Reminiscences of Reginald G. Kerry

Of His Practitioner, Emma Dunn, and Teacher, William Duncan Kilpatrick

by Eliane Kerry

Dedicated to Mary Baker Eddy
The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science
and the Revelator to this age.

Published by
Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent
905 Prospect Avenue
P.O. Box 5619
Plainfield, New Jersey 07061-5619

Acknowledgments

We are greatly indebted to our friends from Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent, who made the publication of this book possible.

Inspiration flows when we listen from within, from an inner stillness.

Emma Dunn

Man is not cast out on an uncharted sea of human destiny without pilot or rudder to guide him. He is God’s responsibility.

William Duncan Kilpatrick

You are in the presence of Love every moment, and you could not get out of this Omnipresence even if you tried.

Reginald G. Kerry

Part One
Part Two: Emma Dunn
Part Three: William Duncan Kilpatrick, C.S.B.
1935 Association Address
1937 Association Address
1934 Association Address
From 1932 and 1935 Association Addresses
1941 Association Address
1944 Association Address
1941 Association Address
- Animals
Sharing

Part One

by Eliane Grand Kerry

In December of 1975, members of the Christian Science Church received a shocking letter telling of the corrupt and immoral conditions at the Church headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the first of eleven letters that reached the Field over the coming years. It was sent by a dedicated Church member, who was well aware of the conditions in Boston, and concerned over the decline in the movement that had been taking place for a number of years.

Reginald G. Kerry had been healed of cancer when he was eighteen years old. He had been told he would probably not see his twenty-fifth birthday. A week before his graduation from high school, he was invited to attend a Christian Science Sunday School. The Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Clara A. Marquette, asked the class of seven boys what the subject of the Lesson was that week. One said, “The subject is, ‘Is the Universe, Including Man, Evolved by Atomic Force?’” and he added, “The universe, including man, is evolved by God.” Reginald knew immediately that this answer was right, and he returned to Sunday School every Sunday, until he was twenty. He never went back to medical help, but became a dedicated Christian Scientist.

Many times he told how his entire family, one by one, came into Christian Science. “My mother took up the study of Christian Science after she saw how Timmy, our cat, was healed. Timmy was run over by a car and left on the road nearly dead. I took him and put him on a plank, which I pushed under the house. I went to my Sunday School teacher and asked her if Christian Science could heal my cat. She answered, ‘I certainly would not trust on me what I could not trust on my cat,’ and she said she would pray with me. When my dad found out that the cat was under the house barely alive, he took his rifle and wanted to shoot it. But I had pushed the board far enough so that he could not reach it. Every day I would fill a saucer of milk and find it empty the next day. After one week, Timmy walked out from under the house, his tail straight up in the air. My mother said she had seen a miracle, and she took up the study of Christian Science.

“My sister, who wore heavy magnifying glasses, went with me in my Model T-Ford to a Christian Science Lecture and removed her glasses during the Lecture. My dad, who swore he would never set foot in a Christian Science Church, was instantaneously healed when he turned to Christian Science. He had had the hiccups for three days, and with no sleep at all his condition became intolerable. He went to a friend who ran a drugstore, and asked him if he could have some morphine to relieve him of his misery. The druggist, who had to account for every ounce he prescribed, could not give him even the smallest amount. My mother, who was with my dad, took him by the arm and said, ‘Let’s go down to Los Angeles to see the specialist.’ The druggist had a delivery boy who had heard the whole conversation and said to my dad, ‘Mr. Kerry, I don’t know a thing about it, but why don’t you try Christian Science? I’ve always stuttered and couldn’t say a straight word, so my mother took me to one of these . . . they call them practitioners, and all I know is that from that day on I’ve been able to speak.’ And as my mother was pulling my dad by the arm to go to the bus stop, my dad said, ‘No, I’m going to see a Christian Science practitioner.’ He went to see my Sunday School teacher, Madge Tackaberry, who, when she saw him at the door, let him in and told him, ‘Mr. Kerry, you will sit in this chair, and you will not leave until you are healed.’ He got up twenty minutes later, completely healed. He went home and threw away all of his medication and all of his prized pipes and tobacco from England. He took up the study of Christian Science and served Mary Baker Eddy’s church for some twenty useful years.”

Mr. Kerry’s family moved from Canada to Santa Barbara, California, when he was eight years old, and Santa Barbara became his home. He married the daughter of the Chief of Police, and became established there as a successful businessman, where he owned and operated “Kerry’s,” a large restaurant in the heart of town, as well as several other restaurants. He served on the boards of several very active and large trade associations, the California and National Restaurant and Hotel Associations, worked in law enforcement, in Parole work, and was Police Commissioner. He chairmanned political campaigns; was a Board member of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce; a thirty-second degree Mason; senior active Rotarian; received the Speaker of the Year Award; was president of 20-30 Club and a Life member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon; guest speaker at the Los Angeles Luncheon Club; and Chairman of the American Freedom Coalition when he was sent as goodwill ambassador to South Africa and China.

Throughout his years in Santa Barbara, Mr. Kerry was always able to find time for serving First Church of Christ, Scientist, in that city. From 1931, until he left Santa Barbara in 1973, he gave generously of his time to the Church there, serving as Reader, Chairman of the Board, Sunday School teacher, President and Chairman of the Committee to establish the Alta Vista Foundation. He spoke at the 1969 Annual Meeting of The Mother Church in Boston, and at the Christian Science Youth Meeting in 1972 in Los Angeles. He publicly practiced Christian Science healing for many years, and was also invited to become a Christian Science teacher and lecturer, which he declined. He owed his life to Christian Science and would do anything for his Leader. In 1973, he was called to Boston by the Christian Science Board of Directors to organize the security force of the new Church Center, and to serve the Board in a number of capacities.

Like many other Scientists, he thought that going to Boston to serve the Board would be a great privilege and opportunity to serve a Cause that had blessed one beyond words to express. Mr. Kerry had such a love, and anticipated serving some of the finest Scientists in the movement—the Board of Directors. But once inside The Mother Church, he found that the Church was not a place of great spirituality, but one of shocking immorality, corruption, and dishonesty. For two years, he tried to make the Directors see that the conditions at headquarters were destroying the Church, but he could not make them see the urgency for reformation within the Church headquarters.

He had collected strong evidence of the corruption taking place, but he was reluctant to put it out into the Field. In fact, he was about to leave Boston and return to Santa Barbara, when one day he found himself flat on his back in his apartment in Boston for no reason, as he was a very strong and healthy man. While on the floor, he looked up to a very rare and beautiful portrait of Mary Baker Eddy, which had been given to him by the Carpenter Foundation, and when he looked at Mrs. Eddy, he said out loud, “All right, Mrs. Eddy, I have all this information about the corruption in your Church. I’ll put it out in a letter.” At that instant, he got up and went to work with an energy that never left him.

When he threatened to “write the Field” if things at headquarters were not cleaned up, the Directors did not take his threat seriously. Others had made great efforts to awaken the Field to the problems at headquarters but with no lasting success.

At last, when he saw that there were not going to be any changes, he did indeed write to the members, practitioners, and branch churches with an initial exposure of the true conditions at their Church headquarters.

It was at this point that I first met Mr. Kerry. His letters were creating a great stir in the Field. He was continuing to live in Boston, being in touch with the Board, and sending Letter Number Two to the Field.

I came to Boston in 1966, where I worked as a translator at The Christian Science Publishing Society. After ten years, disappointed and disillusioned by the Boston organization, where I witnessed firsthand that things were wrong, I made plans to return to my home in Switzerland. Then I met Reginald, the man who wrote the Kerry Letters. We were introduced to each other, just after he had sent out the first of eleven Letters. When I met Mr. Kerry in 1976 at the Christian Science Center, he, Maxine (a friend who was the Executive Secretary to the builder of the Center), and I, went several times to Brigham’s for an ice-cream soda. Reg and Maxine would discuss the many problems at headquarters involving individuals whom I did not know, because the department where I worked—Translations—did not have much contact with the other departments. One thing impressed me immediately: I sensed Mr. Kerry had an understanding of Christian Science like no one else I had ever encountered before.

I realized that this great understanding came through the many contacts he had had with very spiritually minded Christian Scientists over many years. One of these about whom he spoke often was the Carpenters. He shared with me many books that were considered unauthorized literature, especially those published by the Carpenters. These were forbidden at the Church Center. Employees were actually fired if they were caught with a book from the Carpenter Foundation.

Gilbert C. Carpenter, C.S.B., was a Christian Science practitioner in Providence, Rhode Island, who served as an assistant secretary to Mrs. Eddy in her home in Concord, New Hampshire, from 1905 to 1906. Reg knew Mr. Carpenter, Sr. and his secretary, Mrs. Grace Ross, very well, and he and Mrs. Ross told me that Mr. Carpenter would speak every morning about his experiences, while working for Mrs. Eddy. He and his son, Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr., C.S.B., published books containing Mrs. Eddy’s instructions for students, many of them copied from notebooks and letters by Mrs. Eddy in her own handwriting. Many of these publications, such as “Watches, Prayers, Arguments,” “Collectanea,” and “Mary Baker Eddy: Her Spiritual Footsteps,” are now available from Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent.

I left Boston a few months after meeting Mr. Kerry and returned to Switzerland. He continued to send out the Letters, which brought a response from the Christian Science Field far beyond anything he had hoped for. Later, one of the Board members asked him how he had accomplished what so many had tried before and failed. His answer was, “The Field was ready.” Letters Number Two and Three were sent out with the help of the members of Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent, who had the courage to stand against the threats of mass excommunication by the Boston Directors, thus setting the example of “local self-government” as a branch church “individual” and “distinctly democratic.”

Mr. Kerry came under great pressure by the Board to stop sending the Letters. Several attempts were made on his life. After sending the Third Letter in October, 1976, he went to Europe to meet Max Kappeler and Peggy Brook. Thanks to Dr. Kappeler’s work, Christian Science is officially recognized as a science in Germany. Mrs. Brook was secretary to John W. Doorly, a prominent Christian Science practitioner, teacher and lecturer, who was excommunicated from the Christian Science Church organization in 1946. In “A Statement” by John W. Doorly, available from Mrs. Brook, Trustee of his writings, Mr. Doorly states, “I am glad to be counted among the many men and women who have been willing to be ostracized and driven out of religious organization rather than submit to the control and restraint of their spiritual vision.” His vision led him to discern that Christian Science is not a religion, but the universal, ever-operative Science of being, operating through the seven synonymous terms for God, as revealed by Mary Baker Eddy, a spiritual Science operating according to law, order, and rule. Moreover, he showed that this Science underlies the entire Bible record.

Reg told Mrs. Brook what was going on in Boston, and that they had made several attempts on his life and tried to run him off the road, adding he didn’t care, because now that his mother and his wife had passed on, he felt he was dispensable. When Mrs. Brook heard the word “dispensable,” she said, “Oh no, promise me that you will never say that word again. The same God that gave you this mission, is the same God that will see you through this mission.”

After visiting with Max Kappeler and Peggy Brook, Reg came to see me and my family, and we did some sightseeing together. I remember the day we were walking on the main street in Lugano, a small town in the Italian part of Switzerland, when we saw a dog lying on the street having quite a struggle. Reg, this big man, who had been police commissioner, union negotiator, and who would take on anything and anyone, got on his knees in the middle of this thoroughfare, and gently and tenderly spoke the truth to the dog, until he got up and walked away wagging his tail. What love!

In November 1977, I returned to the United States to get married to Reg, and our marriage became the “love affair” that Mrs. Eddy refers to in “Miscellaneous Writings.” We continued working together on the Kerry Letters, which brought about an unprecedented awakening in the Field, and opened the way for other groups to help Christian Scientists claim their freedom from an organization that Mrs. Eddy never wanted.

Mary Baker Eddy says in “Science and Health” on page 271, “Christ’s Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of God.” In accord with this “design of God,” several individuals appeared in Reg’s life who were instrumental in preparing him for his mission. After Mrs. Marquette and Madge Tackaberry, there appeared two Christian Scientists in his experience who were to give him the inspiration and strength needed to fulfill his work. These were Emma Dunn and William Duncan Kilpatrick.

Part Two: Emma Dunn

Actress, Teacher, Author, Christian Science Practitioner

Reginald Kerry was involved in many business, political, and civic organizations, and he was active in the Christian Science Church, both locally and nationally. He was often invited to speak at large and important meetings. It was through his interest in becoming an accomplished public speaker that he first came to know Emma Dunn.

He had already had training in public speaking, but the day he saw Mrs. Dunn walk across the stage of the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara to give a lecture on “Reading the Bible Aloud,” he knew she had what he had been searching for, for a long time. She proved to be a great guiding light both in his career as a prominent business man and church member, and later in his letter campaign to awaken the Christian Scientists to the need to save the Cause.

During the years that Emma Dunn was both an elocution teacher and mentor to Reg in Science, she was a great inspiration to him. Although she felt he had a mission, she did not live to see the time when his mission was revealed to him.

The broad scope of Mrs. Dunn’s talents, coupled with her love for Christian Science, gave her an extraordinary insight into reading the Bible aloud. Her family came originally from England, and she and her brother grew up a few blocks from Central Park in New York City. She became a truly great artist in the theater on Broadway and a great Christian Science healer. In her book, “You Can Do It!” Emma tells how the theater was in her case the primary school, and how all she learned through many years of acting converged toward this one point: reading the Bible aloud.

She wrote: “Sir Henry Irving, the famous English actor, was asked to give a list of what he regarded as the hundred best books, and he replied, ‘Before a hundred books, commend me to the study of two, the Bible and Shakespeare.’ Undoubtedly one reason why Shakespeare has remained so constantly with us is that he has used the Bible so understandingly—he quotes the Bible twelve hundred times.

“Reading the Bible aloud becomes a basic idea in one’s general culture—in fact, all other studies fall into line with much less labor when one knows how to read the Bible. I recommend reading the Bible aloud above all other books, as it reveals the faults and idiosyncrasies of the reader, and helps him to awaken to true values in reading. When one can read the Bible aloud understandingly, he can read Shakespeare or any of the great poets.

“Many of the greatest minds made a close study of the Bible. Tennyson studied the Bible daily. Tolstoy read and reread the Gospels, until he knew long passages from memory. Ruskin’s mother got him to memorize long chapters of the Bible. To that study Ruskin attributed his style and taste.

“Bunyan and Lincoln saw this. Few men since the age of Plato and Cicero have left such impress on the minds of men as Bunyan and Lincoln. The substance of their thought was robed in a style so noble, that scholars bow before its majesty, so simple that children and the untutored thrill to its rhythmic flow. They wrote and said what they meant with such perfection that their utterances challenge all imitation.

“Of formal education they had little. The Alma Mater of each was the university of struggle and adversity. But the Bedford tinker’s son and the son of the Illinois rail splitter shared the world’s grandest heritage—the Bible. Of English literature John Bunyan knew nothing. Shakespeare and the Bible were Abraham Lincoln’s library in the primitive log cabin on the prairie of Illinois. The Book of Books was their textbook, their spiritual mentor and the chief source of inspiration in passages so sublime, so fired with the common touch, that they will be read as long as English lasts. How is this?

“Professor Grimm, the great philologist, says that the English language (of which the Bible is the finest flowering) ‘has a thorough power of expression, such as no other language ever expressed. It may truly be called a world-language, for no other can compare with it in richness, reasonableness and solidity of texture. Most important of all, it is the easiest language in which to express spiritual ideas.’

“The Bible cannot be read casually. The substance of the ideas transcends the words, and so demands visualization: ‘the faculty of bringing to life that which we wish to express.’ This does not mean that we are to drag out the words, but to take time at each punctuation to breathe deeply, which gives us time to think what we are reading.” Now, let’s backtrack to the day when Reg saw Emma walk on the stage of the Lobero Theater.

“As a young actress, I often rode on the Sixth Avenue elevated train in New York and saw through the windows the names of stage stars in electric lights, and one night I asked myself, ‘Do you want to be a star like that, and have your name in bright lights?’ And without a moment’s hesitation I said, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to be a star. I want to be such an artist, that if I only walk across the stage it will be done perfectly.’ How many of us know how to walk, how to stand, how to sit properly? In many years of teaching balance and poise, I have found few persons who knew the simple art of walking, and yet walking is one of the fundamental expressions of poise.

“When we speak of poise, we speak of it, of course, as mental. When we see a perfect physical body which is the result of physical exercise alone, it lacks the poise and grace of the mental—it is rigid. But when the poise comes from within, we see perfect grace. You must start from a mental stillness, which quiets all the physical, and then move from the center—the center being that part of the body just under the bust-line, and on the median. Webster’s definition for ‘center’ is: ‘That part of the body about which all the other parts equally balance each other.’ This would have to be mental—subjective—before it could be objective. Walk as though your legs were swinging from your center, and you will move with grace—remember, that your feet alone could not convey you across the room. The onlooker should never be aware of feet when you walk, but of a graceful balanced appearance.

“Whether you are acting a play, making a speech, giving a sermon, reading the Bible, or just entering a room, the basic principle is the same. Through the years, I have developed a method of teaching the subjective approach (from within). I have taught thousands of students, individually and in classes, from all walks of life—stars of stage and screen, principals of schools, teachers, professors, and international speakers. I have taught in England and Scotland. Many individuals, who have had little or no educational advantages, have become representative members of their community through the application of the simple rules in this book.

“I must explain how I came to see the reading of the Bible in this new-old light, the light in which I teach it. I had gone through an experience where no human aid could possibly help me, and so was obliged to turn absolutely to God, and found Him in such a way that illumined the word of the Bible. There is no illumination in the academic approach to the Bible—that is the dead letter. In other words, it is the objective instead of the subjective.

“After this experience I saw the real meaning of ‘subjective’—that once we get rid of the fearful or egotistical sense of self, the Bible ‘reads’ itself. The ideas come through with such clarity, that they need no explanation or interpretation, proving what someone has said, ‘I know the Bible is inspired, because it inspires me.’ I could never think the same about anything I did—I saw that acting and everything else was subjective. I had always acted from that standpoint without understanding it, but now I understood it and could explain it. The reading of the Bible came through inspiration, like everything else I have ever done.”

In her class, Emma always asked this question first: “What is the chief fundamental of the teaching?” and the answer had to be: “Listening—one hundred percent.” “Every faculty of your being will then be brought into coordinated activity by this purpose. This is true receptivity, and you are bound to touch inspiration, which is from the same root as ‘listening,’—not listening with your ears, but with your whole being, like the deer whose life depends on it.

“What is genius but inspiration, or revelation, seeing that which has always existed? Thomas Carlyle says, in ‘Past and Present,’ ‘Genius is the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential, in all men; in this man it has become clear, actual.’

“Inspiration is the result of a properly focused thought, which comes from an inner stillness, through which the subjective expresses itself. A real idea usually comes in such humble dress, and speaks so softly that we are apt to miss it, unless we know how to listen; but when we understand how to listen, its purpose appears.”

Emma lived what she taught. She was once asked to accompany the Queen of England on the boat crossing from Vancouver to Victoria on one of her trips to Canada many years ago. When they arrived at their destination, the Queen thanked Emma and said that this had been the most enjoyable part of the journey for her, because she had found someone who knew how to listen.

“‘The last heart beat of the amateur must die before the real artist can be born,’ wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. The amateur is busy trying to do something, while the artist is really being the idea. I have never kept a diary or even a ‘notebook’ as many professional people do, but occasionally I jot down a few lines on some subject that interests me. About ten years ago, when the violinist Menuhin had brought to light a ‘lost’ concerto of Schumann, I scribbled down some notes apropos of something he said at the time. When these notes, yellowed with age, were uncovered recently, I was quite happy to see how completely they illustrated the above thesis. ‘I have just heard Menuhin, the young violinist, say of Schumann’s hitherto unpublished work, that at first he could not play it without weeping, but after practicing it each day, he could now play it without emotion.’

“This recalled to me the many different emotional parts I had played, and how some of them affected me. A new part always meant weeks of rehearsals, during which time I would let myself go completely, in order to find the very heart and soul of the character. The emotion I felt for the character would at times overwhelm me, and I would have to withdraw and go home. This would happen repeatedly, until I was able to let the idea of the character express itself. Then I could play it without the overwhelming sense of emotion, because I had, to an extent, crystallized the shadings and deepest feelings in such a way as to enable the audience to see and feel what the character was seeing and feeling.

“I still felt deeply as the character, but Emma Dunn was well out of the way, and everything the character expressed was true—nothing overdone. In other words, the idea called the character was complete in itself and expressed this perfection, when there was no one to interfere, no one to add self-pity or uncontrolled emotion. When the actor is lost sight of as personality, and we are conscious only of the character, this is to me the perfect sense of artistry.

“To be emotional, I call this playing or reading ‘with the mood’—objectively, but to act or read ‘against the mood,’ without adding self-pity or uncontrolled emotion, really means acting or reading subjectively. The principle of going against the mood is used not only in tragic scenes but in scenes of high exultation, as in the film of ‘Henry V’ in the scene after the victory in France, when Sir Laurence Olivier, as the English King, says, ‘We’ll then to Calais; and to England then, Where ne’er from France arriv’d more happy men!’ The average actor would have been carried away by the emotion of the scene, and so played it literally—objectively—exuberantly; but Olivier played the scene in the utmost quiet and balance. It was a different rhythm, tempo and balance to anything he had expressed in the play—he allowed the audience to do the exulting.

“I have used this similar rule of ‘going against the mood’ in teaching students how to read certain passages in the Bible, particularly the tragedy in Gethsemane, which appears in the book of Matthew. The 26th Chapter of Matthew, Gethsemane, is perhaps the most tragic chapter in the Bible, so a reader could take no better example. I have seen an entire audience droop under the false reading of this chapter, particularly the verses 36-39. The average reader reads with the mood, and so brings out all the human suffering. The inspired reader reads against the mood—looks right through the suffering into the light, and so lifts the thought and feeling of the audience. This is accomplished not by any attempt to put lightness into the voice, which would be artificial, but to understand that only light is present.

“Someone said, ‘Teach me to distinguish between sentiment and sentimentality,’ admiring the one and despising the other. When we read with or in the dark mood of the Bible, it is sentimentality. When we read against the mood, it is sentiment, which always sustains and uplifts. When a singer chooses a sad selection, and sings it as though he believed in the generally accepted sense of sadness, he depresses the audience. All true art plays against the mood. Webster’s definition of the word ‘sad’ is: ‘Satisfied; steadfast; faithful; trustworthy; fixed in mind; determined; resolute; serious; sober; hence wise, prudent.’ I know you see that this is contrary to the generally accepted sense of sadness.

“I saw an old film of Rudolph Valentino the other day, and although it was far from being a good picture, even when it was produced years ago, still it was easy to see why his work holds audiences even today. He was the ‘smoothest’ of his day. He knew how to ‘underplay’—which means how to be the character, while those around him were overacting, because they were busy doing instead of being.

“Once you have acquired the fundamentals of the teaching, which include pausing at each punctuation, and breathing on the first word following every punctuation; stretching a word with two different vowels appearing together; these are the tools, the equipment only, the rest is ‘you,’ and you can express whatever you can envision. You will be amazed, as you see what can be accomplished by the understanding of ‘Thought Quality in the Voice.’ It can paint the picture without a brush, it can tell the whole story without the story book, because it is the result of visualization—the faculty of bringing to life that which you wish to express.”

Emma taught Reg to read with “visualization.” He would illustrate this method of reading by saying in a low and poised voice, seeing every word, “Can you see down here this tiny little ant,” and, in a fuller tone with amazement, “And over there, this big mountain all covered with snow?” He would explain, “You saw the tiny little ant, because I saw it, and you saw the big white mountain, because I saw it. Now, if you see what you are talking about, your audience will see it too, and no one will walk out.”

Reg said Emma got one of the many parts where she played mothers on Broadway, under the direction of the great producer Richard Mansfield. For the audition, each actress was given a doll and a few lines to say. Mansfield had already auditioned one hundred actresses, when Emma’s turn came up. She took the doll in her arms, and holding it close to her bosom, said to the doll in a soft and tender voice, “When I look at you, I see all the little heads that never touched my breast. Oh, my dear, how sweet you are!” “Stop right here, there’ll be no more auditions. I have found the mother,” Mansfield said. Reg would explain. “All the other actresses had said the words to the last row—it was purely objective, but Emma was looking at the baby and spoke to it subjectively.”

With this kind of understanding of the art of reading and speaking, it is no wonder that when Reg was First Reader in the Santa Barbara Christian Science Church, the church was filled, and hundreds of testimonies of healing were reported. His name had come up several times for election as First Reader, but he always requested that it be not considered, because he was just too busy. One day, while attending another meeting where readers were to be elected, his name was once again written on the board. He got up to remove his name, but it was as if a hand passed in front of him and pushed him down in his seat, where he was immobilized, until he realized that he had been elected First Reader. He went to see Emma in utter amazement and told her what had happened. She said that this was a task that he had clearly been given, and that she would stay with him and help him through. He went down to Los Angeles for a lesson every Wednesday; then they would have dinner at Musso Frank, and he would return to Santa Barbara. She also came up to Santa Barbara on the Greyhound Bus every Saturday to check his reading at the church for Sunday. She did this for the three years that he was First Reader. She passed on one week before he finished his term.

Emma Dunn was not only a great artist, but she was also an outstanding Christian Scientist. After Mrs. Marquette and Madge Tackaberry left, Emma became for Reg the next link in “the chain of scientific being,” sharing with him her deepest understanding of Christian Science. When she lived in Santa Monica in an apartment overlooking the ocean, she would stand looking at the ocean with her arms wide open and say, “This is all me.” This understanding of man as “the compound idea of God, including all right ideas,” this sense of infinity where nothing is impossible, gave her the dominion that made her a truly great healer.

Emma shared with Reg many of her experiences in Christian Science. While she was having class instruction in Christian Science, the teacher sent the pupils home one day saying, “Your assignment for today is to go and heal someone.” Emma remembered that she had an aunt who was very ill, and so she decided to go and see her. She took the train to the end of the line and started to walk. It was winter and there was a lot of snow on the ground. Suddenly along came a wagon of coal pulled by a horse, and sitting way up high was a big black man. He stopped and asked her if she wanted a ride to wherever she was going. She nodded, and as this big black man picked her up and put her gently on the seat, she looked into his face and saw the Christ. When she got to her aunt, the aunt was healed.

Another time, Emma was having problems in her home with her husband and children, so she accepted a part in London at Covent Garden, when after a while she noticed a growth on her neck. The growth became so large that she could no longer work, and she went to see a practitioner, Mrs. Porter. She told Mrs. Porter why she was in England, and Mrs. Porter said, “Emma, I’m going to tell you a story.” She told her the story of her teacher who went to see Mrs. Eddy in Boston, because he had a case that did not want to yield. In the conversation, Mrs. Eddy asked him: “What is your patient’s occupation?” He answered, “He is a retired army officer.” Mrs. Eddy then said, “Handle hate.” “Oh,” he said, “this man is the most loving individual.” Mrs. Eddy repeated, “I said, handle hate,” and the interview was over. The teacher returned to London, not knowing what he was going to tell his patient. When he saw him, he asked him, “Do you hate anyone?” “Oh no,” said the army officer, “when I came into Christian Science, I learned to love everyone.” The teacher did not know what to say next, when suddenly he asked, “Does anyone hate you?” “Oh yes,” the army officer answered, “you see, many people hate me, because I have sent many men to their death.” “Stop right here,” Emma said to Mrs. Porter, “you don’t have to say anymore. I see, the hate and the hater are one. If I believe that someone hates me, I believe in hate. I love my family, but I believed they hated me, so I believe in hate.” Emma got up to leave, and Mrs. Porter offered to call a cab for her, but Emma said she wanted to walk back to the hotel. And as Emma walked through the streets of London, it is as though a hand came over and removed the growth which fell into the gutter. She had been healed.

Reg turned to Emma in times of great need. One day at the restaurant, a very heavy piece of equipment fell on Reg’s foot. The pain was excruciating, but he managed to go home and called Emma for help. She took up the work immediately. He fell asleep and woke up the next morning, got dressed and went to work as if nothing had happened. He was so ecstatic about the healing, that he thought, “This is going to be a great testimony at the next Wednesday Evening Testimony Meeting!” He worked all day and went home to bed late, but when he got up the next morning, he could not put his shoe on and the pain was unbearable; and a Bible statement kept hammering in his head: “Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). He crawled to the telephone to call Emma, told her what had happened and the Bible statement, and said, “Hell, how can I rejoice, when I’ve got a crushed foot that’s killing me!” She answered, “When you understand this statement, you will be healed.” He hung up the phone, went back to the bedroom and tried to get still to listen. Then came the answer: “Oh, I see, I made a reality of this when I rejoiced that Christian Science could heal a crushed foot. I thought it was going to be a great testimony when, in fact, I should have rejoiced that my name is written in heaven, and that I have never left the kingdom.” With this realization, he fell asleep and woke up the next day completely healed.

Another time, like Paul, Reg went blind for three days, and when he called Emma for help, she said to him, “The shortest sentence in the Bible is ‘Jesus wept.’ You are a tough man, but when you learn to weep, you will recover your sight.” Not knowing where to start, he thought he would try to find fifty things he could be grateful for. And so he started being grateful for a beautiful wife and children, a nice home, a successful business, friends, and went on until tears were running down his cheeks, and he fell asleep. The next morning he woke up with a vision that he never had before and which never left him.

Emma had great insight and had told Reg, “I know you have a mission; I don’t know what it is, but I know you can do it!” The twelve years they shared were a divine preparation for the work he was to undertake in Boston. The preparation undoubtedly included the strength and dominion expressed in her book “You Can Do It!”—ideas she surely must have shared with Reg before she wrote it. She saw so clearly man’s infinite capacities for good. She wrote:

“Thomas Carlyle says, ‘Genius is the clearer presence of God Most High in a man. Dim, potential, in all men; in this man it has become clear, actual.’ One dictionary gives a definition for genius as: ‘The essential principle of anything.’

“What man has ever had a corner on the principle of mathematics? And no man has ever had a corner on the principle of genius. We have been incorrectly taught to believe that genius was for a favored few. We all use the same numbers and the same alphabet—they belong to all who will utilize them. How much good could we receive from numbers or the alphabet, if we thought they belonged to a person? They are impersonal, infinite, and are here for all to utilize.

“Could you believe, that a simple New England farm woman could begin painting pictures late in life which are compared in quality to those of great masters of the past? Yet it is true, and it proves what I have just said, that no man ever had a corner on the principle of genius, and that the principle is here for all to utilize. I had not heard of ‘Grandma Moses’ while writing this book, but she so completely epitomizes all I have said, that I felt the book would not be complete without her.

“Mrs. Anna Mary Robertson Moses, now generally known as Grandma Moses, passed her eighty-sixth birthday in the fall of 1946. Eight years ago, she was not even herself aware of possessing a real artistic gift, but today she is acclaimed by the entire world. She is not what the world calls a self-made woman; nor has she learned what she knows from books or from other artists. She painted because she loved to paint, she had to express it, and she succeeded because, as Louis Bromfield said, she had found ‘a satisfactory relationship with the universe . . . her small world . . . was at once a cozy and limitless universe which contained the keys to the knowledge of good living and understanding.’

“The latest tribute to her is a book entitled ‘Grandma Moses—American Primitive,’ including forty paintings with comments, Grandma Moses’ Autobiography, and an introduction by Louis Bromfield. John Erskine, himself a writer, musician and teacher, says in reviewing the book about Grandma Moses: ‘Personally I owe her a great debt. All my life I have believed, and have preached, the doctrine, wherever I could find any to listen, that men and women should use all their talents and should start in to practice even a difficult art, even in advanced years, whenever they are ready. What most of us need is courage to live, courage to be ourselves.’

“But you may ask, why do so many fail? Bromfield says, ‘too many of them are flat in spirit . . . they reveal little inwardness or real warmth.’ This ‘inwardness,’ I think, is but another name for that subjective feeling which I have said so often is the basis of all true expression.

“Any teacher worthy the name knows he cannot give a student anything; he can only remove the clamps of fear and show him—as a great inventor has said—‘There isn’t another man just like you in all the world. All Ford cars are alike; but no two men are just alike. Think of it, there never has been anyone just like you, and there never will be again.’ He adds, ‘Every man should get clear on this idea about himself, he should guard that spark of individuality—it is his only claim to importance.’

“No one can express himself just as you do, no one can take your place. Edison, Ford, Carnegie, and a long list like them, all started with slight education, but all saw constructive ideas which they stuck to and worked for, until they were completed, and all had one idea in common: they knew that no man could be a failure except by his own consent.

“The average child is not afraid of making a mistake; he welcomes each new experience. Be not afraid of new experiences and they will reward you. Most of the real people we know, have arrived by using their so-called mistakes as stepping stones.

“Edison once said, ‘I constructed 3,000 different theories in the development of the electric light.’ A man who heard this, so the story goes, said, ‘How could you keep on, after so many failures?’ Edison replied, ‘You don’t understand what I have accomplished. I now know three thousand ways that you positively cannot make an electric light bulb.’

“Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties. Lincoln failed twenty-seven times according to the world’s point of view; had he succeeded once, according to the world’s point of view, he would have been sidetracked and so diverted from the great work he did for this nation and for the world. But who could call his life a failure? These were all stepping stones, all part of the preparation for his great task. He once said, ‘I will prepare myself and perhaps my time will come.’

“Then there is that old ‘bugaboo’—the fear of age. We hear men and women say every day, ‘What can I do at my age? No one wants an old person in any position.’ They are right, no one wants a person who spends all his time thinking about how old he is. The world is begging for new ideas, irrespective of age, which the following long list of wonderful achievements proves (all were accomplished by men of 70, 80, and even 90 years of age):

Cornelius Vanderbilt increased the mileage of his railroad from 120 to 10,000 miles after he was 70.

Handel at 72 gave us his greatest composition.

Galileo was 73 when he made one of his greatest telescopic discoveries.

At 74 Verdi wrote ‘Otello.’

Washington Irving at 75 wrote ‘The Life of George Washington.’

Oliver Wendell Holmes at 79 wrote ‘Over the Tea Cups.’

Gladstone at 83 was Prime Minister of Great Britain for the fourth time.

Von Ranke at 80 commenced the ‘History of the World’ and finished twelve volumes before he was 91.

