers is like sitting down and having a long talk with a very fine practitioner and teacher. As a rule, his papers are not focused on any special subject, but cover a wide range of information that answer many questions one has about Christian Science. Mr. Young was often very absolute in his teaching, and yet very practical in his insistence on our demonstrating this Science.
He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1856 — the youngest of eleven children. His father, Joseph Young, was a brother of Brigham Young, and his family was prominent in the Mormon Church.
As a boy, Bicknell Young was a brilliant student. He was also gifted with a beautiful voice and a natural talent for music. He studied voice and piano with the best teachers in Salt Lake City, before traveling abroad to study. In 1879, he was granted admission to the National School of Music and then the Royal College of Music, both in London, England. While at the Royal College, he met Elisa Mazzucato, a talented and cultured woman whose grandfather was Alberto Mazzucato, of Milan, Italy. Alberto was a composer and the director for many years of La Scala, the Conservatory of Music in Milan. During his tenure, La Scala became the center for gatherings of many young composers from all over Europe.
While studying piano in London, Elisa taught music and on occasion was an accompanist for the Swedish soprano, Jenny Lind. After Mr. Young completed his training, he and Elisa were married. They later had three sons.
Mr. Young’s career included concerts and operas. While in London he performed several times before the Prince of Wales. Reviews gave highest praise for his performances.
Mr. and Mrs. Young left England in 1885 to open a music school in Salt Lake City. They remained there for the next two years holding classes and giving concerts. The review of one of Mr. Young’s performances in The Salt Lake Tribune reports: “The house was awed to silence by his masterly rendition of this glorious piece of vocalization. His rich, resonant rounded notes came forth with a purity and sweetness and cadence that always bespeaks at once the greatness of the artist.”
The talents of Mr. and Mrs. Young brought unusual style and grace to Salt Lake City. But despite the adulation of the music patrons there, the couple moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and then, in 1890, to Chicago, Illinois. The Youngs were widely acclaimed as both teachers and performers. They held chairs at the Auborium Conservatory, and toured the country giving concerts.
Shortly after arriving in Chicago, Mr. Young became gravely ill. When the doctors were unable to help him, someone referred him to a Christian Science practitioner, and he was completely healed. As a result, Mr. and Mrs. Young took up the study of Christian Science. Although raised in the Mormon faith, Mr. Young separated himself from the church at an early age and claimed to be an agnostic until his healing in Christian Science.
The Youngs became members of First Church in Chicago, where Mr. Young was appointed soloist. When Second Church, Chicago, was organized they transferred their membership, and Mr. Young was
elected First Reader. In 1895, the Youngs had Primary Class with Edward Kimball, and Mr. Young was appointed Committee on Publication for Illinois. In 1901, they attended Mr. Kimball’s Normal Class and Mr. Young became a teacher. During the 1890s, his mother and many of his sisters and relatives were converted to Christian Science. His mother was a member of his first class.
In 1903, he was appointed to the Board of Lectureship. From then until 1928 Mr. Young lectured throughout the world, except for the three years when he was First Reader of The Mother Church (1917-1920). Mr. Young lectured in the Albert Hall in London to 9,900 people. He was the first lecturer to make a round-the-world tour.
In 1909 Mrs. Eddy requested the Youngs to take up residence in England, and they remained there for four years, visiting every church and society in the European Field. He returned briefly to Boston to teach the Normal Class of 1910. He resigned from the Lecture Board in 1927, but he was recalled four years later and served until 1936. In 1937 he again taught the Normal Class. At the time of his passing in 1938, he was known as the “Dean of Christian Science Teachers.”
Mr. Young’s tremendous work for the movement left a wealth of material in the form of class notes, Association Addresses, letters, and lectures. After leaving England, he sent a special paper to his students there to be read on their Association day held every year in London.
Always Mr. Young stresses the need to demonstrate Christian Science, and his works are especially helpful on how to do this. He usually covers a broad range of subjects in each paper.