John Quincy Adams, after serving as President of the United States, was still in active service at 81, and was leader in the House of Representatives.

Tennyson was 83 when he wrote ‘Crossing the Bar.’

And at 91 Michelangelo painted two great canvasses.

“We are so accustomed to hearing of great women in their maturity, but have you ever stopped to think that many of them started their life’s work when they were very young? The following women, whose achievements are now well known, all started their work in their twenties or earlier, showing that it is never too early nor too late to begin, and that an idea has nothing to do with time. Just to mention a few:

Anne Lindbergh was still in her twenties when she received the Hubbard Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society for work as co-pilot and radio operator on the 40,000 mile flight over five continents—the first woman so honored.

Amelia Earhart was just leaving her twenties when she first flew the Atlantic as a passenger—the first woman to make such a trip. She flew the same ocean solo in her early thirties.

Marie Curie was still in her late twenties when she and her husband, Pierre Curie, began their revolutionary research into radioactivity; she was barely thirty when they obtained radium.

Helen Keller entered Radcliffe College at 20, graduated at 24, although handicapped from infancy by inability to see, speak or hear, having laboriously overcome these obstacles through the courageous and systematic efforts of her earlier years.

Evangeline Booth began her great work in command of the Salvation Army in the United States in her late thirties, but she began to preach in London’s worst slums at 14 and at 23 was put in command of the London work.

Florence Nightingale did not give up her great work for the advancement of nursing until before her death at 90, but had begun making her systematic study of nursing throughout Europe at 24, was superintendent of a hospital at 33, became the first war nurse at 34, and was world famous for her work in the Crimea at 35.

Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, by the age of twelve had given evidence of great spiritual vision and religious conviction. While still a young woman, her pastor spoke of her as ‘an intellectual and spiritual genius.’ She was 45 when she discovered Christian Science, 57 when she founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, and at 87 established the Christian Science Monitor, a phenomenal achievement in modern journalism (see Encyclopedia Brittanica).

“These men and women did not run away when the world told them they were too young or too old. They listened for ideas. Each saw an idea and completed it for the love of the doing. There is no other method under the sun that can bring lasting success, but that which is done for the love of the doing.”

Part Three: William Duncan Kilpatrick, C.S.B.

Christian Science Teaching

Looking for a teacher to have Class Instruction in Christian Science, Reginald Kerry went to see Judge Frederick C. Hill in Los Angeles. Judge Hill was an outstanding Christian Science practitioner, teacher and lecturer. One day, the bus he was traveling on to go to a town where he was to lecture turned over and everyone was killed, except the Judge who woke up the next day in a hospital still saying, “There is one infinite Life, this Life is God, this Life is my life now.” He got up that morning and gave his lecture as scheduled. So, Reg went to Los Angeles to visit with the Judge, but as he put his hand on the doorknob, something said, “This is not your demonstration,” and he left.

Some time later, Reg attended a Christian Science Lecture by Mr. William Duncan Kilpatrick, C.S.B., of Detroit, Michigan, and he knew then that this was the teaching he had been looking for. He spoke with Mr. Kilpatrick’s secretary about Class Instruction, but was told that there was a waiting list for seven years before his application could even be considered. A year later, however, an opening occurred, and Reg had Class Instruction with a teacher he greatly admired. A very special relationship developed between them for many years.

After Mr. Kilpatrick passed on, Reg was asked on several occasions to read previous Association Addresses at the Association meetings. No one could have been better equipped to do so. Judge Harry Forehand of Cleveland, who was the keeper of all of Mr. Kilpatrick’s writings, gave personally these Association Addresses to Reg, which explains how they came into his hands and how we are now able to publish large excerpts in the following pages.

Reg always referred to Mr. Kilpatrick as a metaphysical giant, as well as a man of great integrity and with a deep love for Christian Science. After practicing law in Washington, D.C. from 1900 to 1907, and after several years in the business world, Mr. Kilpatrick devoted his life to Christian Science and became a very successful practitioner, lecturer and teacher. As Manager of the Committees on Publication for the World, he earned the nickname of “Willie the Lion,” when he went to the United States Congress to defend Christian Science and the rights and privileges of absolute freedom from legislative restrictions that would have been lost for Christian Scientists if a bill known as the Wagner, Murray, Dingle Bill had been passed.

In Mr. Kilpatrick’s own words quoted from his 1944 Association Address: “The present attempt to pass legislation looking to the establishment of compulsory State Medicine, with compulsory hospitalization, etc., the establishment of a nation-wide corps of nationally paid physicians who shall look after the sick merely as medical automatons, together with all the other restrictions and regulations which accompany such compulsory legislation, would lay the axe at the very root of Christian Science. In fact, in a brief filed by the Committee on Publication in Canada in opposition to a bill looking to the establishment of compulsory health legislation, the statement was made that ‘if this bill is passed, it will mean the end of Christian Science in Canada.’ That may have been an overstatement somewhat, but it pretty well expresses what might be the outcome if legislation of this nature is passed as now outlined.

“The United States Congress has had and will continue to have before it, a bill known as the Wagner, Murray, Dingle Bill looking to the establishment of National Medicine, Old Age Pensions, Compulsory Hospitalization, a National Labor Bureau, etc., which it is the duty of every Christian Scientist to oppose to the end. This bill was prepared by Senator Wagner of New York who also presented and had passed legislation, establishing what is known as ‘The Labor Relations Board,’ one of the most iniquitous pieces of legislation ever imposed upon a free people. This man Wagner, is a German, born in Germany, and an ardent Roman Catholic. In fact, it might be said that most of the revolutionary legislation which has been for some time past and is now being urged upon the American people, is legislation taken from the European pattern and presented and pushed in this country by foreigners or those with foreign influences and inclinations.

“We, as Christian Scientists, cannot play our full part as citizens of the country to which we belong without knowing what is being attempted by the enemy, and without understanding how to apply our knowledge of Christian Science in every case. We must work constantly to realize that the Mind which is God governs His universe, and man is not an independent thinker animated by a mind of his own. We must work daily to realize that in that Mind, which is God, lies the universe, and therefore in the universe there are no mortal minds or influences opposed to the divine. The constant work of Christian Scientists on the question of threatening and coercive legislation, is the demand of the hour. Your right thinking at all times on all matters will be helpful and cumulative, but more than that is required. It is necessary that each one of us take up individually the topic of legislation and realize who is the lawmaker for man, and who inspires man’s incentives and purposes. We must realize that in the infinitude of Mind lies all intuition, impulsion, and activity, and therefore there is no impulsion to evil, no mind to create evil, and no channel, person, place or thing through which evil can operate.

“You will include much more than this in your work on legislation. Your work also in protecting the cause of Christian Science from inimical legislation, lies not wholly in your metaphysical endeavors, but lies also in your personal daily contacts with people,—with those who have to do with legislation, etc. People must be educated. Of course, I do not mean that we should go around buttonholing indiscriminately everyone we meet and talking legislation to him, but when opportunity presents (and sometimes we have to make that opportunity ourselves) to talk with those who have in charge legislation as above outlined, it is our chance to do our part. Of course, one wants to know what he is doing, and be informed as to what he is talking about before getting in too deeply.

“Christian Science should always be uppermost in our thought. What would existence to you and me be without this great spiritual comforter? In connection with this social security wave, there is a fine point to be considered: how much of it is justified and is not merely political sop to intrigue voters, and how much of it is an attempt to bring about an order whereby the thrifty, the frugal and the worthy of the world will be compelled to support the unworthy, the shiftless and the ne’re-do-well? Mrs. Eddy never had much patience with any system which siphoned the earnings out of the pockets of a worthy class of people, and used those earnings to keep in ease the lazy louts who are ever at the treasury of their country, trying to get a living without earning it. In a democracy properly conducted, there should never be a class of citizens who has to look to his neighbor for that which the neighbor has acquired through work and frugality. This whole system of social security, in its entirety, is very likely to become a system of subsidies to the useless class which the better part of the citizenry must pay for.

“In fact, if you will analyze the whole situation in the United States as it is now shaped up, you will see that all of these high wages which labor has been enjoying for the past ten years, all of the profits made by industry, all of the income from farm and other products, instead of constituting the fruit of a normal system operating under a sane plan of government which recognizes the economic law of supply and demand, simply represents that which now appears on the red side of the national ledger, and must some time or other be paid for by the very individuals who constitute the beneficiaries of the present system of subsidies, doles and governmental gratuities. In other words, the big wages that the laboring man has been drawing down for the past decade, stand against him on the national ledger, which he, himself, in some way or other, and at some time or other, will have to pay back right out of his own pocket. That is, he has just been taken for a ride and doesn’t know it.

“A government conducted under the influence of a righteous economic order, should make possible ample profits of labor and industry, without the necessity of borrowing from one section of its citizenry to make those profits possible. Profits and wages which are represented or included in the national debt are not profits at all. They constitute liabilities which the individual recipients thereof must pay back in one way or another sooner or later. Profits and wages paid from money borrowed by the government, lead right back into the tax set-up and sooner or later reach the recipients of these wages and profits in that way. It is an endless and vicious circle. Money paid to a man in wages or income of any nature, which do not come through regular channels of industry, recognizing the economic laws of supply and demand, at some time or other are taken away from him in taxes. So when you see your government indebtedness rising and rising higher and higher, just put it down in your little book that you yourself are the victim and the goat, and that instead of working in behalf of you as a citizen, your government is simply giving you the old run-around. Prosperity on one hand, with an unbalanced budget on the other, represented by billions of dollars of national indebtedness, is not prosperity at all, and the man who thinks that he is enjoying the benefits of a well-conducted national economic system will some day awaken much sadder but wiser.

“In her preface to ‘Miscellaneous Writings,’ on page 9, Mrs. Eddy pens the following which expresses the outlook better than I could. She says: ‘A certain apothegm of a Talmudical philosopher suits my sense of doing good. It reads thus: “The noblest charity is to prevent a man from accepting charity; and the best alms are to show and enable a man to dispense with alms.”’”

The following pages are excerpts of several of Mr. Kilpatrick’s Association Addresses. More than anyone else, he expounded on the human consciousness, referring to it as the arena where the exchange of carnal beliefs for divine ideas takes place. In his words, “The carnal mind cannot be healed and the divine Mind does not need to be healed. All that needs to be healed is the human consciousness of its belief in a mortal or carnal mind outside itself. This can only be accomplished through the instruction of the human consciousness out of itself and into divine consciousness.”

Another major contribution in Mr. Kilpatrick’s teaching was his recommendation to his pupils that they study thoroughly pages 430 through 442 on the trial in “Science and Health,” which Mrs. Eddy had noticed were the least studied pages in her textbook. While revising “Science and Health” she removed these pages, but after three years she reinserted them when she saw the problems coming about in the movement. It should also be noted that Mr. Kilpatrick points out how in this trial Christian Science is the friend of mortal man. Being a lawyer he was also interested in seeing how the court case was built, and he remarked that it was an absolute masterpiece.

1935 Association Address

God

In your work in Christian Science, in your work in treating, healing and even teaching (because the dissemination of Truth by any means involves teaching), your starting or basic premise is God. Nothing can be accomplished in any direction in Christian Science without a clear and workable understanding of God. The farther I go in the study and practice of this great truth, the greater appears to me the necessity of knowing God, and realizing just what He is, and what He means in my thinking and my work.

Mrs. Eddy has given us the definition of God. She has, in fact, given us several definitions, and has devoted much time and space to the explanation of Him, but with all of this, the vital, demonstrable, and workable understanding of Him will have to come through our own consciousness. Just to read and understand what the definitions of God, which Mrs. Eddy has given, mean, in a mere academic fashion, will not accomplish a great deal. I can hardly explain to you in words what has come to me in my contemplation and silent mental work by way of unfoldment and clear conviction, concerning the real nature and import of God, and yet I know that I have but glimpsed the beauty, the grandeur, the sublimity and the wonders of His greatness. The more I work in Christian Science, and the more I endeavor to put into practice and demonstration what I have already gained therefrom, the more I am convinced that it is our clear concept of God, and God only, that will enable us to instantaneously and completely heal the sick, cast out demons and raise the dead. In our work in Science, in our treatments for others, in our daily work for ourselves, the contemplation of God is what will bring the desired results. Nothing can be done in a Christian Science treatment without a firm foundation based upon a clear concept of God. The nothingness of matter can never become clear in our consciousness until we have gained a clear concept of God. All of the arguments which you mentally employ in your work in Science, must be predicated on your concept of God, and unless your concept of God is clear, your arguments and your treatments will not be effective. I am convinced that the clearer one gets as to God alone, the less he will have to employ the argumentative type of treatment. You and I have not yet arrived at that stage in our understanding where we will not for some time affirm and deny in our treatments, but I do know that as we advance in our understanding and practice of this truth, the less we will rely on the argument in our treatments and the more we will depend on our clear concept of God. The clearer we become in thought as to the real nature and import of God, the better and more certain become the result and outcome of our treatment.

The time will come, perhaps has come in a degree, in the experience of many of us, when the contemplation of God, and God alone, will constitute our only conscious treatment. As we grow in the understanding and application of Christian Science, the greater becomes the all-inclusiveness of the understanding of God in consciousness. That is, the clearer we become as to what God really is, His infinitude, His Allness, His creativeness, His present and only being, the clearer and more certain we become in our treatments in Christian Science.

Christian Science treatment

And let me impress upon you the necessity and value of daily work in Christian Science. Never neglect your daily work and reading because of lack of time, the pressure of business, the urge of household duties, social duties, etc. You will find, as most of you have found, that there is nothing gained in Christian Science vicariously, and that if God is to be with you in your business, in your home and in your daily associations, you have got to make Him a conscious presence by your pure and right thinking.

You cannot avail yourselves of the aid and assistance of God simply by depending on His presence, and not including Him in your consciousness. Sometimes, as I said before, I hear the statement from class-taught students that they do not understand how to give a treatment—not even for themselves. Class teaching is for the purpose of enabling you to give a correct treatment, and if one has emerged from class without enough understanding of truth to enable him to do his own mental work, as well as work for others, if required, it is too bad for the student and too bad for the teacher. A treatment, as I have many times explained, is not something which anyone can tell you how to give. You have to give your own treatments out of the spontaneity of Truth in your own consciousness. A treatment is simply knowing the truth. No one can tell you how to know the truth, but a teacher can tell you what Truth is, and it is your own knowing of that Truth that constitutes a treatment.

A clear concept of God is a treatment. It is the best treatment you can give. The clearer you get as to God, the better your treatment will be. You will find that the time you spend in your study of Christian Science and in giving yourself a treatment each day, is not time taken from your business, from your work, from your home duties, etc. It is time devoted to business, to your work, and to your home duties. The time devoted to daily reading and mental work is never lost and always results in more time for business, more time for home work, etc. The time devoted to daily mental work and study simply coordinates your daily material duties, orders them in accord with divine law and harmony, and makes everything work out to so much better advantage than it would, were you to start the day without this work and study. Clear thinking is bound to be manifest in clear acting. Orderly and harmonious thinking has its objectification in an ordered and harmonious material existence, and the more time one spends on study and work, the more orderly and harmonious become his daily duties. The power of a well-ordered mentality is always manifested in a well-ordered and harmonious daily material routine.

Anyone can give a treatment

Now, anyone, as I said, can give a treatment, and if you will make it a practice each day to sit down and just know the truth for yourself which you have learned from Christian Science, you will soon find how easy it is to give yourself a treatment, and how little of labor and confusion is involved in the process.

The first thing in any treatment is God, and, as I said, the clearer you get as to God and His true nature, the better will be your treatment. Anyone here can sit down and close his eyes for a few moments and think on God. The thought thus devoted to the contemplation of God is a treatment. A treatment is simply the activity of Truth in consciousness, and this truth in your consciousness will furnish you all that it is necessary for you to know to meet any given manifestation or argument of error. One will never learn how to give a treatment until he tries. A treatment is individual. A treatment is individual because existence is individual. If you and I were all existing here in this material state as a result of one well-defined and outlined and omnipotent general plan of material existence; if we were all existing in our material states as the objects of one infinite Creator who has fashioned and molded us materially from one infinite and complete plan of existence, then we could formulate and put into practice one set of treatments or particular forms of treatment for our ills. But this is not so.

Each individual material existence is the outcome of an individual consciousness. To be sure, each individual material consciousness is the conscious expression of a mortal or carnal mind which claims to exist as one mind outside of individual consciousness and which is manifested or expressed individually at the will and volition of the individual. If you and I had no volition in our method of thinking, if we did not have the individual ability to accept or reject the carnal at our own wills, then we could formularize our treatments and have them all conform to one set method or mode. But as we voluntarily control our own consciousness, and as our material existence is the objectified manifestation of this individual consciousness, we can see how thoroughly individual our treatments must be, because we have nothing to deal with except our own individual illusions or misconceptions, and not the illusions or misconceptions of another’s thinking. If you and I knew and clearly comprehended all that there is to know about God, we would ascend as did Jesus at the time of his disappearance from mortal vision. All of us, or any of us can start out in our efforts to give a treatment by knowing the definition of God which Mrs. Eddy has given us in the “Glossary” of “Science and Health,” and in “Recapitulation.” From this basis must emanate all of the convictions upon which we can deny the error and affirm the truth. There is no claim of error in the consciousness of mankind that cannot be met by understanding what God is.

What is God?

The different synonyms of God with which Mrs. Eddy has provided us, give us the foundation upon which every claim of error can be met and mastered. So do you not see how necessary it is to dwell on God in your treatments? To speak for myself, I can say that most of my treatments consist on contemplating God. I find that the clearer I get as to God, the more often I return to Him in my treatment. It almost seems to me at times that if I allow myself, in my treatments, to get into the intricacies and the enigmas which mortal mind presents, I just have to flee back mentally to God as a sort of refuge and sure fortress in making my treatment the powerful and omnipotent thing which a treatment should be. Many cases of mortal mind involve so much of error and so much confusion and obstruction that unless we watch, we become involved in our treatments in the very error which we are trying to heal, and in that case our only refuge is to hurry back to God to get away from it all, lest our skirts become tainted with the very thing we are trying to unsee.

The more I get into the study and application of Christian Science, the more I dwell in and contemplate on God. It is difficult to get into the intricacies of error and not get smeared ourselves, and I find that, in my treatments, when I allow myself to get too far afield in trying to make the application of my treatment fit the particular error at hand in all its forms, my only refuge is God. There is a great temptation in giving a treatment to get involved ourselves in the error which we are trying to overcome, and when we find that we have ventured too far, our refuge, our relief, our hope lies in getting ourselves, our patient and our thoughts back into God just as fast as we can. It is a little difficult to express to you in words just what I am trying to impress on you, but those of you who have been in the work of healing will understand what I mean when I say that our haven of rest, our sure defense from the errors which we are trying in our treatments to heal, lies in our consciousness of God.

Our whole object in giving a treatment is to unsee error—is to dematerialize man and the universe—and we cannot do that if we allow ourselves, in our treatments, to get so far away from God that we can see nothing but the error. In giving a treatment do not fall into the trap which mortal mind sets for us by trying to hook up your treatment with the error at hand. Do not attempt to make your treatment apply to the error to be corrected. This will confuse you and get you into matter and error up to your ears. This is a very common error with students, and it is one which will always result from the mental practice of endeavoring to hook up a spiritual idea with a material concept. There is no material concept, and therefore there can be no spiritual idea of that which does not exist. Forget it. Forget the material concept and deal exclusively with spiritual ideas, and you will never become confused.

Not long ago I got a letter from a student who said that he could get just about so far in a treatment, but when it came to the point of applying the treatment to the trouble at hand he was sunk. This error of trying, ourselves, to make the application of the truth of our treatments to the errors of mortal mind is a most disastrous one. “But,” someone may ask, “how is one going to make a treatment effective if it is not applied to the error?” That is a righteous question, but the answer is that the treatment itself, the truth itself, makes its own application. We cannot make the application without agreeing with the error. Our whole aim in a Christian Science treatment is to unsee and get rid of the error in our individual consciousness, and if we make an individual mental effort to apply our treatments to that which we have been trying to realize as nothing, we are then confusing our treatments and making a reality of that which we would see as unreal.

As stated by Mr. George Shaw Cook, one of the editors of our periodicals, in an article from the “Christian Science Sentinel” of July 20, 1935, “Truth is its own utterance, its own impulsion.” “Truth is its own impulsion.” That is putting it succinctly and clearly. We, individually, do not make the application of our treatments. The treatments make their own application, and thus all you and I have to do in giving a treatment is to know the truth and unsee the error, and the application is then self-consummated. To repeat further from Mr. Cook’s article: “Truth is its own utterance, its own impulsion. It is irresistible: nothing can withstand it. Nothing can obstruct, hinder, delay or limit its activity. Nothing can reverse its affirmations or their effect. Nothing can limit its capacity for expression. It is, in fact, the word of God, which, the prophet Isaiah has declared, ‘shall not return unto me (God) void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it’.”

Now, it is not the mere repetition of these words which accomplishes those results. Simply mentally to repeat the statement that, “Nothing can obstruct, hinder, delay or limit” a treatment as a sort of a command or challenge, will never lend the unction to a treatment which a clear understanding of what you are saying will give. You do not make these affirmations to scare away opposition or to compel error to flee away and not be bothering around.

These statements should be made as the result of the conviction that there is no obstruction, hindrance or delay either mental or material in existence. A treatment is not designed to establish a new order of things. It is for the purpose of revealing the old order, the true, the original order of things. You do not have to make a treatment work. All you have to do is to let it work. Don’t stand in the way of your treatment. A treatment is not something you have created, developed, evolved or promulgated. A treatment is the mental statement of a fact which has existed from time immemorial. A treatment is something distinctly separate and apart from the one giving the treatment. No treatment is your treatment. It is God’s. It is Truth expressed, and Truth expressed is God expressed, and because it is God expressed, it is, for that very reason, omnipotent and infinite. Truth is infinite. A treatment is a statement of truth, and therefore a treatment is infinite, and because a treatment is infinite and because it is an expression of Truth, and because all Truth is here and now, and everywhere, there is no belief of distance, time, place or separation that can interfere with a treatment. Truth does not eliminate time, space and distance. It eliminates the belief of time, space and distance, and it is only the belief of these things that needs to be eliminated. The understanding of the universal nature, the infinite nature of God, or good, eliminates the belief of time, distance and space. Every argument of the carnal mind you will find can be handled and met by the use of some part of Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God.

By realizing the infinity of Truth (thus using the qualifying adjective “infinite” as applied to God in Mrs. Eddy’s definition), you do away with distance or separation in cases of what is called absent treatment. A treatment is a thing of God, and if it is a thing of God it must partake of all the qualities of God. And by understanding this, we endow our treatments with the omnipotence which we should attach to them, and at the same time we relieve ourselves of any sense of personal responsibility or credit in the giving of a treatment. Personal or individual responsibility on the part of a practitioner in giving a treatment will rob the treatment of that unction which your clear spiritual understanding of it will give. So, to gain a clear spiritual understanding of God (not an academic one), as explained in Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God, is a necessary prerequisite to the successful practice of Christian Science. Remember that every claim of error can and must be handled from the broad basis of your clear understanding of God. In giving a treatment I invariably depend upon every synonym of God to clarify my thinking in connection with the case. I almost invariably apply, spiritually, each synonym of God to my patient before I can proceed to direct my mental arguments to the condition at hand.

It is always well, at the beginning of a treatment, to attempt to spiritually or mentally visualize a Mind or Intelligence which fills all space and which might be said to be responsible for its own existence; a Mind which, because of its infinity, recognizes no other existence, and in which there is, in reality, no other existence. This Mind is self-existent consciousness and includes only that which it itself creates. Applying to this concept of Mind or Intelligence the qualifying adjectives “incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite,” we completely rid our own consciousness of any sense of corporeality or material embodiment as attached to God, any sense of the carnal, any sense of a lesser intelligence, and any sense of a localized God. Through our mental use of the term “incorporeal,” we do away with any sense of a God of material outline or confinements. We do away completely with any sense of God as embodied or circumscribed. And to get a clear sense of God we must avoid any attempt to pattern our concept of God after our concept of mortal man.

The terms which Mrs. Eddy has used in her definition of God meet and nullify the human arguments and concepts attributed to mortal man. Mortal man is corporeal in his own estimation. God is incorporeal. Therefore, there is no similarity at that point. Mortal man is human to his own sense. God is divine and does not partake of the carnal at any point. Therefore anything that might be attributed to mortal man as human is handled by the adjective “divine” in Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God. Note how the definition of God reverses mortal man’s concept of man, or of himself. In the term human you may include a multitude of mortal mind’s assertions. Under the term human comes the claim of human nature. And there is something I seldom fail to use in a treatment—human nature. It is the basis and excuse for more error than you can imagine. Under the term human comes all human relationships, heredity, family traits and characteristics of both mind and body, mother love, parental concern and anxiety, excuse for condoning error on the ground that one is still human. One might go on indefinitely listing the various qualities of thought which could be listed under the one word human. All of these are handled finally and completely by the term “divine” in the definition of God. And thus, do you not see that by applying that part of the definition of God in your understanding to the particular phases of error in your patient which this term “divine” meets, you are handling these errors on a scientific and holy basis?

In the realm of the material all is relative. There are minds many. There are what we call good minds and better minds, evil minds and pure minds, strong minds and weak minds, spiritual minds and perverted minds. Everything in the realm of the material is relative. There is a multiplicity of everything so that no two things are alike in any material condition of thought. There is always the comparative, the relative. This is all handled and met in Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God in the word “supreme.” This term “supreme,” in this instance, means “only.” So that in the realm of the spiritual, in the realm of Mind or Life or Love or any of the other words which Mrs. Eddy has used as synonyms of God, there is nothing else. There is no lesser mind. There is no lesser life. There is no lesser love, etc. There is but the one Mind. And as man is the expression of this one Mind, do you not see how all of these terms, all of these qualifying terms used by Mrs. Eddy in connection with her definition of God, apply also to man in God’s image and likeness? And herein lies the great help which the clear spiritual understanding of the definition of God gives us in meeting the claims which mortal man would confront us with.

There is no mortal man. The only man there is, is the man which is like the God, which is explained in Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God. Always cling to that. Always strive for that clear mental state which enables you to perceive that there is no material man because man is like God, and an infinite Mind which is self-existent and which is infinite could not create or include the ability to create or to recreate anything lesser than Himself. A God which shines by reflection could not be reflected in something that God could not Himself conceive of. Mortal man conceives himself to be an individual, finite expression. He dwells in matter. He is circumscribed. He is outlined. He rests in place and travels through space from place to place. He is conceived in restriction, he is germinated in limitation, he is born of matter and material parenthood, and his birth, his growth and his maturity all require time.

All of this is handled in Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God by the various adjectives used therein, and most of these are handled especially by the term “infinite,” the last of the qualifying terms in the definition given us in the Chapter on “Recapitulation” in “Science and Health.” The term “infinite” completely does away with any sense of limitation, locality, time, space, or process of construction. In contemplating on man, never connect your patient with his or mortal mind’s concept of man. In fact, never think of this pile of flesh and blood and bones which calls itself a patient. That is not what you are trying to heal. You are trying to heal your concept of man as material, and you cannot do that while you think that you have a material patient or even while you think you have any patient. There never was a patient. There never was a sick man. There never was a healer and there never was a practitioner. There never was anything to be healed.

Now, we have just touched on some of the high points regarding the adjectives in Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God. Besides these we have the synonyms, “Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.” Remember that man is the reflection of God and that therefore the more you know about God, the more you can confidently affirm concerning man. And what you know about God and His reflection, man, is the healing Christ in your consciousness. It is not the mechanical argument which you employ that heals. It is the Christ which lies behind your mental argument that heals. Therefore you do not do the healing. Applying all the adjectives which we have just recited to the term “Mind” in our definition, we have taken away from the sense of Mind all that applies to mortal man as the opposite of those adjectives.

Now, to arrive at a workable and demonstrable consciousness of God in your work of healing does not require all the time and effort which we have taken here to explain it. If it did, a treatment would be quite a laborious thing. But through a clear perception of God, this clear consciousness comes spontaneously and easily. The conviction of God as Mind and man as the image and likeness of Mind becomes a constant, clear, spontaneous consciousness which is ever with you and which, as time goes on, requires less time and mental effort for its realization.

Imagine, if you can . . .

Imagine, if you can, a universe without any matter in it, without material persons in it, without material atmosphere, without material laws of limitation, of sickness, of gravitation, of material force of any name or nature; without any sin or carnality in it, without any hate or malice or revenge; where no one is ever born and no one ever dies; where there is no time nor place nor space nor distance; where there is no process of creation; where everything is complete and has been complete throughout all time; where nothing is constructed; where there is no process of construction or development; where there is no material or physical growth; where transportation is an operation of consciousness and not a condition of matter; where there is no re-creation, no pro-creation nor counterfeit creation; where there is no lack or limitation; where abundance reigns and supply is not the result of effort but an eternal fact; where love reigns supreme and the brotherhood of man is a forever reality.

Imagine this harmonious universe, if you can, created, governed and controlled by one infinite Mind or Intelligence, a Mind which knows all, sees all, comprehends all, is conscious of everything in this universe of Spirit and which is the Father and Mother of that universe. Imagine this all-knowing intelligence governing and pervading this universe with unerring certainty and precision, with love, with discernment, with benevolence and light. Imagine this universe with but one Mind in it and everything in this universe an idea of this all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise Intelligence.

Imagine this universe without any other mind but this one divine Intelligence, and the ideas of this Intelligence conscious of and expressing no other Mind, and consequently a universe wherein there are not minds many, wills many, or purposes many; where the one Mind reigns supreme and everything in that universe operates in accord with this one all-knowing Intelligence; where there are no differing opinions, no disagreements, no quarrels, no responsibility resting on any individual in that universe; where all responsibility rests in this one infinite Intelligence, and where there is no misunderstanding or difference of opinions, because there are no differing opinions; where everything in this universe is an expression of this one Mind, and no one has mentally to labor or think for himself; where everything is an involuntary expression of the harmony and peace of this one Mind.

Imagine this universe, where there are no material or artificial channels of illumination; where the light of this one Mind is the only light there is and in which is no darkness, no night and no oblivion; where the sun, the moon and the stars no longer furnish light, but where this ever-present light illumines eternally, without cessation, hindrance or uncertainty.

Imagine this universe filled with and expressing one infinite, eternal Life, a universe where everything in it is the outgrowth and expression of this one infinite Life; where there is but one Life and nothing in this universe has any life separate from this one infinite Life; where the beings in that universe have no life of their own, hence have no life to lose; where Life is not subject to matter, laws of matter, laws of heredity, laws of astrology, laws of materia medica, laws of nature, laws of anatomy or physiology.

Imagine this universe filled with and expressing one Truth; which Truth fills all space and which has no opposite; which Truth is expressed by everything within the realm of this perfect spiritual universe and wherein is no error of any name or nature; where the very presence of Truth precludes the presence of any opposite condition, or error; where there are no obstacles to Truth, no matter, no mortal mind, no superstition, no ignorance, no mist, no illusion, no dream, and no darkness; where this Truth fills and illumines the universe with ever-present light and joy and peace and assurance; where this Truth dispels the possibility of fear or a mind which can fear or thinks fear, or which thinks there is fear; where “nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed” and where there are no conflicting elements, no opposing conditions, no different methods or modus operandi, and where harmony reigns supreme.

Imagine, if you can, this universe of Mind peopled with spiritual ideas and nothing else; where all these ideas exist in all places at all times and in countless numbers; where every idea is in its right place and where every idea is coordinated and synchronized with every other idea under the supervision of this one infinite Mind which knows all its own ideas, and which governs them all with unerring certainty and precision; where all the ideas of this one Mind are governed by and subject to this one divine Mind only, and where one idea is not dependent on or out of harmony with any other idea; where all ideas are spiritual and hence express the one infinite Mind or Spirit which fills all space, which is everywhere present and which is conscious of no opposite or material existence.

Imagine this universe of spiritual ideas as the spontaneous outcome of this one all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise, all-loving Intelligence or Mind, Spirit, and Life, governed and correlated by the one creative Principle which admits of no lesser creation, no limited creation, no counterfeit creation and no material creation. Imagine all of these as created by, or the outcome of, one infinite, divine Principle, without a counterfeit or an element of competition, free from adulteration or foreign or material influences; where no mortal mind is known or exists; where there is nothing but one divine Principle governing all these ideas in perfect harmony, peace and love. Imagine, if you can, all this vast universe of ideas which are the outcome and expression of this one infinite Mind, this one infinite Principle, this one infinite Truth, this one all-inclusive Love, being conscious and expressive of nothing but Mind, and Life, and Truth, and Principle, which constitutes the very Soul of these ideas. Imagine, if you can, all this vast creation of ideas as being expressive of, and enfolded in, one infinite divine Love, which goes to make up this Mind, this Principle, this Life, this Spirit, and this Soul.

Imagine all of these ideas as expressive of and conscious of no other Mind, no other Principle, no other Life, no other Spirit, no other Soul, no other Love. Imagine all of this vast aggregation of ideas, which are governed by one Principle, one Mind, one Truth, one Life and one Love, as children of God, and imagine yourself as one of these ideas, free from the bondage or influence of matter, laws of matter, physical body, physical forms, mortal mind, birth, growth, maturity, death, and the like, and you will then have a clear demonstrable and provable sense of man as the image and likeness of God, and you will heal the sick. It is this clear sense of true spiritual existence, free from any taint of materiality, material existence, mortal mind or physicality which heals the sick.

It is the absence of the possibility of error in your consciousness which enables you to heal. You cannot, for a moment, admit the possibility of a material creation or a sick patient, otherwise your treatment becomes relative or involved in error. Your denials of error must be postulated on your clear declarations of Truth, and your consciousness of Truth must be so clear, that your denials of error will not lead you into a material sense of thinking while you are making the denial.

As I have said so many times, there is no form which can be given for a treatment. The Truth heals, and your knowledge of the Truth will heal without specific application. If, for instance, you were to sit down to do your daily work for yourself, you, of course, would be in a better position than anyone else to know what needed most to be handled in your consciousness. No one could tell you what to take up, further than what any and everyone would take up and handle. In the first place you would know what God is and what man is. That is, you would try and get a clear vision that all that has ever existed, is one infinite Mind. Creation must consist of something, and if creation is the outcome of some great first Cause, that great first Cause must be the only Cause, and consequently could not have created that which would have power or desire to disrupt creation. Because the great first Cause could not have created a destructive force which it in itself did not contain, we must conclude that the creation of the great first Cause must be perfect, intact, eternal and right here and now, and that consequently, there can be no lesser or disrupting creation, and that what seems to be a lesser or inharmonious creation is not a lesser creation; in fact, is no creation at all, but simply an illusion.

If it is an illusion, what is it an illusion of? The answer is, mortal mind. But, there is no mortal mind because the great first Cause could not create or be reflected in anything inferior to Himself. Hence there is no counterfeit creation, and because there is no counterfeit creation, your declarations of Truth must be based on Truth alone, without any relative sense, and without the possibility of a lesser creation out of which we must emerge before entering the spiritual and eternal. Therefore, the picture of a universe filled with spiritual ideas which were never born and which involve no matter and no process of matter, and of which your patient is one, is the picture you must hold constantly in thought. Your patient was never born, he never knew anything about matter or a material body, and was never under any influence but the divine Mind, Life, Truth and Love. From this basis you will see how difficult it would be for your patient to come under any laws of sickness or inharmony, because Spirit or an idea can never be sick, can never have sensation, pain, or be conscious of inharmony. Treat your patient in thought just as you would consider God in thought. Your patient is a reflection of God, no matter what he may think he is.

Suppose, just for argument or clarification, you had before you, in such a way that you could designate it or individualize it, a tangible right idea. Suppose you had before you the idea of Love. Now, that idea of Love could never be sick, could it? That idea of Love could never be embodied in matter, could it? It could not take the form of a mortal, could it? It could not be conscious of pain, it could not be conscious of poverty, inharmony, and the like, could it? In fact, it couldn’t be conscious of anything but itself, could it? Now, suppose you had over in another part of the room a material person, flesh-embound, having a mind of his own, capable of experiencing pain and pleasure in matter, capable of being sick, inharmonious and poverty stricken, capable of being sinful and subject to the whims and influences of other minds, desires and suggestions. There you have two distinct and separate objects. One of them is not familiar with, does not know, and is not conscious of, the other. One does not know the other exists. They never mingle and never become conscious of each other. The idea of Love, the idea of divine Mind, has always existed from time immemorial. It was never born, it has never changed, it never dies and will never be subject to any of the claims, laws or limitations of mortal mind because, as far as it is concerned, no such mind exists. The divine idea of Love is conscious only of the Mind which created it, and that is the only Mind there is, therefore there is no other creation as far as that divine idea of Love is concerned. The mortal person, which sits over in the other part of the room, was born to sense, lives in matter, can be sick, poverty stricken, and the like, all of which is the manifestation of a mind which God never created.

Now, in your mental attitude in treating a patient, all that you have to consider, in fact all that exists, is that divine idea of Love. The other does not exist, never has existed, and is just as far removed from the divine idea (which your patient is in reality) as the mortal personage, which sat in the other part of the room, was away from the divine idea of Love. The two never mingle. They never meet and they are not to be confused or commingled in giving a treatment. The divine idea of Love which you have before you is all there is, and what you can declare about that divine idea of Love, you can declare about your patient, be that patient yourself or someone else. Forget about creation, in a material sense. There never was a creation in the scientific sense. Everything that exists now always has existed as a spontaneous expression or evidence of the all-inclusive and self-existent Mind or Consciousness. God is Consciousness, and man is the conscious expression of that Consciousness. Man can never be conscious of anything but God, because there is nothing else in existence. There is not any error. The very term error excludes itself from the realm of the real because error is that which is not true, and as that which is not true does not exist, there is no error. Error is the opposite of Truth, and man reflects Truth. Remember, that man is expression and not suppression. I shall touch briefly on that a little later.

The synonymous terms for God

If, then, you were giving yourself a daily treatment, how would you go about it? What would necessarily be your first step? The very first thing you would have to do, either in giving yourself a treatment or in giving a treatment to another, would be to get into consciousness a clear understanding of God. You would, in your thinking, declare that God is the divine Principle of the only universe there is. God is the Mind which initiates, promulgates and includes all existence; you would become clearly conscious that this Mind is infinite, fills all space and is the only source of intelligence or being there is; that this Mind imparts only its own qualities, and that this Mind includes and encompasses all existence; that this Mind is expressed through ideas which possess and maintain all the qualities of their divine source; that all volition, action, being, consciousness lie within this Mind; that this Mind is all-inclusive and contains and includes nothing outside itself.

You would know that God is Life, and that God is infinite, and that hence Life fills all space, and that in Life there can be no suggestion of mortality, disintegration, organization, matter, or sickness. Nothing can be included in Life that does not exist in divine Mind; that divine Mind and Life are one, and that both are eternal and infinite and omnipotent; therefore there are not lives many; Life is not divided into lives many; there is but one Life, and man is the expression of that one Life and has no life of his own to lose, and therefore man’s life is not subject to matter, disorganization, time, sickness or anything less than Life. In Life there is no death and no death process, because there are nothing but ideas of Mind included in Life. Life never fades, grows dim or is lost, because Life is the same yesterday, today and forever. (Scientific Statement of Being) Life is God in action, and God is ever active because He is ever-present.

You would know that God is the divine Principle of all the vast universe of ideas; that this divine Principle fills all space and is the only Principle governing the universe of ideas, because divine Principle expresses the intelligence and wisdom of Mind, and therefore includes in its operation, control and supervision only that which is included in the divine Mind; that everything in the universe of God, everything in the universe of divine ideas, is under the control, supervision, direction and protection of this one infinite divine Principle which regulates everything within the scope of Mind with unerring accuracy; that this Mind or Principle never forgets; that it is all-inclusive and that therefore the ideas of Mind cannot be forgotten, sequestered or ignored.

You would know that God is Truth, and that this Truth is infinite, filling all space, and that because of this infinity there can be no error in all of this vast universe of ideas. Error is the supposititious absence of Truth, and as Truth is infinite and fills all space, there is no error; that this infinite Truth permeates and includes all existence and that therefore cannot be tainted by or conscious of error. You would know that this great universe of ideas, being governed by this one infinite Intelligence and Principle, expresses the Soul of the divine; that the consciousness of this divine Mind, expressed, constitutes the Soul of the universe; that the Soul of the universe is God, and therefore the Soul of the universe is divine Consciousness, and that the universe in its entirety is conscious of nothing that does not come from Soul. You would know that God, being infinite Mind and Principle and Soul, filling all space, not embound by matter or material beliefs, must be Spirit, because nothing of a finite nature could be infinite and unconfined; that Spirit is constituted of this divine Mind; that it includes all Life; that it fills all space, and that the universe of God’s creating is the spontaneous reflection or expression of Spirit. If God were not Spirit, He would not and could not be infinite. Nothing but Spirit could be infinite. You would also know this Mind, which constitutes God, is Love, and that the expression of Love is the universe; that because there is nothing in the universe but Love, there can be no hate, no curse, no malice, no diabolical mind and no mortal mind. On the basis of one Creator and one creation, without even an opposite or contradicting creation, rests the potency and efficacy of your treatment.

What is man?

Having built this firm foundation of a consciousness of God, you then proceed in your treatment to man, or the patient. To gain this clear concept of God and man, as herein outlined, you will, of course, not require the time that it takes to outline the operation here. Convictions are spontaneous and instantaneous, and are arrived at momentarily, whereas the explanation of this operation takes much more time than is necessary to use in giving a treatment. However, the more time you spend in the contemplation of God, and the clearer you become as to Him and His exclusive creation of Spirit, the better will be your treatment. Your next step in order in your treatment is man. If God is Mind, man must be an idea of that Mind, because there is no other creator. Mind must be expressed in harmony, peace, understanding, knowledge and wisdom. Man is the spontaneous expression of that creative Principle which Mrs. Eddy has termed Mind, and therefore man must be as perfect as the Mind which he expresses. Because there is but one Mind, man cannot express anything but this one Mind. There can be no argument or belief of confusion, misunderstanding, misdirection or indecision in man, as man expresses the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise Intelligence. No concept of matter or a material mind can ever enter the consciousness of man, because there is no mortal mind. God never created a mind separate from Himself to disrupt or disorganize His own creation. Man is an idea of the one and only Mind there is, and therefore is held, supported, supplied, sustained and nourished by the Mind that created him. Man is obedient to God. He has no will, volition, discretion or purpose of his own. He is the involuntary expression of Mind and can be governed by no other influence. The government of man is in Mind and therefore man has no responsibility of his own.

Man as an idea of Mind, as a compound idea of Mind, expresses Life. There is but one Life and man expresses that Life. There is one Life only. Man has no life of his own. He has no life to lose, and his life is not subject to matter, mortal mind or death, because none of these exist. Life is eternal and man has always existed inseparable from Life, a complete expression of Life and an idea of Life. As God, Life, is eternal, man, an idea of Life and inseparable from Life, must be eternal and changeless. There is no death process in Life; there is no sickness nor disorganization in Life, hence there can be no death or disorganization in the idea which expresses Life. Life is not subject to birth, growth, maturity or decay. Life never was conceived, it never germinated. It has always existed and is eternal. Life expresses activity. Activity in Science is the ever-presence of right ideas. Therefore man expresses activity because man includes all right ideas. There is no inaction, overaction or retarded action. (Convulsions, spasms, etc.) “Growth,” Mrs. Eddy tells us, “is the eternal mandate of Mind” (S&H p. 520). Therefore growth does not mean accretion, enlargement or accumulation. It means the eternal manifestation of that which has always existed. This is well to know in handling the belief of false growth, etc. Growth and development are not processes of matter, cognizable by the physical senses. Growth and development are simply significant of the unfoldment of the truths of existence in consciousness, and therefore there is no under-development, arrested growth, retarded growth, over growth, etc.

Man as a compound idea of Mind must be spiritual. There is nothing in Mind out of which matter could be created; therefore man, as spiritual, cannot be flesh embound. He was never born, he never passed through any experience of material conception or birth. He was never thrust out of his original state of existence in God and born into matter. The senses of man are all spiritual, and every sense of man is an idea in Mind. Man as the image of God partakes of the body of Christ, the members of which are fitly joined together under one infinite Intelligence. The expression of ideas through man constitute man’s embodiment, his consciousness, his environment, his being and his experience. Therefore man can be conscious of nothing but what God sends, and he can experience only that which God has ordained, and he expresses only that which comes from God. All the ideas of Mind which are expressed through man as faculties, functions, members, etc., are coordinated and synchronized under the control and operation of the one infinite Intelligence, and therefore there is no inharmony, no conflict of ideas in man, no friction, no irritation or inflammation. Harmony is the law of the one infinite Intelligence, which governs the ideas which constitute the universe, including man. In class we learned that man, as the reflection and expression of all the ideas of Mind, included the universe, and because of this inclusion of ideas, man has dominion. Man has dominion through reflection, and therefore man is subject to nothing but God and can be under no other influence or control but that of God, because there is no other influence or Mind but the divine.

Man, expressing the Mind of God, being the representation of God through ideas, reflects God as Soul. The consciousness of man is God, and God is Soul, and Soul is divine consciousness. Therefore the soul of man is the consciousness of man, and as there is but one Mind and that Mind God, man’s consciousness must be divine. As there is but one Mind, the soul of man cannot be tainted with, or influenced by, the belief of any lesser mind or creation. There are not minds many, gods many, wills many, nor purposes many; therefore there is no recreation, procreation, counterfeit or material creation, and consequently no belief of a recreation, counterfeit or material creation can ever enter divine consciousness to defile or disorganize the creations of that consciousness, or man. Man remains intact, inviolate, pure, holy and spiritual throughout all time. He cannot be interfered with by birth, rebirth, sensuous existence, matter or mortal mind. There is no mortal mind, therefore there is no matter.

There isn’t even an illusion, because illusion presupposes a mind which is capable of becoming illusioned or disillusioned. Matter is not the outcome of mortal mind because there is, in reality, no mortal mind. Matter is simply the supposititious absence of spiritual existence, and as there is nothing in all creation but spiritual existence, there can be no matter even in illusion. Like darkness: darkness does not exist. It is simply the supposed absence of light. The moment light appears, there is no darkness. The darkness does not go anywhere to stay away in hiding while the light is around. It simply isn’t. The same with illusion, matter, mortal mind. They don’t exist in the light of divine understanding, and you therefore have not those to handle in your treatments. You simply affirm and realize the allness of God and His creation, and that in itself dispels the illusion, matter, mortal mind, etc. Man, remember, is expression. That will stand you in stead often in treatments. Man is expression. He is not suppression or depression. Man cannot withhold. He has to express and give. Giving is expressing, and expressing is man. Man has no other alternative, because giving or expressing is the nature of man as the image of God. Watch thought that it becomes expression and not suppression or depression.

Love must be expressed

One time a lady came to me with a severe physical condition of which she wished to be healed. It was one which involved a growth, a bearing down, an inflamed, swollen and obstructing condition. She could walk but a short distance without pain and a sense of bearing down and pressure, which was rapidly making it impossible for her to get about at all. On talking with her a few times, I discovered that her whole mental attitude was one of suppression. She was not expressing. She was suppressing human emotions, sentiments, etc. She was heavy in mind, timid, self-conscious, retiring, more or less liable to resentment and aloofness, self-pitying and extremely quiet and expressionless. There was no joy there. It developed that the same mental characteristics were a family trait. She was an abject object of suppression. She harbored carnal thoughts which, in itself, prevented her from expressing divine ideas. We took this up, worked on it and finally got a freer sense of expression. She let loose of some of her nurtured mortal mind convictions. She began to express joy and love and freedom. We handled heredity, the belief that she was ever born, that she lived in matter, and that she had human parents who could dictate the nature of her existence through heredity, and she finally became free. She was simply an example of suppression, and had no sense of expression, although she had been in Christian Science a long time.

As we explained last year in our Association meeting, Love is not Love until it is expressed. More freedom, more joy, more health, more harmony, more abundance can be demonstrated by simple and concrete expressions of love, than all the love in the world seemingly held in consciousness and hoarded or withheld. When you express and send out love, you are then coming into your birthright as a son of God. Expression is man. That is what man is, the expression of God. If God, for instance, is Love, and man is his image or expression, man cannot withhold love. We must express it. We cannot help but express it. He isn’t man unless he is expressing love. Man is a transparency for Truth. He has no volition. He is not man unless he expresses. So, as I urged last year, let us all begin right now to see if we cannot become more consciously children of God by expressing those qualities of Mind which, in reality, are ours and which, in reality, we do express but are not conscious of. A divine idea, expressed in your consciousness, constitutes your real manhood. The same idea, suppressed, or held in your thought as something nice but which you refuse to express, is worth nothing in your experience. Freedom of expression around your home, among your friends and associates will help you more than anyone else. As someone has said, a candle, which you have placed in your own window to guide yourself home at night, not only helps yourself but it is a beacon of cheer and comfort to everyone who comes your way.

Man as the expression of Truth, which fills all space and which admits and knows nothing unlike itself, can be conscious of no error. Truth means simply the absence of error, and as man is the expression of Truth, he can be conscious of only that which is included in the divine Mind, and in this all-knowing Intelligence or Principle there is no error. You can always declare for your patient what you declare about God. You may declare that your patient knows everything that God knows, and that he is conscious only of the things of God. In fact, you will have to declare for your patient that which would be true of him if there were no material world, no matter, no carnal mind, no error, etc., because that is the truth about him, and the truth about him is what makes free, Jesus said. The only Mind there is, is Love, and man as the expression of Love can never be conscious of hate, or anger or any of the so-called qualities of the mortal mind, so-called.

Handle the specific claims

Now, with this foundation laid of God and man in God’s image and likeness, you may proceed to take up all the various claims which the patient is trying to get rid of. Remember that error, sickness, poverty, old age, inharmony of any name or nature, come to you as a practitioner simply by way of suggestion trying to enter your consciousness, and that your work as a practitioner is to refuse this error admission into your consciousness. With the correct foundation in thought as to God and man, you may affirm all the truth you know about man, and you may deny all the error which is presented for admission to your consciousness. In your daily work for yourself, with the foundation which you have laid through your contemplation of God and man, as above outlined, you may proceed to claiming your own sonship with God, free from the belief of the arguments of animal magnetism, expressing themselves in the form of human birth, growth, maturity, decay, old age, heredity, laws of astrology, planetary control, solar, lunar and stellar attraction, spiritualism, theosophy, mesmerism, hypnotism, curse, diabolism, sin, sickness, human or personal characteristics, greed, dishonesty, sensualism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, occultism, false theology, ancient or modern necromancy, ancient or modern philosophy, electricity, the unity of error, esoteric magic, etc. Now that is quite a long list of grievances, but they all have their supposed claims, and you will find them bobbing up at one time or another in the most unusual manner and under the strangest of circumstances.

It is well to know that there is no unity of error or evil. Like God, or good, error makes claim to a like unity. As there is, and always has been, a Unity of Good, which unity is never broken or interfered with by the claims of mortal mind, so evil claims to present a united front or a unity which would offer an invincible front to the attacks of Truth. There claims to be a mysterious and unexplainable sympathy between different and differing manifestations of the carnal mind—a unity, a sort of coordination or cooperation—a sympathetic bond. Take, for example, the three different phases of mortal consciousness. First, the span of human life; second, the world; and third, a day. These three phases of mortal existence all seem to include and express a striking similarity and sympathy which might suggest to one the deep and more hidden claims of mortal mind. Human life, for instance, has its period of conception, germination, birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. The child is conceived, it germinates, it is born, it grows unto maturity, it then begins to decline and after a time comes the material end, so-called. The day of human experience has its birth at dawn, it proceeds on its course to its zenith of noon, its maturity, after which it begins to decline, and it ends in the darkness or oblivion of night and is gone. The year has its germinating period in the cold and dark days of the winter season. It then blossoms forth into birth or spring, and is born into all the glories of youth and hope. In the summer months it arrives at its zenith or high noon of maturity. In the fall or autumn, after the periods of fruition and fructification, it begins to decline and fade away, and then comes the death of all things which the youth of spring has brought forth, and again we find the winter upon us, with the dead past a thing to be forgotten. In just these three manifestations of human existence do you not perceive therein the claim of the unity of error or evil, the similarity, the coincidence, the sympathy between these different phases of mortal mind? And may not this give us some glimpse of the deeper and hidden sources of the tenacity of error in many of its forms?

No unity of error

We should know daily that there is no unity of error, no sympathy of interest, effort, intent or purpose, between elements or so-called manifestations of mortal mind; that error does not present a united front which is invincible and against which the shafts of Truth strike in vain. All of these claims of mortal mind, the material world, the solar year, the life of mortal man, and the course of a day, have no origin or existence in the great First Cause, and therefore do not exist as material phenomena. They exist as objectifications of a mind which does not exist. We might be inclined to give them some place or authority by saying they were manifestations of mortal mind, but when we ask ourselves the question as to who made mortal mind, we then have taken these claims out of existence entirely, even as false claims.

One great fault in our thinking, in fact I think the greatest fault, is that in our thinking we make a claim of mortal mind, or a claim of error, just as real as the error itself would claim to be. That is, we merely substitute words for words. We don’t substitute ideas for words as we should. We change words in our mental attitude towards error, but we never change our mental attitude. A claim of error is often—more than often—just as real to us in thought as error itself. We love to use the verbiage or vernacular of Christian Science, but fail to change our thinking to accord with our use of terms. There is not much difference to the average Christian Scientist, when you come right down to the facts in the case, between smallpox and the term a “claim” or “belief” of smallpox. There is not much difference in the thought of the average Christian Scientist between matter and a belief of matter. We make the belief of matter just as real as matter and then wonder why we do not heal the sick. A belief of matter, for instance, is what? It is the manifestation of mortal mind and not the divine Mind. Where did mortal mind come from? Who made it and where is it? God certainly did not make it, and if God did not make it, and God is the great First Cause and only Creator, then there never was and is not now a mortal mind, and if there is no mortal mind, there isn’t any misconception of mortal mind or matter. We do not work against something real or something which is a mistaken concept of the true. There is no mistaken concept of the true to work against.

Right now you, every one of you, is a child of God and you dwell in the divine consciousness as a perfect concept in Mind, free from matter or any of the manifestations of matter. You are not conscious of a material existence, of error to be overcome, or of anything outside the divine Consciousness, because divine Consciousness fills all space, and there is no counterfeit consciousness nor counterfeit creation. You, not one of you here, has ever been born. You have never been outside the divine Consciousness. You never had a beginning. You never had a material father or mother. You never came under any law of material conception or birth. God is your Father and Mother, although you never were originated. You have existed as an eternal concomitant of divine Mind, you have never been outside the divine Consciousness, therefore there is no belief of a historical past, past conditions, past life, past history, past habits, past experiences or influences, that can operate to fasten on you any belief of error, as error has no past, no present and no future, and man has never been anything less than man, the perfect, eternal image and likeness of God.

Man is idea

Man is an idea in Mind. He is a compound idea, expressing or reflecting all the ideas of Mind, and is therefore obedient only to the dictates and influences of that divine Intelligence which governs and controls all His vast creation of ideas in perfect harmony and peace. The ideas of Mind which each one of you here and now manifests, include your embodiment, your consciousness, your life, your being and your experience, and therefore you can be conscious and are conscious of nothing but God and His perfect creation, because there is no lesser creation. Every one of your faculties is an idea which is governed, supported, sustained and supplied by the Mind which holds and beholds it. You partake of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:16), the members of which are fitly joined together under one infinite Intelligence; hence your members, your faculties, all the ideas which are manifested through you, are coordinated and synchronized under one omnipotent and intelligent Mind which is all-knowing, all-wise, all-seeing, all-loving and eternal. There can be no inharmony, because everything in God’s kingdom (and there is no other kingdom) is governed in perfect harmony by the Mind which conceives and controls the universe. Therefore, there is no interference, no friction, no electricity, no injury, no inflammation. All is harmony and peace, and there is no mind to conceive of any inharmony, or be conscious of anything but God and His perfect manifestation. Do not worry about how you are going to tie up your treatments to, or fit them with, the conditions to be healed. There is nothing to be healed, so you do not have to worry about how to make your statements of Truth do the work they are supposed to do. “Truth,” as Mr. Cook has said in the article in the Sentinel, “is its own impulsion” and therefore, as there is no material condition to which to fit a treatment, you do not have to worry about how it shall be done. You just know the Truth, and God will do the rest. Mrs. Eddy was asked, “What is a Christian Science treatment?” Her answer was, “The acknowledgment of present perfection.”

The first thing in your treatment, as I have stated, is to get a clear understanding of what God is, His allness, His infinity, His omniscience, His ever-presence and His omnipotence. Then you can mentally declare and perceive man as the image and likeness of God. It is often asked what Mrs. Eddy means by the statement that, “man is the compound idea of God.” That means, of course, that man reflects, includes and expresses all the ideas of Mind. Man, for instance, reflects Spirit; hence man is spiritual. If man is the idea of God, and if God is Spirit, an idea of Spirit could not be material, it must be spiritual, completely devoid of any sense of matter or the material. If God is Mind and man is the reflection of God, then man must express only that which is contained in divine Mind. The idea of Mind would be found in intelligence, wisdom, spiritual understanding, perspicacity, etc. If God is Love, then man as the idea of Love could express only love, kindness, gentleness, true affection, tenderness, and the like. In other words, Love is expressed in loving—loving thoughts, loving deeds, etc. If God is Soul and man is the idea of Soul, man must reflect the consciousness of Soul. Soul is expressed in the term “divine Consciousness,” and as man is the reflection of God, man must be the reflection of divine Consciousness and of nothing else. Hence divine Consciousness is the Soul of man.

If God is Life and man is the image of God, man must reflect Life, the ideal life. In the sense of God as infinite and eternal Life, there can enter no sense of mortality or death. Man is an idea of Life. Man has no life of his own. An idea cannot be separated from its origin, or Mind, any more than a sunbeam can be separated from the sun. And so, man can never be separated from Life, nor can he be influenced by the thought of mortality or death. Man, as an idea of Life, has no life to lose. Life is one, infinite and eternal, and man is the idea of that one, infinite and eternal Life. If God is Truth and man is the image and likeness of God, man is an idea of Truth. Truth fills all space, is everywhere present and has no opposite. If Truth fills all space and is everywhere present, then there is no error, and if there is no error and man is the idea of Truth, man cannot be conscious of, nor can he express error, because there is none to express. There is no idea of error, and man is idea.

Man, as the compound idea of God, signifies that man is the idea of all that is included in the seven synonyms, Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love. Man, expressing all the ideas which could be conceived of as emanating from these synonyms, expresses these ideas in one consciousness. So man is the compound idea of all the synonyms explaining God. Man includes all these ideas and he includes nothing else. Thus we find that the foundation for all our treatments in Christian Science, is the clear concept of God, and man in His image and likeness. And with this clear foundation firmly established in consciousness, you may proceed to the handling of any argument which presents itself, because every argument of mortality which might present itself to you for healing, would be the opposite or contradiction of one of the synonyms of God, if not all of them.

So, the right understanding of God and man in God’s image and likeness, is a necessary prelude to the healing of sickness, poverty, and the like. Every claim of mortal mind, so-called, will be met and mastered by the intelligent use of one or more of the synonyms used in Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God. Now, by this I do not mean that for every and each particular phase of mortal mind there is a particular synonym, or that for every and each synonym there is a particular and well-defined error. Nothing of that nature must enter into your concept of a treatment. But, as the synonyms which Mrs. Eddy has used in her definition of God include and express all of God, and as an understanding of God is necessary to the handling of error, it becomes clear that in some of the synonyms of God can always be found that idea which will meet and destroy the particular claim of error at hand.

Death

The claim of death, of course, naturally finds its master in the understanding of God as Life. The thought of Life as God includes all that goes to make up life, and if the claim is inaction, which is supposed to end in death, then the conquering idea is action, which constitutes an expression of life. Man includes action. Man, it may be said, expresses action, but to be more specific it can be said that man includes action. Action is an idea and not a material process. In handling cases which involve inaction or overaction, or action in any of its phases, you will employ the synonym “Life,” knowing that in Life there is no inaction, reaction, etc. Because there is but one Life; that man reflects this Life; that Life is not in man and therefore man has no life to lose. Man reflects Life, and because he reflects Life, he is man, and he could not be man if he did not reflect Life, and he could not help but express Life, because he is an expression of Life, and if Life had no expression, there would be no man, and if there were not man, there would be no Life. Life and man are inseparable. One cannot exist without the other. The same may be said of Mind, and Truth, and Spirit, etc.

Handling the claim of Spiritualism

For instance, in the use of the term Spirit as a synonym of God, some time ago a lady came to me in a very serious physical condition. In fact, she was in such a severe condition that I went to her, to be more exact. She could not even walk, or lie down or stand up. All she could do was to sit up in a chair filled with pillows. After several talks with her, it developed that some time previously she had gone to another state to attend the funeral of her mother whom she loved dearly, and who was very much attached to her, and that immediately after this funeral this particular trouble began to manifest itself. The thought immediately came to me of Spiritualism, the belief that man can pass from one plane onto another; that man after death has the power of communication with those who have been left behind; that there is often a longing and a beckoning, and a desire to be reunited, either on the part of the deceased or those left behind; that there is the sense that the dead have gone away somewhere, that there is a separation, a gulf which can be bridged through the belief of communication between the departed and those present. While I could see that the patient herself had no desire to go on to meet her mother, or that she herself had no idea or sense of spiritualism, it came to me very clearly that that was the very thing that was trying to manifest itself, and I started to work on that one particular phase of error. Immediately improvement began, and there was a most marked and rapid change for the better. I never mentioned the topic of Spiritualism to the patient, as I could see she was not consciously any party to the belief, but nevertheless that seemed to be the very thing that was back of the condition, and it yielded most beautifully to the treatment.

I knew that God was Spirit, and that there is but one plane of existence, and that man never passed from that plane of existence to another plane of existence. I knew that there was no material plane of existence on which man lived, and that there was no unknown or mysterious plane of existence to which he passes after death. I knew that there is but one Spirit, God, and that man is the image and likeness of that one Spirit; that therefore man is not Spirit, he is spiritual and, therefore, there are not spirits many. As there is no passing from one place to another, there is no separation, and consequently no longing or grief or sorrow at the loss of a departed one, because there is no departed one. Everything God ever created is here and now complete, and there is no recreational process; there is no rebirth, there is no material growth, development or maturity. Everything is here and now complete, and always has been complete, and therefore there is no change called death that can interfere with God’s creation and man’s position in that creation as a child of God. I handled the whole situation from the standpoint of Spirit.

One could not undertake here to go through the vast array of mortal mind pictures to illustrate just how the use of the various synonyms of God may be applied, but you will find in your work that there will never be one case of error which you will not handle with one or more of the synonyms. Thus do we glimpse the importance of Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God.

Handling the claim of astrology and planetary control

Among the many phases of error which I mentioned in the list which I gave some pages back, I included the arguments or belief of astrology or planetary control. We took this up last year quite at length, but I want to again impress upon you the importance of handling that phase of animal magnetism. By way of explanation, some time ago a case of an underdeveloped child came to me. It was a belief of arrested development, a child or boy eighteen or twenty years of age, with a mentality of a small child, and a most distorted and uncontrolled and uncontrollable physicality. At intervals that child would develop most aggravated expressions or spasms or convulsions. It was easy for me to see that the child’s body had nothing to do with these spasmodic attacks. The body could not say to itself, “Now I guess I’ll throw a fit or two and see how the boy likes that.” The body had nothing whatever to do with it. The body was simply an illusion of the carnal mind, and therefore did not exist as matter or matter’s expression. In fact I could see clearly that the child did not live in the so-called material body, but that did not seem to be enough to stop these periodical spasmodic attacks.

The child lived at quite a distance and I could not, as a consequence, have much chance to talk with the parents. The child was in the care of a trained nurse most of the time, a Christian Science nurse, and one day in talking with her over the phone about the conditions, she told me that she noticed that these attacks were more severe when the moon was at a certain quarter. I immediately took up work along that line, and those attacks became less and less from that very moment. There is a very strong law of belief that all creatures are under the control of certain influences resulting from the condition of the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, etc. The location and situation of the planets, etc., at the time of human birth, are supposed to have some kind of an influence over mortals.

In the first place, one must know that man never was born. It must be understood that the patient never was in any place or position that God did not put him; that he never passed through any experience or condition that God did not create, therefore there is no belief of a historical past, past experiences, accidents, injuries, a history or influences that can operate to fasten on him any belief of error; that error, as Mrs. Eddy tells us, has no “remote, predisposing or exciting cause;” that the patient has never been born; that he has never been outside the divine Consciousness; that God’s concept of him has never changed, and that God’s concept of him is the only fact about him, and that therefore he has never been under any influence but the divine; that error cannot harm; that Truth is the reality and there is no unreality; that, therefore, error has no object, no subject, no law of expression, no order, type, form or medium of expression; that man was never thrust out of Spirit and born into matter; that he never passed through any experience of material conception, germination, development or birth; and therefore does not live in matter, and is not subject to any of the so-called laws of matter or mortal mind, claiming to fasten on him the arguments of family or ancestral traits, characteristics and inclinations, either of mind or body, because God is the Father and Mother of man, and man’s inheritance is spiritual. Man is not an object of sense or sensuality, but is a pure, spiritual, holy concept of God.

In the case of this boy, by knowing that there are no electromagnetic currents passing from the planets to man and controlling him; by knowing that there is no matter; that matter, therefore, cannot think, act, create, transmit or receive; by knowing that the pure strong currents of true spirituality which constantly flow from God to man, furnishing him with life, vigor, strength and sustenance, the argument of spasmodic or uncontrolled action was met. Action is the ever-presence of all right ideas and as all right ideas are ever-present, there is therefore perfect action. There is no involuntary action. Matter has no intelligence of its own, and there is no mortal mind to give it intelligence, therefore there is no uncontrolled action. All action is under the control and direction of the divine will and therefore there is no involuntary action. Action, as I have said above, is not a material process. Never try to bring about a right physical manifestation by envisioning a material process. Right idea is action. Right ideas are everywhere, and they are everywhere without the material process of motion or movement. Kindness is a right idea. Kindness, then, is action. The expression of love, honesty, peace and purity constitute divine action. Hence a patient, as a child of God, includes action. There is right action ever-present.

We must watch lest we become confused in our treatments by the use of material terms. One has to use, many times, the term “action,” but we must watch lest the sense of material process gets into thought. For instance, in “Science and Health,” Mrs. Eddy tells us that “growth is the eternal mandate of Mind.” Our material concept of growth is one of material process, one of accretion, whereas all of God’s creation exists here and now in its completeness, and nothing is ever changed, nothing added to or taken from it. In “Science and Health,” line 27, page 68, we read: “Christian Science presents unfoldment, not accretion; it manifests no material growth from molecule to mind, but an impartation of the divine Mind to man and the universe.” It is fixed and eternal. Growth then, as “a mandate of Mind,” is one of unfoldment of ideas in consciousness, and ideas exist here and now in their completeness. In handling cases of arrested growth, such as the condition which mortal mind presents as an aftereffect of infantile paralysis, one must know that creation or formation is a spiritual edict and not a material process, and that therefore nothing in God’s kingdom is arrested in its development. Everything exists here and now in its completeness, and there is no underdevelopment or retarded, arrested, or deformed growth or development. A “mandate of Mind” is an idea of Mind which has existed eternally, and is not the promulgation of a temporal command. A “mandate of Mind” is that which has existed from all eternity.

Handling the claim of electricity

Last year we touched quite at length on the question of electricity. I do not feel that we should take much time this year on that point, but it might be well to make application in a brief way of what we got last year. To repeat briefly from the article from which we quoted at that time, in which Dr. George W. Crile, of Cleveland, gave his views, we find the medical profession (and I presume the same could be said of the physical scientists to a degree), advancing the following conclusions regarding electricity and the human body:

“Man is a mechanism run by electricity and chemical reaction—a machine made up of twenty-eight trillion electric cells. Every one of these twenty-eight trillion electric cells is a tiny wet battery with negative and positive poles. The brain cells are the most positive and the liver cells are the most negative. The greater the difference in electrical potential—the difference between positive and negative—the greater the energy. Fatigue or stress of emotions cuts down this difference; rest and sleep restore it. Electricity keeps the flame of life burning in the cell, and the cell—oxidation—supplies the electricity used in operating the animal. Emotions—love, hate, fear, jealousy—are but stimulating processes, loosing currents of electricity through certain paths. Now, this, in simple terms, means that emotions let loose are like supercharges of electricity—they use up the precious energy of man; they destroy and in the end they can kill. Now, the two great electric magnets shooting off power are the glands near the brain and those next to the kidneys. The brain is the positive pole and the liver the negative pole. Adrenaline, excreted by the suprarenal bodies next to the kidneys, fires or vitiates a person’s energies during the flares of hate, jealousy, fear, anger, according to the condition of the organs.”

From this it can plainly be seen that electricity plays an important part in the work of a Christian Science practitioner. That is, it will often be found necessary to consider this phase of error, whereas ignorance of the claim might leave one working more or less in the dark and in a rather roundabout or circuitous course. We have all known that hate, and malice, and jealousy, and fear, and worry have produced ill effects. In fact, when we are confronted with a case of sickness or material inharmony, either in ourselves or in others, we have, naturally, looked for the hidden or controlling error in the case. Matter in itself has no authority, no mind, no intelligence, through which to express itself either as sick or as well; as harmonious or as inharmonious. Mortal mind is the author and the expression of human discord. We have been successful in healing cases of illness or inharmony when we have been able to discover the mental cause of the so-called disease.

If we have been confronted with a man with a bad disposition and a case of stomach trouble, we have been able to heal him of his stomach trouble by healing him of his bad disposition. We did not know exactly how the bad disposition, from the standpoint of physics or material reasoning, could affect the stomach, but nevertheless, we did know that by healing the disposition, we could heal the stomach. Now comes along the explanation of how mortal mind accounts for all this disturbance, and we find back of all this claim to physical inharmony, there lies the claim of electricity. Through the medium of so-called electrical forces set in motion or operation by the emotions—love, fear, hate, jealousy and the like—we find that the injurious effects of these emotions on man’s so-called organs are accomplished. So, may not many of the arguments with which we have been confronted and which, perhaps, we have been unable to readily heal, find their solution in our understanding of the nothingness of this claim of electricity?

Handling the claim of cancer

Take, for instance, cases of cancer, with which material medicine has been so unsuccessfully coping for many years. According to the findings of material science or material medicine, the only explanation of the claim of cancer lies in the so-called cell theory. It is claimed by medical authorities that the condition of cancer is a state of rebellion or riot among certain cells or group of cells of man’s body. A “cell riot” is the term used by materia medica to explain what it believes cancer to be. Now, with the added theory of cells of the human bodies as constituting myriads of little electrical batteries, all under the influence of electricity which is generated by our emotions, may we not confidently replace the argument of negative or destructive electrification of man by the positive of Spirit, and know that man, existing in the image and likeness of God, is ever in his eternal state of spiritual wholeness and perfection, and that he can never be influenced or controlled by the claim of electricity, superimposed through emotions which God did not create and with which, therefore, man is not familiar? There is no surplus of mortal mind out of which electricity could be produced. Therefore there is no electricity that can influence or control the body of man.

Man partakes of the body of the Christ, the members of which are ideas of Mind which are fitly joined together under the regimentation and control of one infinite, loving and omnipotent Intelligence. Every member of man, every faculty of man, is an idea of Mind, and these ideas are all coordinated and synchronized under one infinite and all-knowing Intelligence. Man is not sequestered or forgotten. He is the eternal expression of an all-knowing Intelligence which fills all space, and never for an instant loses sight of every least idea of His vast system of ideas. There is no electrical force to cause a cell riot in man. Man is not made up of cells. He is constituted of ideas. There is no rebellious thought. Cell riot is a form of rebellion. There is no rebellious thought, no resentment, repulsion or hatred in Mind.

1937 Association Address

Infinity

Now, I want to dwell a little on the infinity of God and man’s reflection of that infinity, before taking up another very important phase of our teaching. We are all accustomed, in a more or less superficial way, to use the term “infinite” in connection with God, and in our contemplation of Him, but I am sure we do not dwell to the full extent on the meaning of that term in our work in connection with ourselves as reflections of God. Man, in the image and likeness of an infinite God, cannot be localized, as man consists of divine ideas which, in themselves, express an infinite God, and therefore man must be the reflection of the infinite nature of God and could not possibly come under the mortal or carnal thought of localization, circumscription or limitation. God is infinite Spirit. That is, the infinity of Spirit—Spirit filling all space—precludes the possibility of matter anywhere in infinity. Infinity is the only here and now. In other words, there is no here and now in infinity. There is no place in infinity. Therefore there is no space in infinity, and consequently all that exists exists in the infinite, and that means that all creation exists here and now in the consciousness of the ever-present.

Because Jesus knew that there was no time, or space or place in infinity—that there was naught but ever-presence—he was enabled instantaneously to transport the ship, in which he and some of his disciples had embarked, to the other side of the sea of Galilee. If God is infinite Spirit, then there is no localized or objectified materiality in existence. In the infinitude of Spirit there is no matter. Become clear in this. Become clear as to the infinite, and therefore, the ever-present nature of Spirit, to the complete exclusion of all materiality.

Spirit—infinite Spirit—has His reflection in ideas. These ideas must, necessarily, express the infinite nature of Spirit. These ideas which express infinite Spirit constitute man. Hence man expresses infinite Spirit and could no more be localized or circumscribed than the God which is expressed by those ideas which constitute man. God is infinite Mind, and in the realm of infinite Mind there could not be minds many or wills many. The sense of infinitude, as applied to Mind, completely dispels any thought of a multiplicity of minds in the realm of the real. There is but one consciousness and that is the consciousness of God and His own ideas. Man’s consciousness is the reflection of this one infinite Mind, and as man is consciousness, and as the consciousness which constitutes man is constituted of ideas of the one infinite Mind, man can be conscious of nothing but the infinite. He cannot know or sense any argument of localization, or limit, or circumscription, as his being is the consciousness of ideas which reflect the one infinite Mind. In the realm of the infinite there are no boundaries, no localities, no limits, no circumferences, no diameters, no distance, no measurements, no time, no space, and no place, and man is the consciousness of ideas which express the infinitude in which none of these elements of limitation and circumscription exist.

Human perfection of the material state

Now I want to take up again this phase of our teaching upon which some of you may not be clear, and that is what I have termed, for the want of a better phrase, “human perfection of the material state.” Jesus explained it perfectly when, in giving us what has come to be known as “The Lord’s Prayer,” he said: “After this manner therefore pray ye: . . . Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

Now, one cannot think of the kingdom of heaven without gaining some concept of perfection. One thinks of heaven, in fact, as the acme of perfection, spiritual perfection. In fact, the kingdom of heaven is the ultimate of all endeavor; it is the Christ enthroned in consciousness to the complete exclusion of all error. The kingdom of heaven is the perfection of Life, and Truth, and Principle, and Mind, and Spirit, and Soul, and Love, enthroned in individual consciousness. The perfection of heaven is that beyond which there is nothing—no progress and no goal. So, in the contemplation of heaven we conceive of naught but perfection in its spiritual significance. One realizes, of course, that a perfect spiritual state eliminates completely all matter and material creation or existence. Therefore, to speak of human perfection of the material state might seem a contradiction, but Jesus certainly had some sense of a material condition, free from the secondary beliefs of mortal mind or the carnal mind, when he said, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”

Primary and secondary beliefs

Let me remind you at this point that in Christian Science, as we learned in class, all materiality may be divided into two divisions, first, the primary belief, and second, the secondary belief, and it is only by recognizing these facts that we can meet the question of non-scientists when they say, “If there is no mortal or material man, why try to heal the sickness with which the mortal man is suffering?” The material man is what we understand as the primary belief. He is the belief that appears as a result of what is termed material birth. The secondary beliefs are those beliefs which attach themselves to the primary belief, either before or after the experience of birth. And as we learned in class, in Christian Science we meet and master these beliefs in the reverse order of their appearing. We meet the secondary belief first and thus bring out a perfect materiality, before we can proceed to the elimination of the material, primary belief. Jesus healed the man with the withered hand. He did not tell him, “You don’t have a hand.”

For example, we would not attempt to heal a sick person by doing away with his body and leaving the sickness untouched. We first heal the sickness and leave the body a perfect material concept. A material body is simply, we may say, the outward manifestation, to human consciousness, of so many material thoughts or beliefs. The material body is not a self-created thing. It is simply the manifestation of a material consciousness.

Then added to a perfect material body, or human consciousness, or this combination of material beliefs, there comes along some additional beliefs called sickness, poverty, hatred, etc. These are the secondary beliefs which fasten themselves to the original material combination of human thoughts calling themselves human body, and thus we find we have a sick material body. The difference between a sick material body and a well material body is simply the distinction between one belief and two beliefs. We will say, by way of explanation, that a material body represents one material belief, or thought, and a sick material body represents two material beliefs, or the belief of sickness added to the belief of body. The material belief of sickness was the last belief to appear in the order of mortal mind’s creation. A man, according to mortal thought, could not be sick without first having a material body to be sick. The material body is simply the manifestation of thinking, hence a sick material body is simply the manifestation of a little more wrong thinking (the world’s wrong thinking) than simply a material body. The physical world, physical or natural scientists are now admitting, everything that we see, feel, taste, smell and hear, is simply the product of thought. The physical world, therefore, is simply a state of consciousness, and the more materiality there is in consciousness (and consciousness is merely thinking), the more there are of secondary beliefs to be handled and done away with. Now, a material belief, or a material thought is handled how? Why, simply by replacing that thought with a spiritual thought, just as you would replace one material object with another. All there is in the entire universe of mortal mind, is thought. All there is in the spiritual universe, is idea. Mrs. Eddy has left us very clear instructions on this subject in “Science and Health” on page 123: “Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts, and replaces the objects of material sense with spiritual ideas.” And on page 269: “Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.”

Now, I want to return to Jesus’ words, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” The will of God in the realm of the spiritual is heaven enthroned. The will of God in the realm of the material must be another thing, and we certainly cannot contemplate the will of God being done “in earth as it is in heaven,” without gaining some sense of material perfection from the human standpoint. It is clear that a consciousness utterly devoid of any sense of God or God’s will, would be quite a different consciousness than the consciousness filled with the love of God. As the outward manifestation, or the physical manifestation, is the product of consciousness—individual consciousness—it is clear that a physical universe which is the object of a human consciousness and which knows nothing of God, or Truth, would be quite a different physical universe from one which is the object of a human consciousness impregnated with an understanding of God.

It is also clear that, as the physical universe is the object of the individual human consciousness, the physical universe in the experience of each individual must gradually improve, as individual human consciousness grows in its understanding of God, so that the physical universe of an individual whose mind contains naught of Truth, must be quite a different universe from that which that same individual would be conscious of, after gaining Truth, and growing in the study and contemplation thereof. That is, a person today who knew naught of God and the teachings of Christian Science, would look out upon an entirely different world from that which he might look out upon five or ten years hence if, in the meantime, he has gained an understanding of God through Christian Science. To explain this satisfactorily, I shall go over some of the things which we have dwelt on quite at length both in our Association meetings and in our class work.

The divine Mind, the human mind, and the carnal mind

In her writings Mrs. Eddy, as we know, uses “human mind” and “mortal mind” interchangeably in some instances, but throughout her writings she makes a decided distinction between the “human consciousness” and “mortal consciousness,” and a careful study of her writings reveals a constant and continuous differentiation between the “human mind” and the “mortal” or “carnal mind.” So we must gain a clear understanding of the difference between the carnal mind (or mortal mind) on the one extreme and the divine Mind, or God, on the other extreme, with the human so-called mind, sandwiched in between the two. In “Science and Health,” in her definition of the word “Euphrates,” Mrs. Eddy says, as a part of that definition, “The atmosphere of human belief before it accepts sin, sickness, or death; a state of mortal thought, the only error of which is limitation; finity; the opposite of infinity.” Here Mrs. Eddy recognizes a sinless state of human belief, the only error of which is limitation. By limitation she means circumscription, or objectification—confinement. When she refers to this state of human belief before it accepts sin, she emphasizes the fact that this human belief is a state of consciousness capable of accepting or rejecting carnal or sinful thoughts. She says that this human belief is a state of mortal thought, the only error of which is limitation. That is, that localization is the only error which characterizes this state of human belief before it accepts sin, etc. Therefore, aside from this claim of localization or limitation, this human belief, or human mind, is sinless. If this human mind should be freed from this claim of limitation or localization before it accepted the arguments of sin, sickness, matter, etc., it would then be submerged in the divine to the extent that the claim of limitation or localization would completely disappear in pure spirituality.

Now, this human belief, or human mind, which is capable of accepting or rejecting sin, sickness, matter, etc., gradually takes to itself these elements of the carnal mind which compound and increase themselves, until this human mind becomes the possessor of so much of the carnal that it is objectified to the human mind or consciousness as a human body, a material world, sickness, poverty, distress, accidents, degradation, etc., all of this because of the claim of limitation or localization, which denies an infinite God and man in the image and likeness of infinity.

The human body is not self-created. It is the mental projection, or objectification, of carnal thoughts which the human mind has voluntarily admitted. The human body is not guilty of sin and sickness. It is not the author of the sins and the crimes which it is supposed to commit. It, in itself, is almost as sinless and as blameless as the human mind before it accepts sin, sickness and death. On page 435 of “Science and Health,” in the trial found at the conclusion of the chapter on “Christian Science Practice,” Mrs. Eddy says that in the case of the man who was on trial for liver complaint “the body committed no offense,” and then on page 437, she refers to the body as “the helpless, innocent body,” tortured by personal sense operating through false belief. And here is a point which will help you very much in your work of healing—to know that the body is not the offender in any case, and that it simply and innocently manifests that which is imposed upon it by personal sense operating through false belief. Personal sense could be designated as animal magnetism in any of its forms. Do not become confused with the thought that personal sense and mortal man are one. They are not. Personal sense is the claim of mortal mind which operates through the claim of false belief on mortal man or the human body.

So, we can conceive of the human body as free from any of the beliefs of personal sense which manifest themselves as sickness, poverty, heredity, etc. The innocent human body is a concept of the human mind which has not taken to itself those secondary beliefs which manifest themselves as sickness, poverty and the like. I have often quoted this particular passage before from “Unity of Good,” but it is so apropos in this discussion that I shall use it to establish the point I am bringing out. Mrs. Eddy says on page 49, “The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be sinless,—as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker.” Now, it is certain that humanhood, or the human mind, is not the product of the divine Mind. That must be clear to all, and yet she says that the more she understands true humanhood, the more she perceives it to be as sinless as the perfect Maker. Therefore the human mind, or true humanhood, resolves itself into a state of consciousness, the only distinctive feature of which is localization. It is simply a state of consciousness capable of receiving sin because of its claim to localization. Because of its claim to localization, that is, its claim to existence as a state of consciousness not founded on a sense of the infinite, it is therefore capable of accepting or rejecting that which argues for finity instead of the infinite. That which argues for the finite is bound to be of the carnal mind or mortal mind. Mrs. Eddy says, in the statement under the head of Euphrates, that the human mind is a state of mortal thought. So, while true humanhood may be sinless, it is nevertheless a state of mortal thought, otherwise it would not be, and could not be, circumscribed and capable of accepting sin, sickness and death.

Now, as this human mind, this state of a localized consciousness, begins to take to itself, at its own volition, carnal thoughts, it begins to build up in consciousness a material world, or universe, which includes all the material phenomena with which you and I are familiar. This universe includes the mortal body, the material universe of which we are conscious, the hate, the anger, the jealousy, the sickness, the poverty, etc., with which we are daily confronted. Now, if it is possible to conceive of an individual consciousness which has not accepted sin, sickness and death, the only error of which is limitation or localization, it is natural to assume that the process of material salvation would be a process of elimination, through the influx of the divine into the human consciousness, even to the point where the human consciousness would have returned to its perfect state of humanhood, before complete spiritualization of individual existence can become possible.

To illustrate, let us assume that here is a state of individual human consciousness whose only error is limitation or localization—circumscription. This human mind or consciousness begins to take to itself thoughts of the carnal mind, until it has built up a material universe for itself which includes a material world, a material body, material people, etc. We will assume by way of further explanation, that this material universe and body, which this individual human mind has constructed, becomes complete and mature without any carnal accompaniments of inharmony, sin, sickness, poverty, hate, malice, and the like—a world which, from a human standpoint, would be a perfect place in which to live. Then this human mind, or this human consciousness, takes to itself a larger complement of mortal mind, such as sin and hate and revenge and fear and worry, poverty, old age, decrepitude, dishonesty, fault-finding, incompatibility, selfishness, petulance, impatience, self-will, human knowledge, the wisdom of material erudition, and the like. All of these various phases of thought are, from the very nature of material existence, included in the universe and body which the individual human consciousness has created before it accepts all of these carnal thoughts. So, we might say, by way of explanation, perhaps, not so much as a matter of fact, that the human mind and its creation involves three steps or stages:

The first stage is the human mind without having taken to itself sin, sickness, death and the like. It is the human belief, spoken of by Mrs. Eddy in her definition of Euphrates and referred to as true humanhood in “Unity of Good.”
Then comes the second stage, or a material universe and a material body unfettered by sin, sickness, inharmony, poverty, and all those besetting ills which make for the misery of human living.
Then the third stage where the human mind, through the influx of a superabundance of mortal or carnal thought, has endowed this universe and body, which it has constructed, with all those besetting ills which all of us are daily trying to overcome.

Those are the three stages of the human mind in the construction of the world in which you and I live. This construction is strictly individual. It must be individual, because salvation from it is individual and because the only explanation of its existence is individual. Carnal thoughts entertained in the human mind create our material world. Carnal thoughts entertained in the human mind endow that world with its sickness, its inharmony, its poverty and its misery. Now, it should be perfectly clear that if the carnal mind, which creates the material world for each individual, could be freed from those thoughts which make that world an unpleasant place for mortals to live in, then the material world, for the individual whose consciousness has been thus set free, would be free from all the claims of inharmony, unhappiness, fear, worry, poverty, sickness and the like. That is, if a human consciousness which had arrived at the third stage of mortality, as above explained, could be free from those thoughts which constitute the third stage of material existence, then that human consciousness would revert to what we have described as the second stage of human consciousness, and the individual would then be living in a world of his own creating, which world would be free from sin, sickness, poverty, inharmony, unhappiness and the like. And this second stage would be what I have heretofore referred to as a state of human perfection. That is, perfection from the standpoint of a consciousness which is still human.

Now, this second state of human consciousness or the human mind, is arrived at in but one way, and that is through the influx into the human mind of divine ideas which cancel and annul just that much of carnal thought which has heretofore been manifesting itself in our material world. Carnal thoughts are manifested in a material world. Divine ideas, taken into the human consciousness or mind, cancel these carnal thoughts and thus eliminate that much of the carnal in our world. In this manner, and through this explanation, we are not spiritualizing matter or our material world, but we are spiritualizing thought, and this spiritualization of thought takes away from our world just that much of the carnal, and leaves the balance of our world that much less material.

Scientific translation of mortal mind

On page 115 of “Science and Health,” Mrs. Eddy in her “Scientific Translation of Mortal Mind” gives us three stages or steps in the progress of mortal man out of matter into spiritual existence. In this “Scientific Translation” Mrs. Eddy begins with what we have termed in our explanation as the third stage in the advancement of the human mind from its primitive state of humanhood. If we were to follow in our explanation here the exact footsteps in their reverse order which Mrs. Eddy has used, it might be said that there would be four steps out of matter into Spirit. In our explanation here I have used three steps or stages because I have stopped at true humanhood, and have not attempted to go into the fourth stage, or complete spiritual existence. Mrs. Eddy’s First Degree in this “Scientific Translation” on page 115 corresponds to what I have termed in this explanation as the third stage. She is proceeding from matter into Spirit in her explanation, whereas we have been proceeding from the stage of true humanhood into matter, so that her First Degree corresponds to our third stage. Mrs. Eddy is taking mortal man out of matter and getting him back into Spirit, whereas we have been tracing his footsteps into matter.

In this “Scientific Translation,” Mrs. Eddy’s First Degree is “Depravity” and is described by her as “Physical.” That is where we find mortal man today. Her Second Degree is “Evil Beliefs Disappearing,” which state she terms “Moral.” This Second Degree in the translation of mortal mind, or mortal man, corresponds to what I have called the second step in mortal man’s emergence from true humanhood into the physical.

Now, do not misunderstand: true humanhood is not spiritual man. True humanhood is the last final step from mortality into Spirit. Mrs. Eddy has not incorporated this in her “Scientific Translation,” as it is so closely allied to her Third Degree which she terms “Spiritual” and which is the last step in the journey from sense to Soul. In her Third Degree she does away completely with mortal mind and finds existence as entirely spiritual. This Third Degree could not be said to be a state of “human perfection,” because the mortal and the human have completely disappeared. But her Second Degree, which corresponds with the second stage which we have explained here today, would constitute a state of human perfection, because she describes it as: “Moral. Humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.” This Second Degree is attained through the influx of the divine into the human consciousness, to the extent that the human consciousness holds within itself a world of matter, free from those elements of mortal or carnal thought which make human living so tragic and disastrous.

Your and my consciousness, for example, has created a world in which there are trees and flowers and vines and water and air and all the so-called elements of nature. This consciousness has endowed certain objects of nature with dangerous, harmful, destructive and even deadly qualities. It creates extremes of heat and cold. It boils the water and freezes the water. It creates our atmosphere. It furnishes the blood which courses through our veins. It endows all the elements of materiality with their distinctive and peculiar qualities. Matter, in itself, is not creative. The poison of the ivy, a beautiful vine, the irritation of the goldenrod, the sting of the serpent, the carnivorousness of the wild animal, the danger lurking in a draught of fresh air, the infection of the germ, the contagion and the dangers which we find on all sides, are not inherent nor a part of the elements or things through which they claim to act. These destructive and distressing qualities exist only in the human consciousness impregnated with the carnal mind. Neither matter nor the human mind alone is guilty. It is the human mind, saturated with carnal beliefs, which is responsible for all the inharmonies of mortal existence.

In the human consciousness exists our material universe. In our human consciousness also exist those elements of mortality with which we endow our material universe with its inharmonious qualities. Now, it should be evident that if our human consciousness is freed from those carnal beliefs by means of which we endow our material universe with all its inharmonies, then we would have left a material universe without those dangerous and harmful elements which make for the misery of human living. This can be accomplished only by means of the influx of the divine into the human mind, thus excluding therefrom those carnal elements which make for disaster. This is my concept of “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” It is a state of human perfection, where love, harmony, peace and the like, reign, without any carnal element of inharmony. This is what Mrs. Eddy has termed a “better belief” or an “improved belief,” as I have so many times explained. Goldenrod is simply a belief of mortal mind, or the human mind, just as is any manifestation of matter. The harmful qualities which we attach to the goldenrod is what we have termed a secondary belief. Now, if, through spiritual understanding, we are able to clear consciousness to the extent that the goldenrod is relieved of its distressing features, we have left a concept of the human mind which is not only a “thing of beauty” but “a joy forever.” It is still matter, but it is free from harm. It is no more spiritual than the harmful goldenrod, but it is less material. It represents a state of human perfection of the material state. In fact, the human perfection of the material state is as necessary a part of individual salvation as is the overcoming of specific and harmful sin. Goldenrod is a belief. Goldenrod, without its distressing features, is a “better belief” or “an improved belief.”

My attention was called the other day to something in “Miscellany” which I had not noticed in connection with the human mind. On page 292 of “Miscellany” Mrs. Eddy has stated, “The spirit of the prayer of the righteous heals the sick, but this spirit is of God, and the divine Mind is the same yesterday, today, and forever; whereas the human mind is a compound of faith and doubt, of fear and hope, of faith in truth and faith in error.”

In the individual human consciousness is established the true brotherhood of man. One might be inclined to hold to the conviction that the brotherhood of man would depend upon the establishment of Truth in the consciousness of all humanity; that the brotherhood of man could not be accomplished until each and every individual had enthroned God in consciousness. This is not so, any more than the fact that the millennium can arrive only when all mankind is saved through Science.

The brotherhood of man and the millennium is established in individual consciousness, because that of which the individual is cognizant through the medium of his senses is the material objectification, or projection, of individual thought. As love becomes enthroned in individual consciousness, all that that consciousness beholds through the medium of the senses become lovely. Love, enthroned in individual consciousness, makes it impossible for that individual to see his brother man as hateful, sinful, revengeful, and the like, and thus when love reigns supreme in the consciousness of the individual, will all mankind become objects of love to the individual. In this way is the brotherhood of man established in individual consciousness, because the brotherhood of man implies man governed by love.

In like manner is the millennium, or the kingdom of heaven, attained. I presume that the average person thinks of the millennium as that state of existence where every individual therein, and every object therein, has come under the rule of divine Mind. If this were so, it would make individual salvation dependent upon the salvation of every individual in the world, and this would rather take away from one the zeal and prospect of accomplishment. When individual consciousness has become completely spiritual, then will the millennium have arrived for that individual, because one’s concept of existence would then have become spiritual, and it is only in individual consciousness that existence of any nature becomes a matter of individual experience. On page 247 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says, “Beauty, as well as truth, is eternal; but the beauty of material things passes away, fading and fleeting as mortal belief. Custom, education, and fashion form the transient standards of mortals. Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly. Beauty is a thing of life, which dwells forever in the eternal Mind and reflects the charms of His goodness in expression, form, outline, and color. It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems, and covers earth with loveliness.”

It is Love, Mrs. Eddy says, which makes all things beautiful and harmonious, but where must this Love find expression? Certainly not in the flower whose petals are painted with myriad hues, nor in the sunbeam, which in times of a drought might be the cause of a parched earth, nor in any material object, because, as Mrs. Eddy says above, “the beauty of material things passes away.” This Love, which “paints the petals with myriad hues and which glances in the warm sunbeam,” must find expression in individual consciousness before it can be manifested as a quality of beauty in the material universe, which is the object of our individual thinking. Love does not, independent of individual consciousness, paint the petal with myriad hues. It is Love in consciousness which does this, and which makes all things beautiful and harmonious. As individual thought becomes Godlike, or Christlike, through the influx of divine Love, the objects of thought, even though materially conceived, become lovely, because it would be impossible to separate the objects of thought from that which exists in individual consciousness.

For instance, if one held in consciousness hate, or anger, or resentment towards one particular individual, or thing or condition, that hate could not be separated from everything or anything of which that particular individual consciousness is conscious. That is, the hate or loathing which one might feel toward some particular individual would affect every object in the life and experience of the individual entertaining that hate or loathing. While the objects of individual consciousness may express themselves as many, or as a multiplicity of objects, each object separate and distinct from the other, yet the consciousness or human mind, through which these various objects become a part of individual consciousness and experience is one, and the qualities of thought entertained in that one particular consciousness are bound to be manifested in the entire objectification or material externalization of that consciousness. Thus, if your or my consciousness beholds hundreds of different people, and we are entertaining hate in consciousness towards one person, that hate which we hold in that consciousness cannot be separated, so that it will not affect everything and everyone of which or of whom we are conscious. We may not be aware that we are hating everyone because we hate one. Nevertheless we are, and we can never gain the true concept of even our dearest friends and relatives, while we are holding in consciousness hate towards anyone.

Whatever is held in consciousness affects, in some way or another, every object of that consciousness, be it person, place or thing. Let me quote here a few lines from the pen of one of your fellow-students which is very expressive, and which not only is most appropriate in this connection but which is clear evidence that we may be entertaining angels (one angel) unawares. The few lines are entitled “Artists,” and are as follows:

“A bit of canvas, brush of camel’s hair,
Splashes of color from the palette’s face,—
And ugliness, or beauty’s matchless grace
Appear in vivid vision, dark or fair,—
A scene from memory, or just a rare
Effect of fancy. Whether pure or base,
Each quality projected has its place,
Because the artist’s concept put it there.
We are all artists, with uncanny skill
Depicting on the canvas of the thought
Concepts designed to bless us or to curse:
Ours the selection, choosing as we will
The colors of our picture, thus is wrought
Our character, our lives, our universe.”

1934 Association Address

More on the human consciousness

On page 186 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says, “If mortal mind knew how to be better, it would be better.” It is obvious that that which is mortal could not even be conscious of that which is immortal. Evil could never be conscious of good. It would be impossible for evil to know good, because there is nothing in evil to enable it to recognize good. The only explanation of evil is the “absence of good.” Evil is the absence of good. So we can never hope to improve mortal mind. But something must be improved to provide a method of escape from mortality and mortal living, with its accompanying ills of sickness and poverty and inharmony. There must be some process of progression out of evil into good. There must be a state of consciousness where the exchange from evil to good can be made (S&H 269:14-16). Now, evil has only the power or reality given it in individual belief. Therefore, the process of progression from evil to good is not one of change. It is not changing evil into good. It is changing thought and substituting the good for the evil. This change is made in what Mrs. Eddy has termed the human consciousness.

The evil in human consciousness is not cognizant of the good in human consciousness. They are as distinct and separate as the two poles. The reason for that is that the evil does not exist except in belief, while the good exists in truth and reality. The truth we entertain in consciousness exists as conviction; the evil we entertain exists as belief or illusion. That state of existence, which entertains truth as a conviction and error as an illusion, may be called, in fact is called by Mrs. Eddy, the human consciousness. Now, human consciousness is neither person, place nor thing. It is just consciousness. Because this consciousness has taken unto itself certain beliefs of mortal mind such as personal sense, evil, materiality, etc., it has embodied itself in that which you and I call a human body. Besides this material embodiment, this state of consciousness includes some little gleam of goodness and spirituality which, in themselves, are not conscious of this claim of human embodiment. The claim of human embodiment is mortal mind which is conscious only of itself. So, the human consciousness does not create the material body and the material world; it is the carnal mind, admitted to and held in human consciousness, which constitutes the human body and material existence.

On page xi of the Preface to “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy writes, “The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation.”

And on page 95 of “Science and Health” she says, “Material sense does not unfold the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into eternal Truth.”

On page 332 she says, “Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness.”

On page 573, “. . . the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material.”

On page 155, “The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of flesh, in proportion as it puts less weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale.”

On page 218 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy brings out very distinctly the different parts played in human existence by the human mind, mortal mind, and the divine Mind. She says, “If it were not for what the human mind says of the body, the body, like the inanimate wheel, would never be weary. What renders both sin and sickness difficult of cure is, that the human mind is the sinner, disinclined to self-correction, and believing that the body can be sick independently of mortal mind and that the divine Mind has no jurisdiction over the body.”

All of these quotations I shall analyze in a few moments. On page 251 this same distinction between the human, the mortal, and the divine is brought out where she says, “We must learn how mankind govern the body. We should learn whether they govern the body through a belief in the necessity of sickness and death, sin and pardon, or govern it from the higher understanding that the divine Mind makes perfect, acts upon the so-called human mind through truth, leads the human mind to relinquish all error, to find the divine Mind to be the only Mind, and the healer of sin, disease and death.” (Marginal Heading, “Mortal mind’s disappearance.”)

On page 270 we read, “the human mind alone suffers.”

Now, with all of these quotations in mind, I want to return to the one from page 247 where Mrs. Eddy says, “Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly.” Here is a clear statement that God and His creation exist separate and distinct from human consciousness.

Mrs. Eddy here recognizes a state of consciousness which she calls human, and in which the divine has not made any appearance or impression—in which, in other words, the divine does not exist. It is just a state of individualized consciousness, an error of belief, because, she says, “Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly.”

So it is possible to conceive of a human consciousness devoid of an understanding of the realities of being. When this human consciousness, through the process of thought, begins to take on some of the qualities of being or of God, it then begins to take on divine hues and become evangelized. This consciousness would not, of course, need evangelization, if it were true consciousness or the consciousness of God. In other words, if it were that consciousness which constitutes the true man or real man of God’s creating. The human consciousness might be said to be the belief in a consciousness separate and distinct from God—just a belief of consciousness without being good or bad. This consciousness is capable of accepting good or evil according to human belief. As this consciousness begins to take unto itself mortal mind, it begins to call itself mortal man. The claim of a consciousness separate and apart from God, exists in its so-called primitive state without the consciousness of evil.

On page 49 in “Unity of Good” Mrs. Eddy writes, “The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be sinless.” It begins to take on some of the carnal mind, and this carnal mind is what gives to the human consciousness a belief of a material or physical body, the belief of birth, growth, maturity, death; the belief of sickness, of sin, unhappiness, misery, inharmony, etc. The body of mortal mind in its primitive state is a perfect human concept, a body free from sickness, free from poverty, free from sin. In other words, mortal mind’s ideal is a material body free from sickness or any of the accompanying or secondary beliefs of the carnal mind. The human consciousness, then, may be said to take to itself first the belief of a human body without any of the beliefs of sickness or inharmony. Then the human consciousness takes to itself a little more of the carnal mind, and this carnal mind, admitted to human consciousness, is expressed in a sick mortal body, a sinful mortal body, a poverty-stricken mortal body, etc. That which becomes an object of human consciousness as matter, sin, sickness, poverty, etc., must have first existed in the carnal mind outside human consciousness. That is, the human consciousness could not be conscious of a mortal body without first admitting mortal mind. This mortal mind admitted to human consciousness is, in turn, objectified or projected as matter, or belief of matter. Mortal mind does not become material, until it enters the human consciousness and is in turn projected.

As we learned in class, there are three states or stages of supposed existence of matter and the material:

The carnal or mortal mind claiming existence as one mind outside of human consciousness. The carnal or mortal mind, existing as a false belief outside human consciousness, is not material, and has no material accompaniments or elements, as you and I view materiality. The carnal mind is admitted to human consciousness without any sense of materiality, and does not assume material proportions until its projection or objectification.
The second footstep in individual carnal or material existence is the acceptance into human consciousness of this so-called carnal mind.
The third footstep in the process is the objectification of the carnal in thought as matter. So matter becomes an object of individual thought, and the only way whereby the human consciousness will ever be able to rid itself of matter, is through the dematerialization of thought.

And so, do you not see how thoroughly individual human existence is? Do you not see, how you and I make our own worlds of matter by our own thinking, and how individual must be our process and method of salvation from matter? You and I create our own consciousness, and it depends on your and my thinking just what kind of thoughts we admit into our consciousness, and the thoughts which you and I admit into our consciousness determine our individual material existence. The carnal thoughts which you and I admit into our consciousness make our individual worlds. No one else can do our thinking for us, therefore no thoughts but our own create our individual worlds, and no thoughts but our own can free us from the bondage of the carnal mind. We admit the carnal into thought. The carnal which we admit into thought results in a material world and a material body. Therefore the only way you and I can ever get rid of a material world and a material body, is to put out of consciousness those thoughts which make the material world and the material body.

And how are we to put these thoughts out of consciousness? Why, by substituting for them divine ideas. It is a process of substitution. Now, if the carnal or the material can be done away with by thought, then that is proof enough that the material has neither life, truth, intelligence or substance. If, by replacing the carnal with the divine, we can rid ourselves of matter, then we have proven that not only matter is unreal, but also the thought which creates matter is unreal. Thus we arrive at the conclusion that material existence is an illusion. It is an illusion of what? Of the carnal mind. Whence comes the carnal mind? It never came. It is not, because God did not create it. Therefore material existence is, in reality, not an existence of the carnal mind or carnal existence; it is rather the absence of the divine, and as the divine is the only Mind there is, and as material existence is a supposititious state of a mind which does not exist, there is, in reality, no material existence to be saved from. Material existence is a state of unconsciousness, because it is the supposed absence of the only Mind there is. It is not a creation of the carnal mind. It is, rather, the supposed absence of the divine. So, salvation from materiality or unconsciousness does not involve putting off the carnal so much as it does putting on the spiritual. Putting on the spiritual: that is, thinking divine ideas is simply a state of awakening from our state of unconsciousness into our true state of spiritual existence. So, thus do we realize the necessity of devoting time and thought to the spiritual, rather than to overcoming that which does not, in reality, exist. Material existence is strictly individual, and salvation from material existence is strictly individual. No one has made the carnal world for you, and no one can pray, push, pull or pardon you into the kingdom of heaven. Everything is individual. Because creation, material creation, is individual, salvation must be individual. The material does not exist outside your and my thinking. Creation is individual, and outside of your and my consciousness matter does not exist. Matter only exists in thought. (“Matter is a human concept.” S&H 469:3-4) You and I are not conscious of a material world because mortal mind has created a material world independently of your and my thinking. Mortal mind has not created a material world independently of your and my thinking. The human consciousness (each individual human consciousness) has created its own material world with the use of the carnal mind which it has admitted. The human consciousness creates matter with the aid of the carnal mind, and each individual object of material creation is strictly individual, even though there are many human consciousnesses to be conscious of such creation.

There are as many worlds, and as many material objects of creation, as there are individuals. For instance, a short time ago I cut the following from the column of O. O. McIntyre, the noted columnist and syndicate writer: “I sat listening the other evening to a group of professional gentlemen mooting the prolegomena of science. To them, it was debatable whether the table at which they grouped, could be said to really exist when there’s nobody to see it. In their reasoning it was merely a whirl of molecules. A mental projection. All very interesting but highly confusing, for it does not seem so many men could be sitting around kidding themselves. Anyway, I left fluttering with the ork-orks.”

Thus we see that physical science and the physical scientists are beginning to glimpse in a small way what Mrs. Eddy gave to the world over sixty years ago. We will assume, by way of explanation, that there were a half dozen scientists sitting around the table referred to in Mr. McIntyre’s article. While the half dozen men there seemed to see the same table, yet there were as many tables there as there were men, because each individual consciousness is creator of its own individual creation, and if there was no material consciousness in existence to behold a material object, then there would be no material object to behold. So, do you not see that we not only create our own material worlds individually, but we endow that material world with just exactly what exists in our own consciousness? We each, individually, endow our world with sickness, with sorrow, with dishonesty, with injustice, with poverty, and the like. If we did not, where would come any hope of relief or salvation? If the dishonesty, the sickness, the poverty, the sin, etc., which exists in our individual worlds, both in ourselves and in others, were not the objects of our own individual states of consciousness, wherein would be found any relief from these ills?

We cannot prevent others from thinking just as they wish to think, and therefore we cannot prevent others from thinking in a dishonest or sinful manner. If we had to wait for God to heal another of his dishonesty, before we could have a world free from dishonesty, there would be little hope for ultimate individual salvation. If you and I have to wait for the whole world to be saved from the carnal mind, then there would be little incentive for personal and individual endeavor, but when we realize that your and my world is an individual world of our own individual creating, and that all that exists in that world exists there because of our own thinking—that our world is simply our own states of consciousness—then we can begin right now to change our entire material outlook by changing our own individual thinking.

If you and I could see man so clearly as a child of God, free from sin, from sickness, from dishonesty, and the like, then you and I would never see a dishonest man, a sick man or a sinful man or a poverty-stricken man. All that you and I are conscious of in our material world, exists in our own thinking, so do you not see how thoroughly individual our work and salvation must be? No one in the world can think for you and me. Therefore no one in the world can take away from our material world any of the sin, the sickness and the misery of it. We must do that ourselves by our own purification of thought, by substituting in our own thinking the divine for the carnal. This is so clearly brought out in the first few verses of the second chapter of Romans where it is written: “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doeth the same things.”

That is, it behooves us not to attempt to sit in judgment on the shortcomings of our brother man, because we would not be conscious of the wrong of our neighbor except for the evil in our own consciousness. So when you and I are tempted to believe that someone is trying to do us an injury; when we are tempted to believe that someone is acting unjustly towards us; when we are tempted to believe that someone is dishonest, hateful, revengeful and the like; when we are tempted to believe that we are the object of the malicious mental malpractice of another, what is our remedy? Is it to treat the other, the channel through which we believe all of these evils are manifesting themselves? No! It is to treat ourselves; to purify our own thinking, so that we can see our brother man as a child of God, pure and free from all of these claims which the mortal mind in our own consciousness makes us believe belongs to another. This is the Science of Christianity. This is true Christian Science.

We must understand that all that exists in our material world was manufactured in our own consciousness, with the carnal mind as the material with which we do our manufacturing. The carnal mind has no existence, and no object or subject, until you and I give it place in belief or consciousness. To go back then to the passage from “Science and Health” on page 247, “Being (that is God and His creation) possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly.” When the qualities of Mind are humanly perceived and held in consciousness, then existence begins to assume divine proportions. Our material world is simply the carnal in our own individual thinking, objectified. Then, when we begin to take into consciousness some of the divine, those divine ideas are likewise projected, not as matter, but to the extent of canceling that much of matter in the mortal picture which the carnal mind has drawn for us as matter.

We have a world, we will say, of matter, in which there is hate and all that goes to make up material existence. Now, this hate exists in that world only because of your and my thinking. Now, we begin to take into consciousness a little sense of divine Love. We begin, we will say, to become conscious of God as Love. This understanding of God as Love, dwelling in our consciousness, is bound to take place in our conscious existence, and that hate which this Love has displaced, ceases to be a part of our conscious existence, and thus does our material picture improve with the influx of the divine into consciousness, until, sooner or later, there has come enough of the divine into thought to replace all of the carnal, and then existence becomes spiritual—wholly spiritual—and the millennium will have been reached. In this same passage on page 247 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy has written, “It is Love which paints the petal with myriad hues, glances in the warm sunbeam, arches the cloud with the bow of beauty, blazons the night with starry gems and covers the earth with loveliness.”

To accomplish all of this, where must this Love exist, but in human consciousness? It is the divine in human consciousness which makes all things new, and brings beauty, sublimity, sweetness, joy, harmony and peace into individual, material existence. Love has no power to enrich your and my existence, until it dwells in our individual consciousness to the exclusion of that which claims to be its opposite. Love does not come down from above and panoply you and me with its beneficent influence. Love must be admitted into your and my consciousness, and retained there, in order that the petal may be painted with myriad hues, and that the earth may be covered with loveliness.

How essential it is to know and appreciate what Love really is. Love, unexpressed, is not love. Man, we learn in Christian Science, is God reflected. God is Love. Therefore Love, reflected, is man. Love, unreflected, is not man. Therefore just to believe that God is Love, and that man is the image and likeness of God, is not enough for you and me. It is not enough for man and it is not enough for God. Love, unreflected, is not man. Hence, to become men of God; to bring ourselves under God’s laws of health, of happiness, harmony, abundance, etc., we must reflect Love. No one is more miserable; no one is more devoid of the presence of God and His infinite goodness, than the man or woman who does not understand how to express love. And in this connection one must constantly work to know that he cannot be governed by family influences, traits, characteristics or tendencies. And he must constantly know that no influence of nationality, national traits, characteristics etc., can govern man. I know from bitter experience what it is to be held in bondage to the belief that one must not evidence enthusiasm, love, joy, etc.

Nothing will hinder one’s growth so much as the suppression of love and loving sentiments, and nothing will aid in that suppression so much as the harboring of the belief of family traits, characteristics, influences, etc.

Don’t be afraid that you are going farther than the other fellow in your expressions of love and gratitude and appreciation. Don’t hold to the fifty-fifty idea in your relations with men. All you are concerned about, anyway, is your own growth and your own ability to demonstrate that freedom from material bondage, to the extent that you can express health, happiness and abundance. You are not concerned in what the other fellow may do or feel. Someone else, some member of the family, may not understand about Christian Science or, understanding about it, does not seem able to demonstrate it to the full extent of expressing love and kindness and consideration about the house. Your remedy does not lie in meeting that thought half way, and only going as far as he or she goes. Your remedy lies in your demonstration of God, to the extent that you can express the true man. You cannot express true manhood and true womanhood, if you are going to let the demonstration of another be your measuring rod of endeavor. Your expressions of love and gratitude and freedom measure your manhood, and because another falls short, you certainly are not going to cheat yourself by curtailing your sonship with God, because someone else has not been able to demonstrate the light. In certain nationalities the expression of loving, charitable and forgiving sentiment is almost an impossibility. This you must work against. Some families just naturally do not find it possible to express loving kindness, charitableness, freedom and ease with others, although inwardly they feel the urge to do so. Some seem to think they can’t express their feelings; some seem to think they should not express their feelings, and they go through life more or less isolated, shut in, cold, miserable and seemingly heartless. Such are to be pitied and loved and helped. Nothing is more discouraging and stultifying than to feel sentiments which one is unable to express. But when one learns that man is God expressed, and understands that lofty, high, loving and even sentimental sentiments, unexpressed and covered, separate us from God, and tend to fasten on us the mortal arguments of sickness, unhappiness and poverty, we then begin to see the necessity of loosening up, as it were, and of giving free vent to our feelings, even though these sentiments, expressed, may not be exactly understood or even appreciated by those about us.

We are too often—all too often—governed in our activities, and even our thoughts, by the fear of what others may think, or by the fear that our sentiments or activities will not be appreciated, and thus we question the advisability of expressing them. What someone else may think, and how others may take our exhibitions of love and gratitude and spontaneity, is not the point with us. The point is, are we expressing true manhood? Are we reflecting God? If we are, then we are allying ourselves with God and availing ourselves of His blessings. If we are not expressing or reflecting true manhood (our true sonship with the Father), simply because we are wondering what someone else may think, or whether our good efforts will be lost on the desert air, then we are simply willfully denying ourselves that which this true reflection is bound to bring to us.

I am inclined to dwell, perhaps, a little too long on this point, because I have been so intimately associated with conditions which come under the above descriptions. I know how barren a life can be under the condition of suppression. I know how utterly miserable and useless one may become because of the fear of another’s opinion. I know how the bonds of inherited conservatism, and family characteristics and influences, can strangle and stultify. And so I urge you to watch these characteristics, these traits of character, which sap the very foundations of true existence and lead us into barren and fruitless lives. Don’t be manlike. Be Godlike and you will never lose. Loosen up. Don’t be afraid to express more love and affection and consideration about the house. No one is going to think you are weak or entering your second childhood. More than likely, you are going to put a little secret joy and warmth into some longing soul. A kind word, an appreciative word, a touch, a caress, an interest in the welfare and efforts of another, will not rob you. They will rather enrich you beyond the power of contemplation.

In the words of our Master, given to us in the Sermon on the Mount, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under the foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” In other words, love that is unexpressed (hidden under a bushel), is not love, and hence is not man.

Thoughts do not originate in brain

Remember, that carnal thoughts do not originate in brain. I have been questioned on several occasions as to the correctness of this from the standpoint of Christian Science, but nevertheless, the statement stands. I want you to be clear on this: that a carnal thought never was created by a mortal or originated in a brain. A carnal thought comes from that one so-called mortal mind which exists outside of mortal man. Mortal mind claims to be one, just as the divine Mind is One. On page 64 of “Retrospection and Introspection” Mrs. Eddy says, “The sin is the sinner, and vice versa, for such is the unity of evil; and together both sinner and sin will be destroyed by the supremacy of good. This, however, does not annihilate man, for to efface sin, alias the sinner, brings to light, makes apparent, the real man, even God’s ‘image and likeness.’ Need it be said that any opposite theory is heterodox to divine Science, which teaches that good is equally one and all, even as the opposite claim of evil is one.”

So the carnal mind, so-called, and all that comes from it is one, and comes from without mortal man. If it originated in the brain, where would there be any hope for relief or freedom? If the brain, independent of mortal mind, originated an evil thought, you and I would be helpless victims of that thought and could never free ourselves from it. We would be helpless sinners and sufferers. You and I have no control over the brain from the theory of mortal existence. We are victims of the brain. If, then, the brain created thought, how and by what means could you and I overcome or control thought? We could not. On page 372 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says, “Remember, brain is not mind.” Small “m.” And on page 478 she says, “brain-lobes cannot think.”

On page 67 of “Retrospection and Introspection” Mrs. Eddy says, “Sin,” that is the carnal mind, “existed as a false claim before the human concept of sin was formed;” that is, the carnal mind exists outside human consciousness, and it is only when human consciousness admits the carnal mind, that the human concept of sin is formed. Now, the human concept of sin is matter and the material universe with its sin, its sickness, its poverty and its death. So here we have as clear a statement as one could find, to the effect that the carnal mind and the human consciousness are separate and distinct states of error. Sin, she says here, exists aside and distinct from human consciousness—your and my consciousness. When sin, or the carnal mind, is admitted to human consciousness, then that carnal mind is in turn objectified as “the human concept” or matter.

In this same article, in further proof that the carnal exists outside human consciousness, Mrs. Eddy goes on to say, “hence one’s concept of error is not the whole of error.” That is, one’s concept of error consists only of that which one admits into consciousness and no more. So each individual concept of existence consists only of what one admits into consciousness. It is evident that each one of us admits different quantities of the carnal into consciousness, and that no one consciousness holds all of the carnal mind. Therefore, as Mrs. Eddy says, “one’s concept of error is not all of error.”

Her further statement in this article on “The Human Concept” that, “Sin is both concrete and abstract” is only additional proof that the carnal mind becomes materialized only as it becomes active in individual human consciousness. The carnal mind exists in its abstract state (that is without any physical evidence or tangibility) outside human consciousness, but just as soon as it is admitted to, and becomes a part of, the human consciousness, it becomes concrete. That is, it has evidence. It becomes material. It becomes tangible to human consciousness. Now, I am dwelling on this because it is an important point in the understanding of being and human existence and to your practice in Christian Science.

Take the passage from page 155 of “Science and Health,” quoted above, where Mrs. Eddy says, “The human mind acts more powerfully to offset the discords of matter and the ills of the flesh, in proportion as it puts less weight into the material or fleshly scale and more weight into the spiritual scale.” Here is a direct recognition or statement, regarding the three states of consciousness. She plainly says that the human mind is better able to bring out harmony, in the degree that the human mind puts less weight in the carnal mind and more weight in the divine Mind. On page 573 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says, “the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows” that is, that consciousness which is animated solely by the divine Mind, “are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind,” (that is, that mind which has not been imbued with the spiritual and is wholly carnal), “the vision is material.”

On page 251 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says, “We must learn how mankind govern the body. We should learn whether they govern the body through a belief in the necessity of sickness and death, sin and pardon, or govern it from the higher understanding that the divine Mind makes perfect, acts upon the so-called human mind through truth, leads the human mind to relinquish all error,” (that is, the carnal mind), “to find the divine Mind to be the only Mind, and the healer of sin, disease, death.” The marginal note to this paragraph in “Science and Health” reads, “Mortal mind’s disappearance.” You will note that mortal mind is not changed. It disappears. It is replaced in the human consciousness by the divine Mind.

The trial—Science and Health

In this connection, some years ago I called your attention to the “trial” in “Science and Health” beginning on page 430 in the chapter on “Practice.” This, to my sense, is one of the most important things in all of Mrs. Eddy’s writings, and one which is the least understood. It brings out more clearly than anything else, the fact that the carnal mind is separate and distinct from mortal man, and that the carnal mind’s ideal man is a perfect physicality, free from sickness, etc. In this trial mortal man is represented or depicted in his primitive state as a perfect physical concept. That is, perfect from the standpoint of materiality. Mortal man is here pictured as residing in mortal body. This mortal body, we learn, is an object of consciousness. Consciousness constructs its own body. Human consciousness has admitted the beliefs of mortal mind. These beliefs of mortal mind are manifested, or objectified, as body, or the human body. The human body, without what Mrs. Eddy terms personal sense is, to human sense, a perfect human body, free from sin and sickness and poverty, and the like. Mortal man, under the supervision of the carnal mind, dwells in mortal body.

Along come the arguments of personal sense which the human consciousness admits, and these arguments of personal sense, admitted to human consciousness, and becoming a part of human consciousness naturally, in turn, become a part of body which is also a part of human consciousness. So one has the ability to choose, whether or not he will admit these arguments of personal sense into consciousness, and thereby has the ability to decide, whether or not he shall live in a sick human body or a well human body, an inharmonious human body or a harmonious human body. Human consciousness, according to the statements of truth which appear in this “trial,” first creates a body in which mortal man resides, or human consciousness resides, and then this human consciousness takes to its concept of body all the arguments of personal sense, which produce sickness, poverty, unhappiness, etc.

In the light of what we have learned about the human consciousness, the human mind, the carnal mind and the divine Mind, I wish you would study carefully this trial in the chapter on “Practice.” It will unfold to you an entirely new outlook. It is really, to my sense, the summing up, by Mrs. Eddy, of all that she has been trying to convey to us in the previous pages of “Science and Health.” Study this part of “Science and Health” well, dwell upon it, ponder it, digest it, and you will find therein a most precious and gratifying illumination. When you can fully perceive that all error, all evil, all that goes to make up material existence, all of the carnal mind, exists as one mind outside your and my individual consciousness, and that this mind, through its own so-called thoughts, becomes a part of our individual existence only at our own will or volition, we then begin to see what a wonderful and powerful instrument for good we have with us always.

When we realize that everything that exists in our material world, everything that exists in our individual experience, all matter, all material phenomena, is simply the result of the carnal mind held in individual consciousness, and that we have the privilege and power to exclude that carnal mind from our consciousness and, in place thereof, put the divine Mind, we begin to realize the wonderful opportunity which lies at the door of our thinking for bringing out good, and peace, and harmony, in our everyday experience. And in this understanding lies the explanation of how Christian Science heals the ills of matter, even though God knows nothing about matter or about the ills of matter. This seems to be a hard thing to understand. I used to think that it was an easy thing to explain understandingly, and that once explained, it would need no further explanation, but I find that it requires constant explanation, and even then I discover that my explanations do not seem to always carry the clear and final word. But it is really simple.

Here, we will say by way of explanation, is a human consciousness. Now, without this human consciousness, or outside this human consciousness, there is no material world. Matter does not exist independently of your and my thinking. If everyone in the world stopped thinking materially, right then material existence would cease. That is, right then would matter cease to exist. Now, your material thinking does not create my material world, and my material thinking does not create your material world. In other words, the sum total of carnal thought does not go to make up a material world. It is not the sum total of carnal thought which goes to make matter. It is individual thought which creates matter, and therefore creation is individual and not collective. You and I, as I have explained before, are not born into a material world which has been created by the sum total of carnal thinking for ages. You and I create our own worlds by our own thinking, and so far as each individual consciousness is concerned, there is no material world outside that individual consciousness.

The newly born babe

“What,” you ask, “about the newly born babe? How does his individual thinking create his individual material world, when he really does not think for himself, and Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven?’” In the first place, the individual babe is not a product of his own individual consciousness. He is the object of the thought of the parent. Were there no parent, there would be no child. The child is the offspring of the carnal in the consciousness of the parent. This objectification of the parent thought, in the form of babe, is expressed in what might be termed mindless matter. That is, the babe is born into the world simply as matter, with no further evidence of intelligence or consciousness, than is bestowed upon him by parental thought. He does not think, and at first is conscious of nothing. He is practically mindless matter. Then, through the material laws of growth and maturity, he begins to assume a consciousness of his own. That consciousness at first is purely material, and without the qualities of the carnal which we call sin, without the qualities of personal sense, or what we have sometimes called the secondary beliefs of the carnal mind. The babe, as merely mindless matter, without the accompaniments of sin or sickness, is what might be termed mortal mind’s idea or the primary belief. It is the material objectification of the parent thought, and is practically without individual consciousness. It is the consciousness of the parent expressed as babe. It is not, one might say, an individual consciousness.

Later it begins to take to itself the belief of an individual consciousness. This individual consciousness is at first very faintly developed and is, until later material development, simply a state of consciousness, without the ability to know or recognize right from wrong. The first impression which comes to this individual consciousness, called babe, is the consciousness of matter. About the first thing that an infant begins to be conscious of, is his own body. His consciousness is taking up, we will say, existence, at the point where the parent thought begins to let go, and this state of human consciousness begins to create its own material individual body. The consciousness of the body, which the parents had held as their babe, gradually begins to be taken over by the babe consciousness, until the babe finally recognizes himself as an individual bodily existence. This individualized bodily existence is then, in reality, the objectified consciousness of the babe. This objectified consciousness is a material consciousness, without the later qualities of sin and hopelessness, poverty, etc. And this state of babe consciousness is that to which the Master referred when he said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” It is purely material, but sinless. It is the state of consciousness to which Mrs. Eddy refers on page 49 of “Unity of Good,” as I have before mentioned, as “true humanhood,” which she pictures as “sinless.”

Through the process of what is called time, education, environment, etc., this state of consciousness begins to gradually take to itself those elements of the carnal mind which Mrs. Eddy, in the “trial” in the chapter on “Practice,” has called “personal sense.” These elements of the carnal mind called personal sense are, in turn, reflected as matter in the universe of matter which the individual consciousness is weaving about itself, and therefore each individual consciousness creates its own environment, and is responsible for its own world and its own experiences. And inasmuch as each individual consciousness is responsible for its own world and its own individual experiences, each individual consciousness is likewise responsible for its own salvation from sin and sickness, inharmony, etc. The inharmony of each individual experience or existence exists in the mind of the individual. The carnal in your and my thinking enables us to see inharmony in others and in the world about us. You and I could not be conscious of sickness, or sin, or inharmony, or floods, or cyclones, or drought, except for the carnal in our thinking. These conditions do not exist in the divine Mind or God and therefore, to the extent that the divine takes the place of the carnal in your and my thinking, will these conditions cease to exist in our experience.

Drought, storms and pestilence

Mrs. Eddy once said to a class of students in her home (I am not quoting this verbatim), “You have the power and ability to move your arm wherever you wish, because your arm is the object of your own thinking or state of consciousness. Therefore you have the ability to control the clouds, as the clouds are as much an object of individual thought as the arm.” So do you not see what a powerful instrument for good lies right here and now in our laps? And in these times of drought, storms, etc., which, in themselves, are nothing more than reflections of the disturbed and barren thought of mankind today, it is incumbent on each and every one of us to so conduct his thinking, that these vehicles of waste and destruction shall not interfere with our individual harmony and prosperity. We cannot work out the salvation of others, but we certainly can and should protect ourselves from the effects of the world’s wrong thinking.

Now, drought and storms and pestilence are not the direct results of thought about drought and storms and pestilence in the consciousness of mortals, because no mortal wants to become the victim of drought and storms and pestilence. But the barrenness of human consciousness is bound to be expressed in barrenness of earth, because the earth, and all therein materially, is simply the manifestation of thought. An individual consciousness, barren of spiritual things, barren of peace, barren of love, barren of purity, cannot be conscious of peace and love and purity in its own creation. We cannot be conscious of that which does not exist in thought, because thought is existence. Our visible world is simply our own thoughts objectified.

A consciousness which does not contain love could not experience love in its world of environment. A consciousness which knew not peace could not see peace in the world of its own creating. A consciousness devoid of spirituality and purity would be conscious of nothing but grossness and impurity in the world of its own creating. And so, a world consciousness, a national consciousness, which is barren of the spiritual, the pure, the holy, the things of God, could not expect to experience aught but poverty, unhappiness and misery. A consciousness which would find it possible, or which would tolerate or even conceive of the willful destruction of animal life, of wheat and corn and cotton, the fruits of honest labor and toil, for the furtherance of a political whim, should not be surprised at, or complain of, a condition of weather which would manifest itself as a devastating drought. Exactly the same thought is responsible for both conditions, although we call one an act of man and the other an act of Providence. A drought may eventuate as an act of Providence, if those who suffer thereby learn their lesson. If they do not learn their lesson through suffering, they may have to suffer still more.

But you and I do not have to suffer because of the shortcomings and misdeeds of others. If we did, where would be our God? And if we did, wherein would lie the fruits of our understanding of Christian Science? If the world suffers because of a drought, the world must look to matter for its remedy. But it does not suffer because of drought. It suffers because of its wrong thinking. If it resorts to matter and material remedies for its answer to the problem of drought, economic depression, lack, unemployment, etc., it is hewing out empty cisterns made with hands, cisterns which contain no water for the parched earth. But if it turns to God, and away from matter and material remedies, then will it be blessed with showers of the Spirit, and the abundance of God will replenish the whole earth. It is your and my duty, as Christian Scientists, today to prove to the world what an understanding of God can do in this wilderness of blasted human hopes. Mrs. Eddy often urged upon her household the necessity of overcoming the belief of weather, and of handling the arguments of the elements which find expression in storm, tempest, blight and drought. And she never taught them to “work on the weather.” She taught them to work for the harmony of divine Mind. Rain and sunshine are alike manifestations of the carnal mind and, as manifestations of the carnal mind, can be regulated by that consciousness which understands how to take away from these carnal beliefs the elements of discord, harm and disruption. To know that God is eternally in His holy temple, and that therefore harmony and abundance reign here and now, is depriving our material picture, the picture the carnal mind has painted for us, of those beliefs of inharmony which would render sun and rain harmful.

More on the weather

There are times, according to human beliefs, when mankind needs the sun, and there are times when he needs the rain. You and I would not wish our work to deprive anyone of that which he seems to need to complete his sense of joy and fruition, and by knowing that everything is here and now and eternally in its right place; that God knows naught but harmony; that harmony reigns here and now, and that that which man needs is already supplied and in its right place, we can take away from the belief of weather that which mortal mind says would make for inharmony. Our material picture, for instance,—the picture which you and I have painted with our carnal thoughts—includes the belief of matter, of weather, of sunshine and of rain. All of these go to make up a materially harmonious whole. Aside from these, there exists in our picture the belief of inharmony, too much rain, too much sunshine, too little rain, etc. Those conditions are the results of inharmony in our own thinking, and through the understanding of the omnipotence of God and His kingdom; through our understanding of the presence of right ideas here and now, we are going to be able to so regulate our thinking, that the beliefs of inharmony are done away with, and we have a harmonious materiality. By knowing that God reigns, that His kingdom is perfect; that there is nothing in existence but the divine Mind and His ideas, governed and controlled by the Mind that created them; that harmony reigns here and now; that there is a supply for every demand, and a demand for every supply; that one idea cannot be out of place for one single moment; that the perfect harmony and equipoise of spiritual existence reigns here and now; that there is no mortal mind belief, no universal belief, no argument or sign or seasons or superstition, no curse, no penalty of belief, which can interfere with or disturb the perfect harmony of existence, we will bring out the expression of harmony in our belief of weather.

Weather might be said to be a primary belief, harmonious and harmless. Then along come the secondary beliefs of mortal mind, such as the beliefs of animal magnetism, seasons, fear, hate, anger, malice, etc., and these beliefs, operating in consciousness, create what might be termed bad weather or a bad season, etc. It is with weather and climate just as it is with the body. We must bring out in our everyday experience a harmonious body, as well as a perfect concept of climate and weather. “Heat and cold,” Mrs. Eddy tells us, “are products of mortal mind” (S&H 374). By knowing that the only atmosphere there is, is the atmosphere of Truth, and the only climate there is, is the climate of Soul in which is no inharmony, harm or danger, we will handle the beliefs of extremes, which mortal mind has attached to the belief of weather or climate.

How to work for yourself

We must understand that man in the image and likeness of God lives, moves and has his being in the atmosphere of Love, of divine Mind, divine intelligence, and that man can be conscious of nothing that does not come from or proceed from that divine Mind, and therefore man cannot be conscious of the belief of bad weather or cold weather or hot weather. These are creations of a mind which does not exist, which God knows nothing about, and concerning which man in the image and likeness of God is not cognizant. Always make your mental and oral declarations of Truth in the absolute. There are no relative positions or conditions in Science. Man is either a perfect, spiritual likeness of Spirit, or he is wholly material without a hope in the world. Man is perfect. He is not growing out of a state of imperfection into a state of perfection. He is here and now perfect, and the recognition of this in consciousness is necessary to the proper application of Truth. In working for yourself or for others, do not dwell in the relative. You would not think of God as anything but perfect. And so you must not think of man, yourself, or your patient, as anything less perfect than God. What you claim about or for God, you may claim about and for yourself and your patients.

Always know that you have here and now abundance. I wonder if you all appreciate the necessity of declaring the truth about yourself daily in regard to all matters. It is the constant dropping of the water that wears away the stone and it is, likewise, the constant declaration of Truth about yourself, even in the face of its so-called material opposite, that eventually wins the crown of demonstration. Always declare that you are here and now the full and complete expression of God’s abundance. Think, even materially, in large terms. A man certainly cannot demonstrate in terms of hundreds or of thousands while thinking in terms of ones and twos. Think in terms of infinity. “Hitch your wagon to a star.” Let your human ambitions be fetterless and boundless. That is, let your thinking be in unlimited terms. A man in business could never demonstrate any farther than his thoughts would permit. If a man had a business, and his ambition was to bring that business up to a certain limit of production, that limit would be about as far as he would be permitted to go. Even though he never gained the limit of his ambition, it is safe to say that he would not have done as well as he did, if his limit had been a small and niggardly one. Think in terms of infinity. Know that God’s abundance and supply know no bounds or limitation. Always declare in your daily work and thinking, for abundance, even in the face of bitter lack. Lack is an argument of mortal mind. Abundance is a reality of God. Always think on the side of God. Discouragement is the clearest evidence of a limited thought. Discouragement is simply mortal mind’s way of capitulating to the adversary. It is mortal mind’s way of agreeing with lack and limitation. Never submit to it. It will flee from you if you meet it on its own ground and destroy it. It will stay with you, and grow and become magnified, if you harbor it in thought. You cannot declare for abundance if you admit discouragement into your consciousness. Discouragement, lack, etc., all come from the one and the same source, the so-called carnal mind, existing outside human consciousness, and you and I have the privilege of accepting or rejecting them just as we please. If we meet the argument of fear with the idea of courage; if we meet the argument of discouragement with the declaration of our independence as children of God; if we meet the argument of lack with the constant declaration of abundance and infinite supply, sooner or later we will bring out in our daily experience exactly what we have been faithfully mentally declaring.

Individualism

We hear much these days about the new order of things, that the day of individualism is past; that we shall hereafter be relieved of the necessity of doing our own thinking; that hereafter all thinking, planning and activity shall be governed by a mental hierarchy which shall do our thinking, our planning, our acting for us. If there is anything brought out in the Christianity of Jesus Christ more clearly than the necessity for pure individualism, I do not know what it is. Our world, our experience, our environment, our sin, our sickness, our bodies, our very existence are strictly individual. Existence in all of its phases is individual, and therefore our salvation must be individual. Anything which would teach you and me that the day of strict and rugged individualism is past, is gross heterodoxy. Inasmuch as we create our own individual worlds by our own individual thinking, it is only in compliance with the law of Principle, the law of God, that our individual world should be governed and regulated by our individual thinking, and so it is.

Do you think that existence or salvation could ever become vicarious? That anyone else in all this world could work out our individual problems for us? That anyone else could plan our daily vocations, our daily activities, our methods of work, our plans of living, our individual selections of planting, reaping and harvesting? What does the Bible tell us? “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” It does not say that someone else shall do our thinking, our planning, our planting, and our harvesting for us. The very moment you and I permit ourselves to be drawn into the enticing net of letting others do our thinking for us, just then have we delegated to others any hope of success, growth or salvation. Christianity or Christian Science is the very antithesis of a regimented or a bureaucratically controlled world. If you and I create our material surroundings by our own individual thinking, how are we to regulate and control those material surroundings by God in consciousness, if we delegate our thinking in regard to those matters to someone else, to someone who knows nothing about God, and whose highest concept of authority might consist in “cracking down” on those of his fellow citizens who knew more of God in one minute than he would ever know? My students, do think for yourselves. Do not be led by the whims and wiles of the carnal mind. Square all your thinking with Principle. Measure all things with the tape of Truth, and you will not be led astray.

Government

We should all know daily the truth about government. We should work for government. Mrs. Eddy tells that she worked daily for the government, and it is evident that she intended that all of us should do likewise. Our work for government, as in all other things, should be in the absolute. We should know that there is but one government, and that that is the government by Mind of all its vast creation of ideas. We should recognize the divine Mind, or divine intelligence, the divine esse, the isness of all existence, as the only cause and creator, and that the manifestation or outcome of this divine Mind, this one supreme and good consciousness, are ideas. We should know every day that these ideas are created, controlled, governed, directed, outlined, placed and activated by this one all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise intelligence. Intelligence, in and of itself, is creator; is director; is governor and administrator of all law and order. We should know that in the realm of the real (and that is the only realm there is, and that realm is here and now), we live, move, and have our being; that in this realm, everything is idea, and idea is an expression of an all-seeing and all-knowing intelligence; that because of this, all time and place and space are done away with as objects of matter and material phenomena, and in their place there is naught but idea. We must know that because of this truth about government, the only truth there is, is the truth about God and man in God’s image and likeness.

Man is in his right place here, now and eternally. Man is governed, controlled, directed, supplied and protected by that Mind of which he is the expression. Man can express and be conscious of naught that does not come from his Principle, God. Therefore, man is the expression of God’s government, God’s law and God’s dominion. The only community there is, is the community of right ideas; the only state there is, is the state of spiritual consciousness, and the only nation there is, is the nation of spiritual ideas created, governed and controlled by the one and only intelligence.

This knowing must not be a mere oral or mental repetition of phrases. This knowing must be based on the understanding that material existence is no existence; that it is a creation of illusion; that it is a state of mesmerism or self-hypnotism; that it is a dream which is the result of a mind which does not exist, and as “the dream and dreamer are one,” as Mrs. Eddy tells us in “Science and Health,” and this dream and dreamer are one in a consciousness which does not exist, then there is no state of material consciousness, and the true and spiritual becomes the only real and ever-present and tangible state of existence. In the realm of the material, the government of a nation is divided into the executive, the legislative and the judicial branches. In Mind all of these combine in the one all-knowing intelligence, which intelligence finds expression in your and my experience in our right thinking. Thus, through our right thinking, do we bring out in our own individual lives and experiences the true sense of the executive, the legislative and the judicial. Mind creates all. It is the one and only legislator of its own vast array of laws and regulations. Mind executes these laws of its own creating, thus becoming the one and only executive, and by the enforcement of these laws through Principle, right for right, wrong for wrong, Mind thus becomes the only judiciary there is. Thus we have the executive, the legislative and the judicial all combined in one intelligence, and this intelligence, being the only intelligence there is, can know nothing of any opposite or opposing intelligence or jurisdiction. The Jurisdiction of Mind governs, includes and comprehends all existence, being and reality. Therefore there is no opposing intelligence, no disrupting intelligence, no conflicting intelligence in government or in the jurisdiction of Mind.

Thus we can say with authority, conviction and finality that there is no belief of dishonesty, greed, graft, trickery, intrigue, either material, personal or mental that can interfere with, or come within, the jurisdiction of the government of Mind. There is but one Mind, therefore there are not minds many, wills many, purposes many, differences of opinions, misunderstandings or misdirection in government. There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed in government. Government is here and now revealed to man, and therefore there are no hidden forces, no occult, dishonest, tricky or greedy forces or elements in government, which can operate to disrupt, disorganize or destroy.

It is my opinion that the world is not yet even minutely awake to the hidden, corrupt, occult, secret and malicious forces which are constantly directed mentally and materially against modern governments, with the direct purpose to confuse by strife, poverty, wars, hatreds, misunderstandings and the like. There is no question in my mind, but that age-old forces, mental in their nature, are constantly at work to overthrow and confuse modern society to the extent of bewilderment and despair. You and I need not be concerned as to their source, their avenues of attack, the channels or modus operandi through which they propagate themselves. What we are concerned in, is that clear understanding of God which sees all of these elements of evil, mentally directed, as no part of the one intelligence, which governs and controls all of God’s vast universe of ideas. We must learn to mentally banish all of these lies of mortal mind, malicious mental manipulation, to their realm of unreality. Then we shall not only not fear them, but we shall, at the same time, individually free ourselves from the belief of power and influence which they claim to exert.

Spirituality in thought is the greatest protection that mortal man can ever have. A spiritually minded man will be able to uncover, discern and detect that which a materially minded man will mentally accept to his own undoing. A spiritually minded man can see so far beyond the evidence of the senses into the realm of the mental, which is behind the material, that his protection, his guidance and his acumen far surpass that of the man who is not spiritually equipped. Thus should the Christian Scientist be the best business man, the best lawyer, the best laborer, the best salesman there is. Spirituality in thought enables one to see beyond the material into the materially mental, and thus discern “the signs of the times” far better and far more deeply.

Age

And now I want to talk to you somewhat on the subject of age—old age. This is something concerning which, I am convinced, Christian Scientists are very derelict. I am extremely, profoundly and shockingly impressed, as I go about the country year after year, seeing my Christian Science friends whom I have known for years, with the utter disregard with which this phase of the work is looked upon. Without any reason whatever, without the claim of sickness, impoverishment or what not, I find my Christian Science friends and acquaintances, gradually and certainly, permitting themselves to come under this claim of age and the passage of time. I do not say this in any sense of criticism. I say it with the intent of warning and of advising. There is no reason in the world why a healthy, active Christian Scientist should look any older at sixty than at thirty, when you come to figure time in the language of mortal mind. The shocking thing about the situation, as I observe it, is the utter disregard Christian Scientists have for appearance along this line. There is an old saying, and none truer, that “a man is no older than he thinks.” If a man is no older than he thinks, he certainly should not act and conduct himself in a way which will belie his thinking.

I have known many Christian Scientists for over thirty-five years. I have known them well and intimately. I have known that they have demonstrated over the belief of sickness and ill health in a most wonderful manner. I have known that they have overcome lack and limitation in many of its so-called phases, and yet I have seen them droop and wither under the claim of age and the passage of time until today, instead of being fresh, upright and vigorous workers in the vineyard of the Lord, they are old, worn out and decrepit. And why? Simply because they have not handled the argument of age and time in their work. I don’t know what line of thinking or reasoning they pursue, but I presume that they have allowed the thought to hold them, that age and death are two of the things which are beyond our present state of understanding, and they have just let the argument of age, birthdays, and time creep in, willingly and without any opposition whatever.

The truest way to test a man’s thoughts is by his actions. “Actions,” it is said, “speak louder than words,” and it is so. We may talk about the nothingness of age, about the absence of time and about the ever-presence of youth, but when a man begins to droop and drag around, get slovenly in his appearance and dress, become sluggardly in walk and actions, that is about the best evidence that his talk is a lot of fair seeming, and that he is thinking just the opposite to what he talks. We reflect physically just what we think, not what we say. It is the duty of every Christian Scientist to handle this argument not only in his daily work, but in actions, in his activities, his mannerisms, his dress, his appearance, his carriage. One cannot think one way and work out an opposite outward appearance.

I know Christian Scientists who, the moment they begin to see the trace of gray hairs in their head, begin to bewail the facts and appearance of old age and act accordingly. I have seen perfectly well and healthy Christian Scientists, on the approach of mortal mind’s argument of the passage of time, allow themselves to become stooped, shrunken in chest, without any physical reasons whatever. I have seen them dress old. I’ve seen them slouch along, lose interest in that which normally one should be interested in. I’ve seen them change in a minute, almost, at the birth of a grandchild. I have in mind now (and I shouldn’t) a perfectly healthy and well Christian Scientist who is so stooped and bent and bedraggled, that you would not recognize him as the man of five years ago. And that is simply because he has allowed the argument of years to wear and bow him.

Why, my friends, there is no reason for this, even from a material point of view. If we are going to talk life eternal and against the argument of old age, we must certainly learn to act young. The example of the young girl, given by Mrs. Eddy in our textbook, “Science and Health,” who was disappointed in love in her youth, and because of a mental condition failed to recognize the passage of time and thus retained her youth, is ample proof of the ability of anyone to maintain at least a semblance of youth in face of the mortal mind argument of the passage of time. We cannot think young and act old or look old. And we cannot look old and act old and, at the same time, think of ourselves as free from the law of age, etc. We must not only constantly declare against the argument of age, passage of time, heredity, etc., in this regard, but we must take all necessary human steps to support our right thinking and to avoid the appearances of age. It is the duty, I believe, of every Christian Scientist, to look as young, as attractive, and as fresh and buoyant, as possible.

We should, first of all, watch our carriage. Now this is somewhat material perhaps, but Mrs. Eddy tells us on page 264 of “Science and Health”: “. . . we must act as possessing all power from Him in whom we have our being.”

Now we cannot “act as possessing all power from Him in whom we have our being” if we go about looking old and stooped and decrepit. We cannot expect to act young if we dress old and slovenly. We cannot expect to appear young if we withdraw our interest from those things which pertain to activity, vigor and freshness. So watch your carriage. Do not allow yourself to stoop. In the matter of carriage, it is always well to handle heredity. There is the belief, perhaps, that at the age of forty or fifty your father or your mother, or your grandparents, began to develop certain physical characteristics, such as round shoulders, a slouch in their method of walking, an indifferent and careless method of carriage, all of which you begin to manifest as you approach that same age.

Handle the belief of heredity, family traits, characteristics and influences in regard to age. Know what your true parentage is; what your true heritage is; that your Father and Mother are Spirit; that your heritage is spiritual, not material, and that therefore you are under no argument of animal magnetism, expressing itself through the belief of inherited tendencies and influences; know that as a child of God you are now upright, perfect, erect and stately. And act accordingly. To be plain and more or less material, throw back your shoulders, throw out your chest and pull in your stomach all the time, either when sitting or standing. Now, that’s plain talk. But never mind how plain it is, try it. You cannot demonstrate health and act sickly. You cannot demonstrate youth and act old. And besides your carriage, watch your personal appearance. You do not have to dress any older now than you did thirty or twenty or even ten years ago. Keep up with the modes. You can always find something in present modes, even though those modes be very trying at times, which will suit your personal requirements.

Now, by this I do not mean that we should be extravagant or that we should devote time and money to beautifying our personalities. That is not the point at all. You may need a dress, or a suit of clothes, or a hat, or a pair of shoes. It does not cost any more to buy something that looks well and young and chic, than it does to buy something which some clerk might tell you is best suited to a person of your age. When a clerk springs that one on you, don’t get mad at the clerk. Just take that as a gentle hint that you are falling down on the demonstration over age, and that it is time for you to get busy and slick up a bit. Don’t slouch in your walk or become sluggish. Be sprightly. Act sprightly, vigorous and quick. You will be surprised to find how great a difference your activities and actions make in overcoming this argument of age. You have got to act, Mrs. Eddy tells us, just as you try to think. If you will back up your right thinking by your right acting, then your demonstration will have begun. Youth is a seductive thing and keeps one alert in its pursuit.

A business man, to be successful, should never allow the argument of age to make him slothful, sluggish or careless in appearance, in dress or in posture. There is an argument of physiology, as well as Science, back of this whole question which will help one in his business, his position, his work. The husband and wife should not allow themselves to take on the arguments of age, decrepitude, carelessness and slovenliness, simply because the battle of courtship is won. One should not hold to the position that there is no use running after a train after it is caught. Remember that your personal appearance, your carriage, your looks, your uprightness, will have just as much to do with your victory over age, as your mental work. I would say they would share in the result about fifty-fifty.

To sit down and work an hour or so trying to know that one is the son of God, pure, upright, bright, vigorous, etc., and then start out to act and walk like some decrepit inmate of a home for old soldiers, wouldn’t accomplish anything. I remember one time I was what I thought, sick, good and sick—if you could call sickness good. I was too sick, I thought, to sit up, so I lay down and kept down for a day or so. I was trying to work the thing out in Science, but I didn’t seem to be accomplishing much. Finally I got to thinking about this passage from “Science and Health,” just quoted, where Mrs. Eddy tells us to “act as possessing all power” etc., and it came to me that I had only half done my work. I had only half completed my treatment. I felt that my treatment had been a good one and I couldn’t just figure out why it hadn’t worked. Then I saw that, while my treatment had been good, perhaps, yet I had not been doing my part in acting in accord with what I had been declaring for myself; so in the face of my misery and discomfort, I decided to get up and act like a man anyway, and see if I could not in that way give the argument the lie. I got up and put on my clothes and acted just as I should have acted without the illness, and in a short time relief came, and I was certain then that by acting as I should, I had routed, rather than entertained, the argument which had been holding me. And it is the same with the argument of age. One can’t feel and be young and at the same time admit the argument of age. Sitting, standing, or walking, one should practice a perfect, straight and upright manifestation, or posture.

More on the laws of astrology or planetary control

There is another argument of animal magnetism which one should handle regularly, and which I judge is not given a great deal of attention by Christian Scientists, and that is the argument of astrology—laws of astrology or planetary control. These laws come under, or are found included in, the practice of horoscope reading. The laws of planetary control or influence are, to material sense, as strong and as binding as are the so-called laws of heredity. As long as man lives or is supposed to live in the flesh, just so long is he manifesting the beliefs of a material father and mother, and as long as one is laboring under the material argument of material father and mother, just so long will one be under the necessity of handling and meeting the claim of heredity. It is the same with the arguments or beliefs of astrological control.

To illustrate what a fixed and complete science this claims to be, in almost any public library today you will find books on the subject which were, perhaps, printed before you were born, and these books contain charts or tables which will give your exact mental and physical characteristics, tendencies, etc. That is, this so-called science is so fixed that one versed therein, if given the day of your birth, can turn to these tables and charts, and tell you unerringly what your mental and physical tendencies are, what particular physical ailments you are subject to, what physical characteristics hold you, what mental idiosyncrasies may be binding you, etc. This so-called science holds that everyone born into the world is born under the influence of certain planets or planetary conditions; that there is an electromagnetic influence existing, constantly governed by the location and position of the various planets, and that this influence changes daily with the revolutions of the earth and the movement of the various stellar systems, planets, etc.; that this electromagnetic influence governs and controls everything, and that a person born today, for instance, is governed throughout his entire life by the planetary influences as they exist on the day of his birth. Certain Zodiacal signs and conditions are held to control and influence, through the existence of this electromagnetic current, everyone who is born under these signs and conditions, and this law or science, so-called, is so fixed and active, that one familiar with it can foretell unerringly the exact mental and physical conditions of one so born. And everyone of us is claimed to be born under the control or influence of some planet or combination of planets.

So do you not see the constant necessity of handling and meeting this claim of animal magnetism, calling itself astrology, planetary control, horoscopic influence, etc.? One should know constantly that matter has no mind, hence no intelligence to control man; that man was never born; that man is the spontaneous expression of Spirit and is under the constant influence and control of his spiritual parentage; that there is no intelligent matter which can create, transmit or receive; that there is no influence or condition which can create magnetism or electricity, which can govern and control man; that man is a free, independent, spontaneous expression of the one and only intelligence, which knows and governs its own vast creation of ideas in perfect harmony; that there is no combination of material influences or conditions, either of a positive or a negative nature, which can operate to produce an electromagnetic current to govern man; that man is not independent of God; that man is God expressed, and therefore is not subject to any of the beliefs of matter or intelligent matter. Matter cannot think, or act, or create. Error has no origin, no place of origin, no medium or type of expression.

More on the claim of electricity and the nature of matter

And this brings us again into the subject of electricity upon which we have dealt before, but there are a few things which might be enlightening, which we did not touch on. The main point is, that you understand the importance of handling this claim of electricity constantly. If this is done, I am sure you will find many things will be eliminated, as problems which have heretofore appeared adamant.

In the first place we should recognize the fact that all material life is claimed to be the product of electricity. Years and years ago Mrs. Eddy saw and recognized this, and was ridiculed and criticized by the world of natural science and medicine for it. Today the natural scientist has resolved all matter into positive and negative electrical forces, and asserts electricity to be the ultimate or remote cause of matter. On page 450 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says, “Knowing the claim of animal magnetism, that all evil combines in the belief of life, substance, and intelligence in matter, electricity, animal nature, and organic life, who will deny that these are the errors which Truth must and will annihilate?”

Here Mrs. Eddy uses “electricity,” “matter” and “organic life” synonymously. Thus we find that organic life, or the belief of life, truth, intelligence and substance as existing in matter, is synonymous with electricity. And what does she say about electricity? That is, what is it? On page 293 of “Science and Health” she tells us that, “Electricity is not a vital fluid, but the least material form of illusive consciousness,—the material mindlessness, which forms no link between matter and Mind, and which destroys itself.” And, “Electricity is the sharp surplus of materiality which counterfeits the true essence of spirituality or Truth,—the great difference being that electricity is not intelligent, while spiritual truth is Mind.” Here she refers to electricity as “material mindlessness,” thus taking away from electricity even the claim of a mortal mind which does not exist. I think one of the best things Mrs. Eddy ever penned in regard to this subject of electricity is to be found in the Third Edition of “Science and Health,” where she says, “One of the material forces counterfeiting Truth is electricity. Is it not significant that despite an extensive and practical working knowledge of electricity, physical science remains ignorant of what that force actually is? Christian Science discloses, that since electricity is material, its essence must be mortal mind, because matter is the expression of mortal mind, and Christian Science further declares, that whatever the employment of electricity has done to advance the human race, is but the counterfeit of the genuine unfoldment of spiritual truth in consciousness. Thus considered, all material progress, in reversal, reveals spiritual unfoldment. So in human consciousness, electricity, radioactivity, and the more recent theories and developments and prospects of interatomic force, are typical of the evolution of human thought out of itself. The more matter is displaced in favor of its essence, mortal mind, the thinner mortal mind’s mask becomes, for remember—mortal mind cannot express itself, save as matter.

“Electricity is not a vital fluid, but an element of mortal mind, the less material thought that forms the link between what is termed matter and mortal mind; but recollect that both are strata of belief, the one called mind and the other called matter; the grosser substratum, named matter, is the poorest counterfeit of Mind; the more ethereal substratum of mortal belief, named mind, is the nearer counterfeit of immortal Mind or Truth or Love; but both are false presentations, for immortal Mind and mortal belief never touch. The electricity of mortal mind, its gases and forces are the counterfeits of the unerring and eternal Mind’s omnipotence as Truth, its attraction as Love, and its adhesion and cohesion as Life, producing the eternal identities. Electricity is the essence of mortal and erring mind, that counterfeits that essence of the unerring and eternal Mind, termed Holy Ghost, the great difference being that one is divine and Holy, and the other human and unholy.”

Electricity, we thus find to be a manifestation of mortal mind. And how is mortal mind manifested to you and me? Why, as matter. Does mortal mind operate to create matter outside your and my individual consciousness? We have learned that it does not. Whence then does matter come from? It comes from the carnal or mortal mind which you and I admit into our individual consciousness, and which, in turn, is projected or objectified as matter. Electricity being, then, a material manifestation of the carnal mind and mortal thought, whence comes electricity? Why, from individual thought. And as we begin to endow thought with spiritual intuitions and concepts, do you not see, we can begin to control and regulate our concepts of electricity to the extent of taking away from it the belief of harm and injury, and making it a useful and helpful part of our experience? We have seen that through the right understanding of Truth, we should be able to regulate and control the weather, the clouds, the climate, etc. In like manner we should be able to control and regulate the belief of electricity, as electricity is just as certainly a manifestation of individual, material thinking as any other form of materiality. Recognizing that electricity, like any other form of matter, is the product of individual thought, we can begin to overcome the arguments of electricity by watching thought. Electricity is brought into action materially by friction. Therefore that which tends to mental friction, irritation, etc., might be considered as the foundation of electrical phenomena. We should handle static or electric magnetism.

The material theory is, that electricity exists in what might be termed solution throughout space without material manifestation, but that through certain material conditions or activities (friction), this element is brought into action. This inactive electricity is called static. This might be termed unconscious mind or thought. Electric or static magnetism expresses itself through the medium of friction, and is influenced in material theories by the state of atmosphere or climatic conditions. You will find that by handling the claim of electricity, static or electric magnetism, in cases of skin disease, eczema, deafness, irritation, etc., you will meet with much more success than ordinarily. On page 100 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy quotes Mesmer as follows: “There exists a mutual influence between the celestial bodies, the earth, and animated things. Animal bodies are susceptible to the influence of this agent, disseminating itself through the substance of the nerves.” Now, if this is so in a material sense, you and I are in a position to determine just where this power or influence arises, because we know that there is nothing in material phenomena but what comes from individual thought. Therefore our remedy is knowing the truth and denying the error in our consciousness, thereby handling the claim where it originates—in individual thought. We must deny that the earth’s magnetic currents, so-called, can control or govern man or regulate his life and prospects. Deny animal attraction and material substance. The argument of sex, and all pertaining thereto, has its foundation in the belief of electricity, friction, etc.

On page 124 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy tells us, “Adhesion, cohesion and attraction are properties of Mind.” I have seen a quotation purporting to come from the pen of our Leader as follows, “Electricity is the thought essence which forms the link between matter and mortal mind. God, the divine Mind, self-existent, self-perpetuating and self-energizing, is the great universal reservoir or dynamo, and the thoughts which flow from such a fountain, constituting a complete expression of the infinite Mind, Spirit, are thus shown to be inseparably linked with the Principle of Life, and action to be the manifestation of force or power.”

In the tenth Chapter of Luke we read, “And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name. And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

And in “Science and Health,” on page 252, we read, “A knowledge of error and of its operations must precede that understanding of Truth which destroys error, until the entire mortal, material error finally disappears, and the eternal verity, man created by and of Spirit, is understood and recognized as the true likeness of his Maker.”

And are we not now beginning to gain some understanding of that which has heretofore appeared to mankind as a mystery, thereby gaining a victory over what has appeared to be the inevitable and unavoidable? It is mysticism which has given mesmerism and hypnotism and spiritualism the power over mortals, which they seem to have had. And now the guise is being stripped from the face of all these seeming unexplainable things by the truth of spiritual perception and understanding. “False systems resort to mysticism in their activities in order to hold the awed respect of otherwise sane and normal men and women, and it is the universal sense of awe and fear of what is not understood, which constitutes and maintains the supposed power possessed by them with which to work mischief. When the mysticism is gone, their power is gone and your work is done.”

Jesus said: “I beheld Satan as lightning.” He could have said, and undoubtedly meant: “I beheld Satan as electricity,” for that was about the only form of electricity the world was familiar with in those days. From what Mrs. Eddy has written on page 293 in “Science and Health,” above quoted, or referred to, it is evident that our Leader knew the true import of this saying of Jesus, and she evidently recognized that to successfully meet its claims to power, it is of vital importance to comprehend the modus operandi and the natural laws of this so-called force.

Physicians and physical scientists have quite generally adopted the theory which explains away matter, declaring it to be merely a condition of electric magnetism. Now we know in truth that the creations of God are positive. The only positive, eternal and vital force in the realm of the real is God and His creation, man and the universe. Therefore man is the positive of creation. Mortal mind, in its material theories, in its attempted counterfeit of the spiritual or real, creates matter, including man, as the negative pole of electrical force. The opposite of the positive of Spirit must be the negative of matter. All matter, then, under the law of reversal, becomes negative electricity. This condition, being the outcome of a mind which does not exist, becomes mindless. Therefore to take away from matter or electricity the destructive and creative force with which error would endow it, we must recognize it as mindless, godless and Christless, as to quality or quantity. Electricity cannot show itself without magnetism. Electricity is the reaction or reflection on a lower plane of the agency called magnetism. Electricity is magnetism, and magnetism is the so-called life of matter. Magnetism is the mindless counterfeit of Life, God. In mindless subservience to intelligence, this so-called natural law of magnetism or electricity renders possible our modern telephone, electric light, radio, and so on. Under proper control, this tremendous so-called power, available to man through this agency, becomes as “harmless as a dove.”

In a hate “jag,” or a fear or jealousy “drunk,” you destroy an irreplaceable part of yourself

A member of this Association some time ago mailed me a copy of Hearst’s International Cosmopolitan Magazine of May, 1933, in which appeared an interview with Dr. George W. Crile of Cleveland, Ohio, one of the most noted physicians and surgeons in the U.S., which interview contained the following interesting and more or less startling statements, outlining the attitude, in some respects, of the medical fraternity, in connection with some phases of electricity in connection with mortal man. This is more or less lengthy, but I trust it will be interesting and informative enough, from the standpoint of the materialists, to warrant the time it takes to give it to you:

“Worry kills man. Fear kills man. Hate kills man. Jealousy kills man.

“Man doesn’t do these things with his intellect: he worries, fears, hates and is jealous with his organs. Man must learn, on peril of death, to intellectualize his fears and emotions. No longer do plagues kill man—infections and emotions do this job! Man must now learn how to rest; the perpetual worrier in this high-speed age faces physical ill health. Man is a mechanism, run by electricity and chemical reaction—a machine made up of twenty-eight trillion electric cells. Every one of these twenty-eight trillion electric cells is a tiny wet battery with negative and positive poles. The brain cells are the most positive, and the liver cells are the most negative. The greater the difference in electrical potential—the difference between positive and negative—the greater the energy. Fatigue or stress of emotions cuts down this difference; rest and sleep restore it. Electricity keeps the flame of life burning in the cell, and the cell—oxidation—supplies the electricity used in operating the animal. Emotions—love, hate, fear, jealousy—are but stimulating processes, loosing currents of electricity through certain paths. Now, this, in simple terms, means that emotions, let loose, are like supercharges of electricity—they use up the precious energy of man; they destroy and in the end they can kill.

“Now, the two great electric magnets shooting off power are the glands near the brain and those next to the kidneys. The brain is the positive pole and the liver the negative pole. Adrenaline, excreted by the suprarenal bodies next to the kidneys, fires or vitiates a person’s energies during the flares of hate, jealousy, fear, anger, according to the condition of the organs. Today, with the death-sweeping plagues entirely under control, man’s greatest foes are infections and his own emotions. Fears, hates, worries, jealousies—cause these glands next to the kidneys to throw off this unnecessary energy, to use up, to burn up cells, to destroy the body itself. Prolonged states of emotions may consume as many as one hundred thousand brain cells—that is, in a hate ‘jag’ or a fear or jealousy ‘drunk,’ you destroy an irreplaceable part of yourself. Man, freed by modern science from plagues, can have no assistance in fighting his battles against his emotions. A man cannot fear, he cannot hate, he cannot worry intellectually; he does these things with all his organs. There is not one group of phenomena for the acute fear of the president of a bank in a financial crash, and another for the criminal who suddenly faces the naked probability of the penitentiary, or one for the patient who unexpectedly finds he has a cancer, or for the hunter when he shoots his first big game. Just as the body, as a whole, is damaged against the chemical defense against infection, so the emotions,—fear, worry, hate, jealousy—affect every cell of the body. If man can learn to harness the hidden electricity of Niagara, can he not learn to control, to some degree at least—the electric battery in his own body?”

Thus we begin to see what an important part materialists are giving the thought of electricity in connection with matter and material existence. Since the mention of this subject at our last Association meeting, I have heard of several instances of healing of conditions which heretofore had refused to yield to treatment, through the handling of this claim of electricity. Each one of us should know daily that man is the positive of Spirit; that man cannot be negatively electrified; that man is the positive expression of the one and only force or power; that the great creative and promulgating dynamo of infinite Spirit is here and now expressed through man, and that there are no negative forces operative to deny and nullify the positive activities and manifestations of Truth. Handle the argument of electricity, negative electrification, etc., in case of friction in the home, difficulties in your church, in your business relations, etc. Friction is the foundation for electricity which disrupts the calm spiritual existence, unless met and handled. Know that “the calm, strong currents of true spirituality,” as Mrs. Eddy has put it in “Science and Health,” are the only true and life-giving currents, and that these currents of life and love cannot be interfered with, disrupted or nullified by the arguments of electricity. Matter is no obstacle to Truth. Truth is infinite, everywhere present and is ever active. Watch your innermost thoughts, lest they be such as engender friction, etc. Friction is mental, and friction causes the phenomena of electricity.

The time for closing has come. I hope I have not wearied you with too much talking. Christian Science is vast. It is exhaustless. But, while the understanding of being involves eternal spiritual unfoldment in individual consciousness, let us not be confused nor discouraged by its vastness and its infinity. Let us rather rejoice in the fact that at least we have found the way; that we have entered the straight and narrow path, and let us resolve to hold to that path and not be led into the by-ways of materiality by the lures and wiles of a better road, an easier way. Nothing is gained in the world without struggle, sacrifice and faithfulness and, likewise, nothing is accomplished in the struggle for spiritual bliss, without work and devotion and consecration to that which we know to be the true way in Christian Science.

During the past few years I have been presented with the question as to what attitude we as Christian Scientists should take in regard to smoking, drinking light wines, beers, etc. Among Christian Scientists I have been told that even Christian Scientists indulge in these, what they call harmless pastimes, on the ground that one must avoid being narrow and bigoted; that one should be broad, and that a cigarette now and then, or glass of wine or beer now and then, will not only not harm one but will make one a good fellow and will attract others to Christian Science, who might not otherwise be interested. Well, when they come to me with that kind of stuff, they have come to the wrong man, if it is comfort and sympathy with their views that they want. I am not going into this subject now. I may next year. It is too late to go into it thoroughly. But I will say briefly, that if this Christian Science movement ever is lost to the world, it will be lost because of just that kind of people who have gotten into our movement. When they speak to me about an innocent cigarette, a little sip of light wine and beer, they are talking to the wrong man, because I have gone down the line with all three in my time, and there is not a man, woman or child on the face of the earth who can tell me anything about cigarettes, light wines, beers or any other kind of intoxicating drink. I know them all and thank God, through Christian Science, they hold no lures or snares for me; and the man who deceives himself with the alibi that they are innocent and harmless, is not only fooling himself, but if he happens to be connected in any way with Christian Science, this is doing more than anything else to empty our churches and drive people away from this saving Christ. Of late I have heard many complaints throughout the United States of a falling-off in church attendances. I see for this but one reason, and that is the so-called Christian Scientist who has not enough regard for his Church, to say nothing of his own demonstration, to have overcome and put out of his life the use of these useless and harmful stimulants. Doctors and physical scientists now are telling us that a confirmed cigarette smoker is morally dull, and is almost invariably bound to be dishonest. You can always test or judge anything by its ultimate. I have seen men just as intoxicated on light wines and beers, as on whisky. The ultimate of all of them is the same. And there is your answer. There is no halfway in Christian Science. A thing is either good—wholly good, or it is bad—wholly bad.

Now I must say good-bye. I want to thank you all for your attendance here today, and to express the hope that, when we meet again, each one of you will have accomplished something along the line of spiritual advancement as a result of our today’s meeting. You may never know what your success means to me, and I trust you will never hesitate to give to me the encouragement and help which your individual demonstrations bring me. I always love to hear of your triumphs and successes, because I feel more or less responsible for your growth in grace and your material happiness and harmony. So, always remember that your advancement in Christian Science, and the demonstration thereof, means as much to me as it does to you, and that your good work might help me over a rough place in the road. I would not have you believe that even a teacher has not now and then his trials and tribulations, and I would not minimize to you the great joy and comfort your individual successes bring me. So, do not let our work here this afternoon end here. Let this be the beginning of new accomplishments and new efforts, which shall last throughout the coming twelve months. If we have been given anything here today that is worthwhile, let us cling to it and make it our own by individual, daily demonstration. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

From 1932 and 1935 Association Addresses

Animal magnetism

I have on my desk a letter from a student which reads as follows: “My one big question is about animal magnetism, mesmerism and mental malpractice. What are they? How do they work? How do you recognize them in your experience?—and, of course, how do you protect yourself from them?”

In “Science and Health,” on page 103, Mrs. Eddy says, “As named in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal mind.” “Magnetism” is defined in the dictionaries as “1. Property, quality or state, of being magnetic; manifestation of that force in nature which is seen in a magnet. 2. The science of magnetic phenomena. 3. Power to attract; power to excite the feelings and gain the affection. 4. Hypnotism.” One definition of “animal” in the dictionaries is, “Pertaining to the soul or will.” Animal is in reality derived from the Latin word ANIMUS, meaning mind. So while the word animal in one sense refers to animate matter or animal creatures, the basic meaning of the word “animal,” that from which it is derived, and whereby it receives the definition of mind or will, as above given, is mind. So the word animal, in its last analysis, refers and pertains to the mental rather than to the physical. So the term animal magnetism has nothing to do with matter. In fact it leads away from matter into the mental, and gives us a clear and succinct statement, that matter is not material, but is the mental or the outcome of mortal mind’s so-called power to attract. In the dictionaries animal magnetism is used interchangeably with mesmerism, just as Mrs. Eddy has used these two terms. So with the understanding that the term animal magnetism means the power of the mortal mind or will to attract or to deceive, we can begin to see why Mrs. Eddy used this term in her designation of all evil.

Hypnotism and mesmerism

In this definition of animal magnetism, as quoted above from “Science and Health,” Mrs. Eddy also calls animal magnetism “hypnotism.” Material existence is a state of hypnotism or mesmerism. Hypnotism may be said to be the so-called influence or operation of one mortal mind over another, while mesmerism is self-inflicted. Hypnotism includes mesmerism, while mesmerism may not include hypnotism. You and I admit into our consciousness so-called carnal thoughts, which come to us from a supposititious mind which exists outside ourselves. These thoughts which you and I admit into our consciousness are objectified as matter, sin, sickness, etc. The matter, the sin and the sickness which you and I experience in our so-called material existence, or with which we come in contact, is self-created. This self-created material existence is a state of mesmerism which may also be called hypnotism. We are self-mesmerized into believing in a material existence. This self-mesmerism might be said to be also a state of self-hypnotism. Matter does not exist. You and I, in our concept of materiality, like the man in the insane ward who thinks he is George Washington, are just self-mesmerized.

Now, if one person were to willfully take possession of the mentality of another and, through the influence of manipulated and directed thought, were to direct the thinking of that person, that would be hypnotism in its primitive state, and would not involve mesmerism. Mesmerism may be said more specifically to be self-inflicted, whereas hypnotism may be said to be the willful control of one mortal mind over another mortal mind.

Mental malpractice

Mental malpractice includes all wrong thinking, and may be detected readily by anyone who understands the teachings of Christian Science. All wrong thinking is mental malpractice, and there is no one on the face of this earth who is not in some degree a mental malpractitioner. As soon as you and I cease to be mental malpractitioners, we will cease to exist in the flesh. Anything in thought, statement or conclusion, which does not square with the spiritual teachings of Christian Science, is mental malpractice. It is a form of mental malpractice to believe that we live in a material body. We say we do not believe that we live in matter, but if we knew that we did not, we would not be conscious of a material body, and as long as we are conscious of a material body, we are malpractitioners.

There is a distinction, of course, between mental malpractice and malicious mental malpractice. Malicious mental malpractice is the use of enlightened thought, intentionally directed to do personal harm or injury. Hate, malice, revenge and the like would come under malicious mental malpractice. The remedy for animal magnetism is Christian Science in all its branches. Every right thought you entertain, is handling a certain degree of animal magnetism. If you are in a quandary as to what animal magnetism is, consult the five physical senses. They will furnish you with a complete answer to the question as to what animal magnetism is. Everything that you see, feel, taste, smell and hear is your answer to the question of what animal magnetism is. It is also your answer to what mesmerism or hypnotism is, because the material state is not a state of matter, it is a state of mesmerism or hypnotism. Every thought which does not square with the teachings of Christian Science, is mental malpractice.

Love more

No one who knows how to think in Christian Science need long be in doubt as to what mental malpractice is, nor need he be long in doubt as to how to detect it. Anyone who knows that twice five are ten, is not long in doubt as to how to handle twice five are eleven. You protect yourself from twice five are eleven by your understanding that twice five are ten. You protect yourself from hate by loving. You protect yourself from poverty and lack by giving. You protect yourself from the belief of man as indwelling in matter or a limited body, by understanding that man is expression and not suppression or depression. You protect yourself from the belief that there is life, truth and intelligence in matter, by the understanding that “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.” You protect yourself from the shafts of malicious malpractice by loving, by kindness and by seeing your brother man as a child of God, incapable of hating or doing harm. You never work against a malicious mental malpractitioner. You love him. You can’t love him if you fear him or hate him. You love him. To fear him is to make that real, which you would try to see as unreal. The only place an enemy or a hater can exist, is in your own consciousness. You never would be conscious of, or become the victim of, hate or malice or malicious mental malpractice, if the possibility of such a thing did not exist in your own consciousness; that is, unless error existed in your own thought. Don’t ever worry about a malpractitioner or a hater. Be concerned as to your own thinking and correct that, and you will never suffer from another’s wrong thought, no matter how evil or hateful those thoughts may claim to be.

1941 Association Address

Arguing metaphysics

I would like to reiterate what I stressed so forcibly in your class work, that is, the inadvisability of getting into any discussion or argument with other Christian Scientists on metaphysical subjects or points. I have never known of any good coming to one through the indiscriminate discussion of metaphysics with other Christian Scientists. I do not include, of course, in this broad statement, the duty of a practitioner to instruct his patients along the right line, or the explanation of Christian Science to those who come to you for help and light; but to get into discussions with other students of Christian Science on topics which are not easily explainable, is a poor policy, for unless you are well fortified in your understanding and in the use of references to bolster up your point, you may get in a jam. Recently I had a letter from a member of this Association, stating that she had gotten into a discussion of this nature, and I rather judged from her letter that the discussion might have assumed the proportions of an argument or a dispute, in which she came off second best. That is too bad, because if you will follow my advice, you will leave the unfoldment of divine metaphysics in the consciousness of others to God’s directing, and if others do not seem to have your sense of metaphysics on certain points, it is better to leave the unfoldment in their consciousness to Principle and not try to bring enlightenment through argument, especially if you are not well enough fortified on the points in question to carry the day.

The woman in the Apocalypse

The letter above referred to, from the student, contains the following statement: “I have allowed myself to be drawn into a controversy recently, and consequently find it necessary to come to you for assurance on two subjects. The one that has me probably most confused, is an article in the September Journal on the Apocalyptic Woman. I was asked to read this and express my opinion about it.” To allow oneself to be drawn into a controversy on this subject was not wise, as it is a moot subject, and one which each individual must work out for himself. Whether or not Mrs. Eddy, personally, is the woman spoken of in the Apocalypse must be decided by each individual, as the light unfolds in his own consciousness. Jesus, Mrs. Eddy points out, was the son of Mary. The Christ was the son of God. Jesus referred to himself as the “son of man.” Whether or not the personal Mrs. Eddy could be considered the woman in the Apocalypse, might be subject to the same reasoning that defines Jesus as the son of Mary, and Christ as the son of God. In my Association address of 1938, I went somewhat at length into this subject, and I shall repeat today some of the things I said at that time in this connection, as follows:

The Two Witnesses

Now, I want briefly, to take up that part of our textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” which has reference to the Apocalyptic Woman, or the woman in the Apocalypse, which, naturally, comes to the forefront in considering the “two witnesses.” The chapter in “Science and Health” in which this reference is made, begins with a reference to a passage in the tenth chapter of the Book of Revelation, wherein St. John writes: “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth.”

In conjunction with the above from the Book of Revelation, I will quote from “First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” where, on page 114, writing of the Christian Science textbook, Mrs. Eddy says:

“My first writings on Christian Science began with notes on the Scriptures. I consulted no other author and read no other book but the Bible for about three years. What I wrote had a strange coincidence or relationship with the light of revelation and solar light. I could not write these notes after sunset. All thoughts in the line of Scriptural interpretation would leave me until the rising of the sun. Then the influx of divine interpretation would pour in upon my spiritual sense as gloriously as the sunlight on the material senses. It was not myself, but the divine power of Truth and Love, infinitely above me, which dictated ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.’ I have been learning the higher meaning of this book since writing it.”

Here we have Mrs. Eddy’s statement that “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” is not of Mrs. Eddy’s writing or dictating. She attributes the authorship exclusively to God and takes no credit to herself for having written that book. Then, on page 115 of “Miscellany,” she continues:

“I should blush to write of ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’ as I have, were it of human origin, and were I, apart from God, its author. But, as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies of heaven in divine metaphysics, I cannot be super-modest in my estimate of the Christian Science textbook.”

And on page 311 of “Miscellaneous Writings” she has said, “The works I have written on Christian Science contain absolute Truth, and my necessity was to tell it; therefore I did this even as a surgeon who wounds to heal. I was a scribe under orders; and who can refrain from transcribing what God indites, and ought not that one to take the cup, drink all of it, and give thanks?”

You will note from the last few quotations, that Mrs. Eddy divorces herself completely from any personal responsibility in giving the world what she has included in her writings, especially in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” She takes to herself no credit for the contents of her books, further than to declare her faithfulness in transcribing what Mind had put into her consciousness. She was a scribe, she says, simply recording what had come to her from Principle. Therefore, whatever is contained in Mrs. Eddy’s writings we can assuredly ascribe to God, and God alone. Consequently, if we are to assume that the “little book” referred to in the Book of Revelation is exemplified in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” we can look upon this book without any sense of personality attached to it. We, of course, must not for a moment lose sight of Mrs. Eddy’s position as the intermediary through which this light has come to us, nor should we forget the part she has played, and the sacrifices she has made, to bring this light to you and me, but we must watch lest we let a personal and idolatrous sense enter and darken the spiritual picture which she has painted for us in all her writings.

In our approach to this spiritual and idealistic concept of that which the Revelator has included in the Book of Revelation, the spiritual fact must be ever uppermost in thought. We must never, in any of our work in Christian Science in connection with the Bible, let confusion enter thought through materialistic symbolism and mysticism. Many people allow themselves to become bogged in the mire of mysticism and darkness, in their endeavor to explain and justify both “Science and Health” and the Bible by an interchange of material symbolisms. You will notice that Mrs. Eddy indulges very sparingly in the practice of explaining Christian Science through Biblical symbolisms. Only in the chapter on “The Apocalypse,” does she occasionally make such comparisons, and then only in spiritual terms.

In explaining, for example, this verse in which reference is made to “a little book,” which begins, “and I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud,” she defines the angel as a “message which comes from God.” A message from God would be spiritual enlightenment or spiritual intuition—divine ideas. This message which comes from God, she states, “prefigures divine Science.” The truth coming to mankind through Christian Science is the message which comes from God. The cloud referred to in that sentence is the materiality in human consciousness, which makes the message at first obscure and difficult to comprehend. The rainbow upon its head is the “bright promise,” to which Mrs. Eddy refers. As human consciousness begins to comprehend the truth of this message, the promise begins to be fulfilled, and the bright effulgence of this divine light becomes clearer and clearer as human consciousness is divested of its error. “His face was as it were the sun,” she explains as follows: “When you look it fairly in the face, you can heal by its means, and it has for you a light above the sun, for ‘God is the light thereof.’” The pillars of fire, which are described as the feet of the angels, or message from God, she likens to Truth and Love, for does not Love and Truth consume with devouring intenseness all the dross of mortal mind? Then of its reference to “a little book,” and “his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,” she writes: “This angel had in his hand ‘a little book,’ open for all to read and understand. 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.”

And then, to emphasize the fact that “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” must be the book referred to by the Revelator, she continues: “Go and take the little book. Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. . . . Mortals, obey the heavenly evangel. Take divine Science. Read this book from beginning to end. Study it, ponder it. It will be indeed sweet at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter.”

Now, I am quoting all of these things to bring out the fact that “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” is the “little book” referred to in Revelation; that Mrs. Eddy recognized and acknowledged it as such, but that at the same time Mrs. Eddy modestly and scientifically refuses to give credit to anyone as the author of this book, but God. The impersonal nature of the situation or incident is what I am trying to impress on you in leading up to the “Two Witnesses,” and the “woman in the Apocalypse.”

There are but two clear references in the Bible to the “Two Witnesses,” and there is but one reference in all of Mrs. Eddy’s writings to the “Two Witnesses.” The first reference in the Bible, bearing on this point, is actually not to the “Two Witnesses,” but to the “Two Olive Trees,” which afterwards in Revelation are referred to as the “Two Witnesses.” In the fourth Chapter of Zechariah reference to the two olive trees is prophetically made as follows:

“And the angel that talked with me . . . said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof: And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand before the Lord of the whole earth.”

The Lord of the whole earth is, obviously, God. In Chapter 11 of Revelation, verses 3 and 4, we read: “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.” Thus do we find Biblical authority for linking the “Two Olive Trees” with the “Two Witnesses.”

On page 346 of “First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” under the title of “Mrs. Eddy’s Successor,” we are given the following:

“In a recent interview which appeared in the columns of the New York Herald, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, stated that her successor would be a man. Various conjectures have arisen as to whether she had in mind any particular person when the statement was made. Mrs. Eddy gave the following to the Associated Press, May 16, 1901:

“I did say that a man would be my future successor. By this I did not mean any man today on earth.

“‘Science and Health’ makes it plain to all Christian Scientists that the manhood and womanhood of God have already been revealed in a degree through Christ Jesus and Christian Science, His two witnesses. What remains to lead on the centuries and reveal my successor, is man in the image and likeness of the Father-Mother God, man the generic term for mankind.”

So far as the “Two Witnesses” are concerned, we have our answer in plain, unimpeachable terms: “Christ Jesus and Christian Science, His two witnesses.” The Christ which Jesus proclaimed, constituted that quality in him which perpetuated his position as one of the witnesses. Christian Science, on the other hand, not only perpetuating the Christ, but impersonalizing the Christ, furnishes the other witness, free from any sense of humanity or personality, the impersonal Christ. Now, to be clear on the impersonal nature of this second witness to God, we must not only bear in mind Mrs. Eddy’s statement that she was not the author of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” thereby placing the authorship in Mind, but we must also go further and understand what she says in regard to the “woman in the Apocalypse,” which many Christian Scientists have concluded is Mrs. Eddy, thereby denominating her or designating her as one of the witnesses. In Revelation 12:1, we read this: “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.” In her explanation of this brief paragraph, Mrs. Eddy includes the following (S&H p. 561): “John saw the human and divine coincidence, shown in the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life and its demonstration,—reducing to human perception and understanding the Life which is God. In divine revelation, material and corporeal selfhood disappear, and the spiritual idea is understood.

“The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea. The Revelator symbolizes Spirit by the sun. As Elias presented the idea of the fatherhood of God, which Jesus afterwards manifested, so the Revelator completed this figure with woman, typifying the spiritual idea of God’s motherhood. The moon is under her feet. The spiritual idea is crowned with twelve stars. The twelve tribes of Israel with all mortals,—separated by belief from man’s divine origin and the true idea,—will through much tribulation yield to the activities of the divine Principle of man in the harmony of Science.”

Here Mrs. Eddy pictures one of the witnesses, Christ Jesus, as expressing the fatherhood of God, or the true sense of manhood, while the motherhood of God, or the true sense of womanhood, is brought out by the Revelator in the “woman clothed with the sun.” The sun here expresses the full effulgence of spirituality which is brought out in the “little book,” or Christian Science, which Mrs. Eddy designates as the second witness, the impersonal witness.

You see, all the way through Mrs. Eddy symbolizes “the woman in the Apocalypse.” She does not personalize her. She does not, in any of her writings, put herself in the place of the “woman in the Apocalypse.” Just as the Christ is impersonal, so the woman in the Apocalypse is impersonal. In other words, Mrs. Eddy is no more the woman in the Apocalypse than Jesus was the Christ.

In Revelation 12 we read, “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.” This passage of Scripture she impersonalizes most emphatically in her statement: “Also the spiritual idea is typified by a woman in travail, waiting to be delivered of her sweet promise, but remembering no more her sorrow for joy that the birth goes on; for great is the idea and the travail portentous.”

Any question as to whether Mrs. Eddy considered herself as the “woman in the Apocalypse” is fully answered, it seems to me, on page 561 and 562 of “Science and Health,” above quoted. And thus we find that the two witnesses, instead of embodying any sense of materiality or personality, exemplify the motherhood and the fatherhood of God, or the spiritual idea of the man and woman which, in the light of divine Science, merge into one conscious reflection of the infinite. It is most evident that the Christ, exemplified in Christ Jesus on the one hand, and the woman in the Apocalypse on the other, constitute the two witnesses, free from any sense of personality. In this connection the following from the pen of Mrs. Eddy is important:

“No person understands Christian Science who regards a corporeal man or woman as Christ. The very nature, promise and conclusion of God and man is sullied by such a thought. Christ is incorporeal. Jesus, the prophet of Galilee, the man in flesh, was not his better part of Christ apart from fleshliness; Christ was his Godlike nature that never entered the material, temporal, or visible to human sight—that, as the Master saith, dwelt forever in heaven. Christ was the son of God; Jesus was the son of Mary; hence the distinction he made in alluding to himself as the son of God and the son of man. This dual nature divine metaphysics clearly explains and human nature must not becloud the interpretation of God and man.”

As the Christ must constitute the foundation upon which our concept of the two witnesses is built, the above statement that, “No person understands Christian Science who regards a corporeal man or woman as Christ” is most applicable to the case at hand. On page 565 of “Science and Health” we read this: “This immaculate idea, represented first by man and, according to the Revelator, last by woman, will baptize with fire; and the fiery baptism will burn up the chaff of error with the fervent heat of Truth and Love.”

It seems to me that the whole question as to whether Mrs. Eddy is the woman spoken of in the Apocalypse, is answered in the following from page 308 in “Miscellaneous Writings”: “Whosoever looks to me personally for his health or holiness, mistakes. He that by reason of human love or hatred or any other cause clings to my material personality, greatly errs, stops his own progress and loses the path to health, happiness and heaven. The Scriptures and Christian Science reveal ‘the way,’ and personal revelators will take their proper place in history, but will not be deified.”

Since writing the above, I have read the editorial by George Shaw Cook in the Christian Science Journal for August of this year, which not only corroborates what I have given you, but which uses many of the references contained herein. This seems to be a point which at this particular time needs elucidation and clarification, and that is why I have gone into it as thoroughly as I have.

Now, I am not going to draw any conclusions for you. I have given you what the Bible and Mrs. Eddy herself have to say on this point, and you may formulate your own decisions. However, I would advise that if you are ever tempted to be drawn into any discussion or argument on this point, you be pretty well provided with the references I have used herein, as well as the applications I have made of them. As a matter of fact, I would not allow myself to get into any discussions as to this, or to be cowed by the assertion that if you do not agree with some other person’s viewpoint, you can never become a good Christian Scientist. What Mrs. Eddy herself has said and written on this, and what I have quoted from her, is about all you need for your own satisfaction and decision. What someone else may think or say on the subject is of little moment.

1944 Association Address

More on the Apocalyptic Woman

Here is something that might be of interest to you in connection with the “Apocalyptic Woman” which we took up quite at length last year. From the 36th edition of “Science and Health,” which came out in 1898, to the 280th edition which was brought out in 1903, there appears the following: “The woman in the Apocalypse is the vignette and stands for the spiritual idea, which illustrates the Science of God and man,—divine Principle and its divine idea.” A dictionary definition of “vignette” is: “A picture, illustration, or a depiction in words.”

After the 1903 edition of “Science and Health,” on page 561:22 the following appeared: “The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and idea. The Revelator symbolizes Spirit by the sun. The spiritual idea is clad with the radiance of spiritual Truth, and matter is put under her feet.” Much has been written and much said about the “Apocalyptic Woman,” but the whole story is told above and need confuse no one. It is clear that the “Apocalyptic Woman” is symbolic and refers to no individual. It has to do with spiritual symbolism and consequently could not include any trace of materiality. The “Apocalyptic Woman” could not be Mrs. Eddy, any more than Jesus could be the Christ.

Death

The same letter from the student from which I have quoted above, also contained the following:

“A discussion was occasioned by the article in the April Journal of 1918 by Mrs. Eddy on ‘Life.’ In this article Mrs. Eddy says, ‘No change has been wrought when we say, ‘My friend has just died;’ that friend is saying, in the full consciousness of existence and with its same surroundings,—‘I never died. It was but a dream I had; for life is going on with me the same as before. I am not spirit; yet I am as much flesh and bones as I ever were [was]; the only change to me is, I cannot communicate with my friends,—and why? Because they do not understand me now. They call me spirit, but I am not; they say I died, but I did not; they do not know what I am, where I am, or what I am pursuing. I shall not be spirit until I lose all limits; they have lost their evidences of me through their personal senses, because they have said I changed, I died; their mistaken views of life have parted us; their belief that life ended with me, or took upon itself a new form, has prevented their understanding the reality of my present existence,—hence our separation through these opposite beliefs and our opposite conditions as the result thereof. Further communication between us is impossible, until their belief changes through the footsteps that mine has done and becomes like mine. This change will be named death, but that is their belief of it, not ours who have rent the veil that hides the mystery of a moment.’

“Yes, we shall know each other there; we shall love and be loved; we shall never lose our identity, but find it more and more in its order, beauty, and goodness.”

The writer of the letter goes on to say that the gentleman with whom she had the discussion, said that Mrs. Eddy never intended that this be printed. “He argues,” she says, “that we are not conscious of the same material surroundings, same rugs, same books, same chairs but, if after the experience of death there is still need of these things we would have a different creation, but to believe that we would still be sitting in a green chair in the same room, would be to accept spiritualism.”

Now, this is a subject which we have gone into many times, not only in class but in various association meetings, and is one that a student should be clear enough on to be able to answer any questions in regard thereto. Don’t allow yourself to get into a panic or become doubtful every time some Christian Scientist makes statements which disagree with what you know to be true. Christian Science is not a matter of opinion. It is not a matter of speculation. It is a Science. It is logical, and if one of the statements of Christian Science is true, all must be true. That is, if you take any fundamental truth in Christian Science and build up your conclusions and deductions on the basis of that statement, you cannot go wrong.

The article on “Life” by Mrs. Eddy, from which the above quotation was taken, was printed in the Journal of April, 1918. The article is authentic, and whether or not Mrs. Eddy intended that it should appear in the Journal is entirely beside the point. There are many things that Mrs. Eddy wrote which have not been printed, for many reasons. There are many things which Mrs. Eddy wrote which she did not want printed, because she did not feel that the world, or the field, was ready for them. Whether or not the article on “Life” might be one of those articles, I do not know, but there is no question about the authenticity of the article or the correctness of it, and because it might not agree with what someone thinks on the subject of death, is no good reason why its contents should not be considered as a correct guide for all Christian Scientists. Furthermore, Mrs. Eddy has said no more in that article on “Life,” concerning the so-called phenomenon of death, than she has said in many other places in her writings. And again, if what Mrs. Eddy says in the article on “Life” is not correct, then Mrs. Eddy’s teaching as to the mental nature of matter is not correct.

As I have said before, Science is not only scientific, but it is logical, and if one statement is true, there can be no mistake in conclusions based upon that statement, even though our search takes us into the question of death. One cannot understand the truth about the condition of mortals after the experience called death, until one understands what Christian Science teaches as to the mental nature of matter, and, on the other hand, no one can understand what Mrs. Eddy teaches as to the mental nature of matter without being perfectly clear as to existence after death. If what Mrs. Eddy wrote on the subject of death in her article on “Life” is not correct, then what she has given us as to the mental nature of matter is incorrect, and we might just as well quit and call it a day. There is no other conclusion to be reached than that outlined in “Life,” if what she teaches as to matter is true.

On page 291 of “Science and Health” we find the following: “‘In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.’ So we read in Ecclesiastes. This text has been transformed into the popular proverb, ‘As the tree falls, so it must lie.’ As man falleth asleep, so shall he awake. As death findeth mortal man, so shall he be after death, until probation and growth shall effect the needed change.” Now, that is perfectly plain and, in effect, is exactly what Mrs. Eddy says in the article on “Life.”

In the Journal of June, 1886, there appeared an article by Mrs. Eddy in part as follows:

“In no subject is there more interest than in the future life, and religious believers and leaders are often asked about it. One inquirer phrased her question in this way: ‘After the change called death takes place, do we meet our friends who have gone before, or does life continue in thought only, as in a dream?’

“Man is not annihilated, nor does he lose his identity by passing through the belief called death. After this momentary belief passes from the erring mortal mind, man finds himself still in a conscious state of existence. He learns that he has but passed through an extreme moment of mortal fear, to awaken with thoughts and being as material as before.

“Mental spiritualization is not attained by physical death, but by a conscious union with God. When we are on the same plane of conscious existence with those gone before, we shall be able to communicate with them and recognize them. When we have done our work here so well that it needs not to be done over again, the death change increases our joys and our means of advancement.”

On page 42 of “Miscellaneous Writings,” in answer to the following question, “After the change called death takes place, do we meet those gone before?—or does life continue in thought only as a dream?” Mrs. Eddy writes:

“Man is not annihilated, nor does he lose his identity, by passing through the belief called death. After the momentary belief of dying passes from mortal mind, this mind is still in a conscious state of existence; and the individual has but passed through a moment of extreme mortal fear, to awaken with thoughts, and being, as material as before. ‘Science and Health’ clearly states that spiritualization of thought is not attained by the death of the body, but by a conscious union with God. When we shall have passed the ordeal called death, or destroyed this last enemy, and shall come upon the same plane of conscious existence with those gone before, then shall we be able to communicate with and to recognize them.”

On page 429 of “Science and Health” we find the following: “Mortals waken from the dream of death with bodies unseen by those who think that they bury the body.”

Mrs. Eddy has said and written many other things bearing on this subject, but the above are sufficient for our present needs. All of the above quotations from Mrs. Eddy tie in together in one harmonious whole with her teaching regarding the mental nature of matter. Matter, we have learned, or should have learned, is but the objective state of our own material consciousness. What you and I see, feel, taste, smell, and hear, is objectified consciousness, and that objectified consciousness is strictly and distinctly individual. It makes no difference how many people may see the same thing; it makes no difference how many people, for instance, may see this table at which I am sitting; as far as you are individually concerned, this table is the objectified state of your own individual consciousness. The only place this table exists, as far as you are concerned, is in your own consciousness. So you are not concerned as to what may be objectified in my consciousness, nor are you concerned as to what might be termed the objectified manifestation of universal thought or consciousness. In its last analysis existence, in all of its phases or varied manifestations, is individual.

On page 67 of “Retrospection and Introspection” Mrs. Eddy says, “. . . the lie (that is, matter) was, and is, collective as well as individual.” By that she means that no matter what collective thinking may accomplish in the line of objectified error, or matter, it can have no bearing on individual existence, until individual consciousness has accepted into thought the evidence of this collective or universal thinking, and then existence, or the consciousness of universal or collective thought, becomes strictly individual and loses its universal aspect. So in its last analysis, whatever you and I behold in our universe, whatever you and I see, feel, taste, smell and hear, is decidedly the objectified state of our own thinking, and therein, and therein only, does salvation become individual.

As I have explained before, if Jesus’ so-called material existence, or world, had been the objectified manifestation of universal thought or collective thinking, Jesus never could have accomplished his ascension, until every individual on earth had ceased thinking materially and universal consciousness had become strictly and wholly spiritual. It was because the body and the material world of Jesus existed only in his individual consciousness, and was not dependent on the thinking of others, that Jesus was enabled to overcome the world and his body at the moment of his ascension, rather than being compelled to wait on the demonstration of others before he could enter heaven. The demonstration of Jesus at the time of his ascension, proved for all time that existence is strictly individual, and that the thinking of others has nothing to do with your and my individual worlds or with our demonstration over matter. You and I live in our own individual worlds, and these worlds are of our own creating. There are just as many worlds as there are people. Your material world is but the objectified manifestation of your own consciousness, and my material world is but the objectified manifestation of my own consciousness. Therefore our bodies, our worlds, everything, is individual.

Now, how does all this tie in with an explanation of the experience of death? Why, in this way. Material existence being strictly individual and the objectified manifestation of individual consciousness, mortals can never, as Mrs. Eddy tells us so definitely, become unconscious of matter until thought is spiritualized. In the quotation above from “Miscellaneous Writings” Mrs. Eddy says, “‘Science and Health’ clearly states that spiritualization of thought is not attained by the death of the body, but by a conscious union with God.” Therefore, if one’s body is the objectified manifestation of his own state of consciousness, and if death does not change that consciousness, it must be perfectly obvious that we do not lose our concept of material body by passing through death.

Body—material body—occupies space, only because of the human consciousness of matter. In Science there is no place, space, distance or location. Man exists in the infinitude of Mind. Therefore, matter, or body, seems to fill space or exist in space, only because of thought. At the moment of Jesus’ ascension, his thought or consciousness became wholly spiritual, and when that wholly spiritual state of consciousness was accomplished, Jesus was without a material body which seemed to take up space or exist in place or location. Space, place and localization are objects of illusions of the carnal mind just as is matter. Do away with the carnal in human consciousness and you do away with body, matter and place. Therefore materially speaking, you and I consume space or fill place only in our individual consciousness. As matter is an individual concept, there are, as I said, just as many tables here as there are human minds to conceive it. Each of you holds this table in consciousness as a distinctly individual concept of individual consciousness. The same may be said of the human body. Your concept of your body is individual. My concept of your body exists only in my individual consciousness. Therefore, when a so-called body is buried, all that is placed in the ground is the concept of body which the individuals who have been left behind hold in consciousness, and the concept of body held by those who think they bury the body, is not the same concept of body as that held by the individual who is thought to be dead. As Mrs. Eddy says in the quotation above from “Science and Health”: “Mortals waken from the dream of death with bodies unseen by those who think that they bury the body.”

Now, the reason that the body with which mortals awaken after death is unseen by those who think that they bury the body, is because those who bury the body think that the person whom they are burying has died, whereas, as a matter of metaphysical fact, the person who they think has died, has awakened from his dream of death with exactly the same material body he had before, because his body exists in his consciousness only, and death has done nothing to his consciousness. In fact, if one accepts the belief of death, he has made that a part of his human consciousness. On page 368 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says, “That Life (divine Life) is not contingent on bodily conditions is proved, when we learn that life (human life) and man (mortal man) survive this body. Neither evil, disease nor death can be spiritual, and the material belief in them disappears in the ratio of one’s spiritual growth.”

Quoting again from “Miscellaneous Writings” Mrs. Eddy says that, “After the momentary belief of dying passes from mortal mind, this mind is still in a conscious state of existence; and the individual has but passed through a moment of extreme mortal fear, to awaken with thoughts, and being, as material as before.” Now, if one awakens after death, “with thoughts and being, as material as before” death, and if matter and body are the objectified manifestations of individual thought, can there be any other conclusion but that after the experience of death we are bound to have as our objectified existence, the same surroundings as before? If the object of my consciousness before death includes a material home, material surroundings, material furniture, etc. (and the only place these objects exist is in consciousness), could I possibly be conscious after death of any other house, any other furniture or any other surroundings? If you will follow your metaphysical reasoning right through from the explanation of matter to the experience of death, you will never become confused as to this explanation of the experience after death, and you will never be tempted to believe that Mrs. Eddy’s explanation of death and its aftermath has anything in common with the belief of Spiritualism. In fact, the teachings of Christian Science as to death are not only the exact opposite of the teachings of Spiritualism, but they reveal the utter impossibility of Spiritualism and all it stands for. The reason we are not conscious of those who have been left behind after the experience of death, and the reason that those who have been left behind are not conscious of our material and bodily presence, is explained very clearly by Mrs. Eddy in the quotation from her article on “Life,” as follows:

“No change has been wrought when we say, ‘My friend has just died;’ that friend is saying in the full consciousness of existence and with its same surroundings,—‘I never died. It was but a dream I had; for life is going on with me the same as before. I am not spirit; yet I am as much flesh and bones as I ever were [was]; the only change to me is, I cannot communicate with my friends,—and why? Because they do not understand me now. They call me spirit, but I am not; they say I died, but I did not; they do not know what I am, where I am, or what I am pursuing. I shall not be spirit until I lose all limits; they have lost their evidences of me through their personal senses, because they have said I changed, I died; their mistaken views of life have parted us; their belief that life ended with me, or took upon itself a new form, has prevented their understanding the reality of my present existence,—hence our separation through these opposite beliefs and our opposite conditions as the result thereof. Further communication between us is impossible, until their belief changes through the footsteps that mine has done and becomes like mine. This change will be named death, but that is their belief of it, not ours who have rent the veil that hides the mystery of a moment.’”

Quite naturally, then, inasmuch as death does not change material existence in any way, after the experience called death we shall most certainly be able to recognize and communicate materially, just as we do now with each other, with those friends who have gone before. There is no change materially simply through the experience of death, and Mrs. Eddy has explained very clearly in the above quotations the mental nature of the belief of separation between those who have gone and those who have been left behind. When the barrier of mental separation is broken through the experience of death, we shall find ourselves on material speaking terms and terms of recognition with those who have gone before, just as naturally and materially as here. The reason I say that when the mental barrier of separation is broken through the experience of death, there will be a union with those who have gone before, is because that is the only way we will be able, in our present state of advancement, to accomplish the union with the departed. If it were possible for you and me to make the demonstration over matter and body that Jesus made at the time of his ascension, we would have avoided the experience of death and would have become so spiritual and free from materiality, that we could not recognize those who had gone before, as our spirituality would have taken us beyond their material state. In other words, through spiritual growth we would be so far in advance of those who had accepted the argument of death in matter, that we would not be able to recognize them nor they us.

One student asks, in this connection: “In passing through the belief of death are mortals ever conscious of the grave,” “Must they demonstrate over the belief of grave?” No, my understanding is that when one passes on, one awakens in exactly the same location, position and with the same material surroundings and accompaniments one is conscious of at the moment of death. In fact, on one occasion Mrs. Eddy, in explaining the experience of death to one of her students, said that if she and the student were sitting in chairs side by side and conversing, and someone should shoot an arrow into her heart, there would be a moment of intense fear on her part, after which she would awaken in the same chair in which she was sitting at the time the arrow was shot, but there would be no one in the other chair to converse with, because the other person would be holding the thought that she had passed on, and that thought would make the separation. (Collectanea p. 116)

You see, matter is but a condition of thought, and if thought is changed about its own objectifications, matter disappears in the consciousness of the one whose thought has been changed. In such an instance—in the explanation of the reason for the separation between the departed and those who have been left behind—we find that the material evidence of carnal thinking, calling itself matter may, in certain instances, be changed without spiritualization of thought. That is, if we believe that another has died, and the body has been buried, we are not spiritualizing thought in any way, because we do not see the physical evidence of the one who has died; we simply have changed our thought about him. We have not spiritualized our thought about him. He has assumed in our consciousness a different state of existence because of our change of thought, and that different state of existence is just as material in our consciousness as the former state of existence.

The question above as to whether we are conscious of the grave after death was based upon the statement in “Science and Health” as follows: “The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge from his foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being. His three days’ work in the sepulchre,” etc. It must be remembered that everything Jesus did, all of the experiences he underwent in his brief career on earth, were for the guidance and elevation of mankind. Mrs. Eddy tells us that he could have avoided all of the experiences which he underwent. However, to become the Way-shower and the Saviour, Jesus had to go through experiences which would prove to mortals the truth of what he had been teaching. He could have avoided the experience on the cross, but if it were not for that experience and what followed, there would be no Christianity. He could have avoided the tomb, but to bring the lesson of life home to mankind, Jesus had to undergo the experience of the tomb. Men would not have understood, if he had done otherwise. Then, again, it is more than likely that the experience of Jesus on the cross did not deprive him of his conscious state of existence.

It is not possible to compare the experiences of Jesus with those of mortals, because Jesus went through what he did merely as an example to us. At the time of the crucifixion, and even some time before that, Jesus was so close to the border line between matter and Spirit, that there is a marked blending which puts some of his experiences beyond the realm of the human. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb, Jesus had to effect Lazarus’ reappearance in a manner that would be understandable to those who were about. Jesus had to effect Lazarus’ reappearance in a body which his friends thought they had buried. Otherwise there would have been no lesson. Matter is but the objective state of mortal mind, and those who buried Lazarus could not see him in any state or body but that in which they buried him. Jesus’ reappearance to his disciples after his resurrection, with the spear thrusts in his side and the nail prints in his hands, was the only form in which the disciples could be convinced that it was the self-same Jesus. The disciples could only see what they held in consciousness, and as they buried Jesus with the bodily evidences of the crucifixion on him, they could not see him resurrected without those same evidences. Jesus did not have to appear to them with the spear thrusts in his side. It was the disciples’ own consciousness of Jesus that united his reappearance with the spear thrusts. You and I see, feel, taste, smell and hear only what we hold in consciousness. There are, naturally, a great many questions which come to thought in connection with this question of death, which can only be answered through experience and, so far, I am not looking for that experience, so there are many questions which you might want answered in this regard which I am not now capable of answering.

The following question was asked: “How did Peter, James and John (or even Jesus) recognize Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration, having never seen them?”

In the case of Jesus, who can say that Jesus had not many times had communion with many of the older prophets who had gone before? If Jesus could have talked with Moses and Elias in the presence of Peter and James and John to the extent that Peter and James and John could recognize who Jesus was talking with, is it not possible that through his supreme spiritual sense or rather through his clear sense of the fact that the patriarchs had not worked out of materiality as yet, he might have been in constant communication with them? Now, this question does not involve any sense or suggestion of spiritualism. It rests, rather, on just the opposite of spiritualism, that is, that mankind does not reach a spiritual state merely through the process of death, but remains material until spiritual growth enables him to put off matter entirely. Jesus, through his clear perception of this, could pierce the veil of human belief which separates those who have passed on from those who have been left behind. The only separation between those who have passed on and those who have been left behind, lies in the consciousness of those who have been left behind, and if one could so clarify his consciousness that the separation would be eliminated, one would be able to recognize and commune with those who had gone before, just as one is able to do who has passed through the illusion of death. So the conversation which Jesus held with Moses and Elias, before Peter and James and John, made it possible for Peter and James and John to recognize those two patriarchs.

The birth of a baby and scientific obstetrics

A student asked the following question: “In one of your lectures you state that a ‘human being is not born a son of God,’—and referred to the first chapter of John where it is written, ‘as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God.’ On page 463 of ‘Science and Health,’ Mrs. Eddy speaks of the birth of the new child as a ‘divine idea,’ and ‘spiritual idea.’ If we are not a son of God at birth, what is the relation between the little hunk of matter we call a babe and the spiritual identity that manifests itself as a thinking unit? Also, why is my seeming human advent associated with certain human parents? Why am I not a Chinese or any other belief of mortal man?”

Now, this question, or the quandaries in the mind of the person asking this question, comes from a failure to completely disassociate the human and the divine. There is absolutely no connection or co-relationship between the human and the divine, and these questions come from the habit of trying to work out the spiritual from a relative standpoint rather than from the standpoint of the absolute. There is no matter, there is no mortal man, there is no material universe, there is no material body, there is no material home, there is no material earth, there is no material city, there is no material state, country or nation. Now, that is absolute, and to attempt to hook up matter or materiality or material phenomena with the facts of Spirit only tends to confusion. Man never was born. There are no counterfeits about which the truth is to be known. There is no truth about mortal man. You cannot heal the sick by trying to know the truth about sickness or a sick man. There is no truth about sickness, nor is there any truth about a sick man. Your statements of truth must be based upon the man of God’s creating, and any effort to hook up matter with Spirit in your reasoning will only result in “confusion worse confounded.” I presume that ninety percent of the confusion and misunderstanding which seems to involve the thought of many Christian Scientists, comes because they are thinking in the relative rather than in the absolute. In explaining Christian Science and its application; in explaining the so-called mysteries of material existence, its whys and its wherefores; in explaining the seeming cause of the existence of matter and disease, one has to deal in the relative. But in working in Christian Science, in the explanation of the modus operandi of the Truth, or the application of Truth to error, one cannot for a moment allow thought to drift into the relative. Thought must be held strictly to the facts of Spirit and not be allowed to enter the realm of the material. You can’t heal the sick by trying to know the truth about sickness. One heals the sick by knowing that there is no sick man to be healed.

God knows nothing about the birth of a baby, and, as I explained a year or two ago in regard to the development of babe from an embryotic manifestation to manhood, there is nothing divine or spiritual in the so-called human being until individual consciousness begins to take to itself the facts of Spirit. Under the subhead of “Scientific Obstetrics,” Mrs. Eddy says, “To attend properly the birth of the new child, or divine idea, you should so detach mortal thought from its material conceptions, that the birth will be natural and safe.” Any confusion or misconception as to this statement must arise from the fact that thought, in this regard, is held in the relative and not in the absolute. The subtitle, “Scientific Obstetrics,” carries in itself the implication of the absolute and has nothing whatever to do with the birth of a material babe. There couldn’t be any scientific obstetrics in connection with matter because there is nothing scientific about matter. The scientific obstetrics has to do with spiritual existence only.

In “Miscellaneous Writings” (17:22) Mrs. Eddy says: “A material or human birth is the appearing of a mortal, not the immortal man. This birth is more or less prolonged and painful, according to the timely or untimely circumstances, the normal or abnormal material conditions attending it.

“With the spiritual birth, man’s primitive, sinless, spiritual existence dawns on human thought,—through the travail of mortal mind, hope deferred, the perishing pleasure and accumulating pains of sense,—by which one loses himself as matter, and gains a truer sense of Spirit and spiritual man.” So, when in “Science and Health” under the title of “Scientific Obstetrics” Mrs. Eddy refers to “the new child, or divine idea,” she is speaking in the absolute and referring to the spiritual which, held in consciousness, meets the material argument of material birth. It is the truth about the spiritual idea or the birth or unfoldment of a spiritual idea, held in consciousness, that heals.

There is no truth about a material babe or a material birth. The only birth there is, is the unfoldment, in consciousness, of spiritual ideas, and by applying the truth about the unfoldment of spiritual ideas to the so-called material birth, or the conditions which are supposed to attend a material birth, the material arguments are met with the facts of Spirit. Everything that Mrs. Eddy has said in “Science and Health” under the subject of “Scientific Obstetrics” has to do with the unfoldment of spiritual ideas in consciousness, and not with the birth of a material babe.

Extending her observations in this connection, Mrs. Eddy goes on to say, “Though gathering new energy, this idea cannot injure its useful surroundings in the travail of spiritual birth.” God knows nothing about matter or mortal man. Mortal man is not a spiritual idea nor is mortal babe a spiritual idea. Don’t become confused as to that. Don’t try to make a spiritual idea out of matter. You will bog down if you do. Matter is not only not a spiritual idea, but matter has no connection with, relationship to, or origin in, Spirit. Matter and Spirit are not connected. There is a spiritual fact about every material condition, which if clearly seen and applied in thought, will heal the claims of matter, but there is no spiritual idea of matter because there isn’t any matter, and there could not be a spiritual idea of that of which God knows nothing.

Matter and material existence is a law unto itself. All material phenomena are the objectified sense of a state of human consciousness. Answering that part of the question above which reads, “If we are not a son of God at birth, what is the relation between the little hunk of matter we call babe and the spiritual identity that manifests itself as a thinking unit?” That question has two answers. First, a thinking unit, speaking materially or in the light of the human consciousness, is not necessarily a spiritual identity. Spiritual identity consists in the individual conscious reflection of positive spiritual facts or ideas. An infant has no spiritual identity until he begins to assume and take into consciousness spiritual ideas. A mentality, incapable of thinking in terms of Spirit and recognizing his thinking as partaking of the spiritual, would not be a spiritual identity, although his thinking might be sinless. A sinless state of thought might not be a positive spiritual state of thought. Let me here include something along this line which was a part of my 1939 address:

Human mind sinless

Now, this human mind, in its incipiency, in its primitive state, is a sinless state of mind, but which nevertheless is not divine because it is limited,—because it is localized in an individual. Anything that exists in limitation is not divine. In the “Glossary” of “Science and Health,” as we have seen often before, under the definition of Euphrates, Mrs. Eddy says, “The atmosphere of human belief before it accepts sin, sickness or death; a state of mortal thought, the only error of which is limitation; finity; the opposite of infinity.” Here we have a state of human belief which might be said to be neither materially evil nor divinely spiritual. It is simply a state of consciousness which is not divine, because it comes under the carnal designation of limitation. Except for that claim of limitation, it is a pure state of consciousness, but because of that claim of limitation, it is finite and therefore capable of recognizing and admitting something from without.

An infinite Mind does not admit the possibility of an existence, or a mind, outside itself, whereas the very claim of finity admits the existence of something outside and opposed. Because it is capable of admitting something from without itself, it excludes itself from any claim to infinity. This “atmosphere of human belief,” as explained by Mrs. Eddy, constitutes the individual human consciousness. This is the human consciousness in its individual primitive state, before it has accepted aught of the carnal and before it knows good or evil as such. It is this state of individual primitive human consciousness to which Mrs. Eddy refers in “Unity of Good,” where she says, “The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be sinless,—as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker.” Because of its claim to limitation or finity, it admits the existence of something outside itself from which it may receive thoughts and impressions, and thus does the so-called carnal or mortal mind begin to enter the human picture.

More on the human consciousness

Remember that the carnal mind is a creation of the human consciousness. God did not create the carnal mind, and as God is the only Creator there is, there can be, in reality, no carnal or mortal mind. The carnal mind, as Mrs. Eddy tells us, is simply an idol or creation of the human consciousness (S&H 186:32), and all that needs to be healed is the human consciousness of the belief that there is a carnal mind from which could emanate erroneous beliefs. As I have so many times before explained, there is in reality no human consciousness, any more than there is a carnal mind, but there is the claim of human consciousness from which every mortal must be free, before he can enter into that state of conscious existence which we call heaven. The carnal mind or the mortal mind is a creation, or an illusion, of the human consciousness. In our work in Christian Science we are not endeavoring to heal the human body, the carnal mind or the mortal mind; we are endeavoring to heal the human consciousness, and that is all we are endeavoring to heal. The only place a human being seems to exist, is in his human consciousness, not in the carnal mind or the mortal mind, and don’t you let anyone tell you differently.

If God did not create the carnal mind, there must be some explanation of its seeming existence, before its baneful effects can be met and overcome. One of the most prolific sources of freedom from the bondage of the carnal or mortal mind is the understanding that it is but a fabrication of the human consciousness. If this were not so, how would we be able to minimize and annul its effects? If any thing or any agency but the human consciousness were responsible for the so-called existence of the carnal mind, there would be no possible prospects of individual salvation. Each individual consciousness creates its own individual world of matter, and that consciousness creates the agency through which that material world is manifested, as certainly as it creates its world. It is because of this fact that each one of us is enabled, here and now, to master the material through the influx into the human consciousness of the spiritual facts of being. The material exists only in individual human consciousness, and it is in individual human consciousness that the material must be overcome through the influx therein of divine ideas. If you and I were not the creator of the so-called carnal mind by reason of which we live in matter, you and I could never heal the sick or save ourselves from the bondage of materialism.

The human mind alone needs healing

On page 270 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy tells us that, “the human mind alone suffers, (and) is sick.” That’s plain. She doesn’t say anything about the carnal mind suffering or the mortal mind being sick. She says that the “human mind alone suffers, (and) is sick.” Hence it must be the human mind that needs healing. And again on page 396 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says further: “It breaks the dream of disease to understand that sickness is formed by the human mind, not by matter nor by the divine Mind.” As we know that matter and mortal mind are one, it is clear from this last quotation that sickness is not formed by mortal mind, but rather by the human consciousness, operating through the so-called mortal or carnal mind of its own creating. Remember, the carnal mind cannot be healed, and the divine Mind does not need to be healed. All that needs healing is the human consciousness of the belief of a carnal mind outside itself. When the human mind is healed of its belief in a mortal or carnal mind, capable of inducing sickness, inharmony, misery, sorrow and the like, then will sickness and poverty and inharmony cease to be a part of individual experience.

As Mrs. Eddy has expressed it in “Science and Health” on page 263, “The fading forms of matter, the mortal body and material earth, are the fleeting concepts of the human mind.” Matter does not exist outside the human consciousness. The carnal mind does not exist as matter until it is admitted to the human consciousness. (Retrospection p. 67.) Matter exists only as a false belief and a false belief must have a believer. The believer is the human consciousness.

No absent treatment

From this it is evident that all material phenomena exist only in the individual human consciousness. You are asked to do some work in Christian Science for someone who thinks he lives a thousand miles away from you. Without any reference to the absolute statement concerning the situation, or without any reference to a statement of the situation existing between you and your patient in the absolute, where does this patient exist, as far as you are physically concerned? Where does a man, who claims to be a thousand miles away from you, exist materially? Does he exist anywhere but in your own individual consciousness? No. It does not make any difference what mortal mind says about distances, space, localization, material form, outline or shape, the fact is that all material objectification or manifestation exists only in individual consciousness. Time and place, location, space and distance do not exist materially or as material phenomena. They exist only in individual consciousness, and you and I cannot get away from individual consciousness. So, an individual who claims to be a thousand miles away from you, and who wires or writes you for help in Christian Science, is no farther away from you, as a matter of metaphysical fact, than your consciousness, and you know that you and your consciousness are one. Therefore, where does an absent treatment come in? It doesn’t come in. It isn’t. There is no absent treatment. On page 82 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy says, “It is no more difficult to read the absent mind than it is to read the present,” and on page 179 she writes, “Science can heal the sick, who are absent from their healers, as well as those present, since space is no obstacle to Mind.” Hence the admonition, “Physician, heal thyself.”

Nowhere in her writings does Mrs. Eddy speak of “absent treatment.” She says above, that Science can heal those who are absent from their healers, but that is the only mention she makes to what might be called an absent treatment.

The advent of the absolutist into the Christian Science ranks

Now, there is a phase of our work as Christian Scientists, viewed from the standpoint of Christian Science history in the past few years, to which I wish to refer today and against which I wish to warn you. In my class teaching it has been my endeavor to so equip you with spiritual perception, insight and perspicacity, that your sure sense of Science will be your guide at all times and your sure protection from the wiles of the devil. Your clear spiritual perception should make you so alert and sensitive to error, that the moment it shows its head, you will be able to detect its presence and discern instantly wherein the error lies. Now, error, as I explained to you last year, seldom comes to us in its own clothing. It usually comes in the disguise of good. It is this disguise of good which your clear spiritual perception should be able to pierce and which should reveal to you the error which the disguise conceals. You should be able to weigh, with metaphysical certainty, every statement made in the name of Truth and to decide for yourself whether statements, made in the interest of Christian Science, are true or untrue. Many statements are made in the interest of Christian Science by those who are speaking in the interest of Science which, in the light of strict scrutiny by one who is metaphysically equipped, will be found to be incorrect.

Simply because someone with the authority of officialdom in the Christian Science Movement tells you something, you don’t have to believe it, if it does not appeal to your sense of Science. Many Christian Scientists are likely to become confused and deceived, because someone, who should know better, has made a statement which they are supposed to take as gospel and which, in reality, does not conform to what they have therefore been taught and have believed. During the past year or two I am sorry to say that some of you here today seem to have become confused in regard to your own teaching and your own sense of Science, because of the public utterances of someone who is supposed to have spoken with authority.

Now, let me tell you something of importance and something which I hope will reassure you, and which is not said in any sense of egotism. You have been taught correctly. Remember that and stick to that. You have never been taught one single thing that is not susceptible of proof and corroboration in the writings of our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. Yet, I have found some of you in a sense of confusion, because you have listened to some public statements which are confusing and which may seem to contradict what you have been taught. Now, you should know absolutely and positively every time a metaphysical misstatement is made, and instead of going around from place to place following some metaphysical will-o-the-wisp who is gathering behind him a following of truculent sycophants, who have just awakened to the fact that Christian Science is absolute but don’t seem to be able to know what to do about it, if you will take your own books, and sit down with your own class instruction, and get clear yourself, you will not allow yourself to become the object of criticism and suspicion at the hands of your brother Scientists.

Don’t allow yourself to become weak in your Science. If you are strong, well-grounded and certain in your understanding, metaphysical statements made by others are not going to confuse and upset you. If you don’t know just what is meant by such statements, you are not going to conclude that you do not understand Christian Science or that your class instruction did not cover that point, and therefore you are faulty in your metaphysics. Instead, you are going to do one of two things: you are going to take those statements and see wherein they coincide with your own understanding or wherein they differ, and thus decide for yourself whether they are right or wrong, or else you are going to realize right off the bat that the statement was incorrect, and you refuse it admission to consciousness.

All of a sudden there has been thrust upon the field of Christian Science a lot of undigested statements about the absoluteness of Christian Science. There seems to have developed a clique who have just begun to glimpse that Christian Science is absolute, but they have not been long enough familiar with that fact to know what to do with it. They have not glimpsed the processes whereby that fact can be reconciled and scientifically applied to the belief of a material existence. Instead of realizing the scientific necessity of bringing out mortal mind’s own idea of perfection before the scientific fact can be realized and exemplified; that is, instead of realizing the necessity of presenting a whole, well, harmonious and sinless material body through the ministrations of Christian Science, they will condescendingly tell you that there is no material body, so what! Instead of realizing that man is the expression of joy, they will tell you that man is joy. Instead of realizing the footsteps, and the necessity of working out one’s salvation from the belief of a material existence to the realities of Spirit, they will tell you there is no claim of a material existence, so what is there to work out of? It is rather amusing to witness the superiority and the condescension with which these people meet their fellow Christian Scientists, but the picture loses all of its joviality and comedy when the havoc they are causing in our churches is realized. I know of some churches which are gradually being disrupted by this element of superiors, and it is not simply pitiful and tragic, but it is alarming. I run across them in the course of my migrations and I can spot them the minute they start to speak.

A very dear friend of mine in Boston, a practitioner who has been in the practice many, many years and who has held important positions in our Movement, told me a while ago that she often gets letters from the followers of this new cult in our Movement, and that it is utterly impossible for her to understand what they write about. They are vague, strange, and do not speak our language in the least detail. They have done away, in their particular philosophy of “Science,” with all necessity of footsteps leading to salvation. The following statement from “Science and Health” is completely ignored by them: “The divine demand, ‘Be ye therefore perfect,’ is scientific, and the human footsteps leading to perfection are indispensable.” That statement has no part in their philosophy, because man is spiritual and needs to take no footsteps leading to perfection. He is perfect already. Christ has no mission to perform in this higher vision of theirs. They have advanced way beyond all conditions of relativity and leave no room for salvation. “Inasmuch as,” they say, “man is God,” why recognize anything of a mortal nature? Now, I am dwelling on this, because it’s vital as well as vicious, and something you must all be alert to, or you may get swept into this whirlpool of unexplainables. It is a rather peculiar as well as significant thing that when some Scientists hear something from the platform which they do not understand, they think it must be something wonderful. The very obscurity of it makes it attractive, and thus do the charlatans get a following of sycophants running around after them in open mouth wonder and adulation. Why, I have even heard one of these people say of one of the leaders of this cult, “Doesn’t he look just like Jesus?” Think of Christian Scientists, class-taught, supposedly sane and clothed in their right mind, letting themselves in for such rot!

The entire portion of “Science and Health” from line 31, on page 253, to line 23 on the next page is “out,” as far as this new teaching is concerned. The portion I refer to begins with the quotation above and continues in advice as to advancement of mortals out of their bondage of materiality into “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Let me quote briefly from a letter received from one who has had considerable contact with these people in church work and as a practitioner. The letter states as follows: “‘Science and Health,’ 593:9, which reads as follows: ‘Resurrection. Spiritualization of thought; a new and higher idea of immortality, or spiritual existence; material belief yielding to spiritual understanding’ is completely out with these people. This stage is now passed and they have ascended. As to man, they see all mankind as man. There seems to be a complete lack of comprehension regarding the compound idea, as well as of individual man. Everything the physical senses affirm, is just God. So why bother about cocktails, etc., why bother about anything? There is no sickness, nothing to treat. If death, why bother? In other words, the unprepared thought is given absolute truths, and they have never individually worked to a point of discovering, nor have they been given scientific reasoning, to say nothing of spiritual discernment. Therefore these people simply float around by self-hypnosis declaring, ‘I am God.’ They fail completely to recognize Mrs. Eddy’s reference to ‘the human and divine coincidence.’ In their church work our Leader is completely displaced by reading articles written by one of their idols. The Manual of The Mother Church has no place in their new order.”

That section of “Science and Health” on page 115, “The Scientific Translation of Mortal Mind,” could not possibly be of any help to anyone as there is, in the realm of their thought, no mortal mind to be translated. There is no advancement out of the material into the spiritual because there is no matter. In fact, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” the Holy Bible, Jesus and the Christ, have no part in this wonderful revelation. They have no more sense of the application of Christian Science to the claims of error than the man in the street. You can’t ignore error in working out your salvation, or the claims of error. In fact, you can’t understand or recognize error without a clear sense of Truth, and these individuals, in their superiority and condescension, so attempt to ignore error and its claims that it is quite impossible to understand what particular use to them “Science and Health” might be. In fact I have heard that one of the arguments for the statements they make, and the position they take, is that “Mrs. Eddy wrote ‘Science and Health’ seventy-five years ago. Times have changed and if she were to write ‘Science and Health’ today, it would be quite different.”

Well, wouldn’t you like to be instructed by someone holding that viewpoint? A certain person went to a teacher who seems to be one of the ring leaders of this group to inquire about class instruction. The teacher had her sit down and said to her: “Do you believe in progress?” She answered, “Why, yes.” He said, “Well, you can’t go through class with me; there is no progress. Man has arrived” or something to that effect. That teacher had found that Christian Science and its teachings are absolute, but his scientific wisdom stopped right here. He had eliminated the Christ and the necessity of the Christ in human affairs from his concept of Christian Science.

Someone may question as to the advisability of taking up such matters in an Association meeting. But, where else should they be taken up? Who should ring the alarm but those who are awake to the danger which seems to be, in places, sadly disrupting the pure operation of Christian Science? I don’t know of anything that would come within the purpose of an Association meeting more essential than detecting the rocks and sirens in the pathway of Christian Scientists and of warning of such obstructions. All of us need to be buoyed and bolstered up at times in our course in Science, and if there are circumstances and conditions which arise, that might tend to confuse and discourage the pupils, it is the duty of the teacher to point out and warn. Many of you may not have had to come in contact with the condition to which these remarks refer and yet, on the other hand, too many of you are confronted with conditions in your churches which make such uncovering and admonition necessary and welcome. These conditions will never assume threatening or serious proportions, if you will all stick to what you have been taught.

You all here know, and have known for many years, that Christian Science is absolute, but you may thank your heavenly Father that you do know just how to use this understanding and knowledge in handling error. You know just how to meet every erroneous claim with the knowledge of the absolute which will meet and destroy that claim. You will not run away from it, or like the ostrich, hide your head in the sand of metaphysical oblivion because God never created error, and therefore there is no mortal body, sinful man or sick individual to be healed. No! Your understanding of the absolute is the very foundation upon which you will meet the foe in ambush, run him out of his lair and engage him in deadly combat. There are no super-Scientists yet, that I have found, and the man farthest removed from that goal is the man who has just discovered what other Scientists have known all along, namely, that Christian Science is absolute, but does not yet know what it’s all about. Christian Science in its entirety is absolute, and the application of Christian Science must be in the absolute, but the explanation of Christian Science must ever be in the relative. Don’t forget that, and don’t become confused when you meet up with those who don’t understand what that means.

You can’t heal a sick man of his difficulty by admitting that there is such a thing as a sick man, but to refuse to recognize the claim on the ground that Christian Science is absolute and therefore there isn’t any such thing as a claim of sickness to be healed, and thus utterly ignore the claim is, as I have said above, to leave the Christ out of the picture completely and render “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” of no avail whatever. You can’t heal a man of stomach ulcers without knowing the truth which corrects the lie about stomach ulcers. You can’t heal a man of poverty without recognizing the claim as an argument and suiting your treatment to the particular argument. In other words, you can’t heal the sick or properly teach Christian Science unless you have something above the collar.

Last year I quoted to you a very appropriate passage from “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany” in approaching a brief discussion on this same subject. It would have been natural to have let the matter drop at last year’s mention of it, if the past year had not brought to our movement an emphasized and accelerated example of the confusion and chaos in some quarters which this influence is causing. The article from “Miscellany” to which I refer, I shall repeat again, and it would be well for you all to study this article when someone tells you that there is no such thing as sickness, and therefore “Science and Health” is all to the bad to devote so much time to telling us how to cure it. The article is on page 217 of “Miscellany” and is entitled, “A CORRECTION.”

“Abstractions without their correlatives”

It reads: “In the last Sentinel [Oct. 12, 1899] was the following question: ‘If all matter is unreal, why do we deny the existence of disease in the material body and not the body itself?’

“We deny first the existence of disease, because we can meet this negation more readily than we can negative all that the material senses affirm. It is written in ‘Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures’: ‘An improved belief is one step out of error, and aids in taking the next step and in understanding the situation in Christian Science’ (p. 296).

“Thus it is that our great Exemplar, Jesus of Nazareth, first takes up the subject. He does not require the last step to be taken first. He came to the world not to destroy the law of being, but to fulfil it in righteousness. He restored the diseased body to its normal action, functions, and organization, and in explanation of his deeds he said, ‘Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.’ Job said, ‘In my flesh shall I see God.’ Neither the Old nor the New Testament furnishes reasons or examples for the destruction of the human body, but for its restoration to life and health as the scientific proof of ‘God with us.’ The power and prerogative of Truth are to destroy all disease and to raise the dead—even the self-same Lazarus. The spiritual body, the incorporeal idea, came with the ascension.

“Jesus demonstrated the divine Principle of Christian Science when he presented his material body absolved from death and the grave. The introduction of pure abstractions into Christian Science, without their correlatives, leaves the divine Principle of Christian Science unexplained, tends to confuse the mind of the reader, and ultimates in what Jesus denounced, namely, straining at gnats and swallowing camels.”

Now, that is a quotation with which most of us are familiar but, in the light of the present-day craze about “absolutism,” I wonder how many of us realize just what it means. If it means anything at all, it means that this stuff called “absolutism” has no place, position, authority or reason in Christian Science. Remember what I said and have always said, that Christian Science is absolute, but an explanation of it must lie in the relative, that is, in the recognition that mortals are now existing in a state which is entirely relative, and which must be worked out of step by step through the application of the truths of Christian Science. In approaching a case of sickness, you do so with the absolute statement and conviction that man is spiritual and therefore perfect, but you do not declare that the patient has no mortal body and thus attempt to deprive him of that which mortal mind says is necessary to his existence. Our endeavor, as a practitioner, is to make that material body physically perfect by eliminating the secondary beliefs about body, through the understanding that man is spiritual and body is spiritual consciousness. As Mrs. Eddy says, “We deny first the existence of disease.” We do this through the understanding that man is spiritual and perfect, and we do this that we may enable the patient to realize material and physical harmony. As I have often before explained, we cannot eliminate material body without first eliminating all the claims of material body, and thus presenting a humanly perfect concept. Jesus overcame every secondary claim of materiality which has to do with material body before he overcame the final or primary claim of body. As Mrs. Eddy says above, “The spiritual body, the incorporeal idea, came with the ascension.” That is, the material concept of body disappeared, and the spiritual concept of existence came at the moment of ascension. The ascension was the culmination of Jesus’ complete spiritual perception that there is no matter. But Jesus did not overcome material body until he had recognized and overcome the so-called claims of body.

Now, what these super-Scientists would accomplish would be the ultimate of spiritual demonstration and perfection, by completely ignoring the seeming existence of a material body and thus leave the mission of the Christ, which is to restore humanhood to a state of human idealism, completely out of the picture. Be clear on this, and do not let befogging and conflicting statements of Truth becloud your clear sense. You do not have to compromise your clear sense of the absolute, or drop down into the gutter of material thinking, by realizing that the purpose of Christianity, the mission of Jesus the Christ and the discovery of Christian Science, all look to one end, that of delivering the human mind from its bondage of materiality. One time when Mrs. Eddy was confronted with what history has recorded as “The Woodbury Case,” she asked a certain worker to come to Boston to help metaphysically on the case. Some time after his arrival, she asked this man just how he was working in connection therewith. He said he was knowing that as God was the only power, there was nothing to be healed, and therefore God would look after the case without any help or hindrance from him—something to this effect. Mrs. Eddy said to him, “Well, you may go home. You can’t win a case by ignoring it.”

You see, the underlying explanation of error is that it exists only in human consciousness, and as long as it finds place in human consciousness, it is something to be healed by the application of the Truth. Granting that God is omnipotent and knows nothing of error, yet we cannot destroy error by ignoring it, or by leaving it in human consciousness. God knows nothing about the human consciousness, and until the human consciousness becomes imbued with the truth about God and man, there is no means of destroying the error in human consciousness and thus does it remain to torture man.

In the article above referred to Mrs. Eddy says, “An improved belief is one step out of error.” Now what is an improved belief? It is the belief of a human body, for example, relieved of the belief of sickness. And the human body is relieved of the belief of sickness through the individual application of truth in consciousness, or the application of truth in individual consciousness. To ignore the claims of body and the human consciousness is to miss the very essence of Christian Science. It was only because of the necessity of saving the human body and the human mind from their own misconceptions, that Jesus came to earth, and that Christian Science was given to the world. Mrs. Eddy has devoted all her writings and efforts to instruct mankind out of the bondage of what she calls the carnal mind, and how we are to free ourselves from the bondage of materiality or carnal illusion through the purification of the human consciousness. The human consciousness is, in fact, the very foundation for all our ills and woes, and it was for the salvation of the human mind or human consciousness that “Science and Health” was written, certainly not for the divine Mind. So to ignore the necessity of recognizing the claims of matter (of the carnal mind admitted in human consciousness) with one broad sweep of the hand, by declaring there is no human body and therefore there is no need of healing, is to place the mission of the Christ and of Mrs. Eddy in the discards of human non-essentials.

Mrs. Eddy not only says that, “An improved belief is one step out of error,” but she also says that this “aids in taking the next step and in understanding the situation in Christian Science.” Obviously all of our progress in Christian Science must be taken in orderly and consecutive footsteps, and one step cannot be taken until we have taken the previous step. It is just as when you want to go from one place to another humanly speaking: you can’t go without taking footsteps, and you can’t take the last footstep until you have taken all of the intermediate steps, and no one can take your footsteps for you. To ignore the necessity of orderly and progressive steps in our journey from sense to Soul, is just what the absolutists would have us do. Mrs. Eddy says in the article above, “Thus it is that our great Exemplar, Jesus of Nazareth, first takes up the subject. He does not require the last step to be taken first. He restored the diseased body to its normal action, functions and organization, and in explanation of his deeds he said, ‘Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.’”

In other words, while Science is absolute in its application, it cannot be ignored that there is a claim of human existence which has to be handled and healed metaphysically, and brought to a state of human perfection. His “Suffer it to be so now” means exactly that—that you cannot save humanity with its ills by ignoring them. She says, “He restored the diseased body to its normal action, function and organization.” That is, he brought out a perfect primary belief by eliminating all the secondary beliefs of human existence. He could not have buried these arguments of materiality in the deep sea of absolutism and healed them at the same time. “For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” In other words you cannot take one single step in Christian Science through the process of ignoring the human necessity. Mrs. Eddy says above, “Neither the Old nor the New Testament furnishes reasons or examples for the destruction of the human body, but for its restoration to life and health as the scientific proof of ‘God with us.’ The power and prerogative of Truth are to destroy all disease and to raise the dead—even the self-same Lazarus.” Namely, that the secondary belief of death could never have been overcome in the case of Lazarus by ignoring the claims of human body or the claim of death, as do these so-called absolutists. A live and materially active Lazarus was a far better human belief than a dead Lazarus, and until death is overcome through spiritual means, there will be no cessation of death in individual experience.

“Jesus demonstrated the divine Principle of Christian Science when he presented his material body absolved from death and the grave,” Mrs. Eddy states above, and then she proceeds with this most pertinent statement, “The introduction of pure abstractions into Christian Science, without their correlatives, leaves the divine Principle of Christian Science unexplained, tends to confuse the mind of the reader, and ultimates in what Jesus denounced, namely, straining at gnats and swallowing camels.” And right there is a sentence which forever silences the claims and assumptions of the so-called absolutists. You can’t explain Christian Science to anyone without the correlatives, properly recognized, of the human equation. Jesus came to explain and make operative the Christ in the human consciousness. The Christ is the medium through which human errors are met and destroyed. If your concept of Christian Science does away with the necessity of Christian Science in healing the sick and reclaiming the sinner, then your concept of Christian Science eliminates the necessity of the Christ, and the place which Christian Science was intended to fill in the salvation of mankind is ignored and eliminated.

One of the definitions in Webster’s dictionary of the word “abstraction” is “separation from worldly objects.” The term “abstraction” then, as used by Mrs. Eddy above, exactly portrays the mental attitude of the so-called absolutist in his approach to not only Christian Science but also in his approach to the process of healing. They completely ignore the seeming presence of that which Christian Science has come to heal. One of the definitions of Webster’s dictionary of the term “correlative,” as used by Mrs. Eddy, is “that which stands in a reciprocal relation to something else.” So what Mrs. Eddy means when she says above, “the introduction of pure abstractions into Christian Science, without their correlatives, leaves the divine Principle of Christian Science unexplained,” is that when your application of Christian Science becomes so separated from worldly objects by the vagaries of absolutism, your application has no reciprocal relation to the object of your treatment; then you are sunk. You are not in a position to properly and understandingly apply Science to any condition of error.

1941 Association Address

Animals

I have before me this question: “How should one consider the question of animals in regard to treatment? I have had some nice healing work for animals, especially pet dogs, but seemed to get into loving difference of opinion when I said to a dear friend practitioner, ‘We should not call them idea.’ Will you kindly explain?”

This question was presented a few years ago, and at that time we went into the subject rather briefly, but it might be well to touch on it at this point. Mrs. Eddy does not make any difference between animals and mortals in some respects. In fact, all there is in existence is God and man. Man includes everything in God’s universe. An animal or a mortal is simply mortal mind’s classification of the object of its own creating. The human consciousness creates and beholds both mortals and animals. God knows nothing about either.

On page 511 of “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy writes, “Animals and mortals metaphorically present the gradation of mortal thought, rising in the scale of intelligence, taking form in masculine, feminine, or neuter gender.” Here she refers to the material qualities of mortals and animals, and tells us that they present “the gradation of mortal thought.” Therefore the same mortal thought or mortal mind which an animal manifests, is the same mortal mind which a mortal manifests.

There is only one mortal mind, or only one claim of mortal mind in all infinity. Just as the divine Mind is One, existing outside of man and is reflected by man, so the carnal mind claims existence as one mind outside of mortal man. All humans express the same carnal mind. There is only one so-called carnal mind for the use of all of us, just as there is but one divine Mind. The counterfeit is a counterfeit at all points, so if the divine Mind exists as One, the counterfeit must claim existence as one. In the above quotation Mrs. Eddy attributes the same mortal thought to animals as she does to mortals.

But, on page 550 of “Science and Health,” speaking in terms of the spiritual, she says, “God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men.” Here she refers to the spiritual identity of both men and animals, and you will note that they are the same. From this it is clear that there is no distinction between the spiritual qualities of animals and of men and, therefore, the spiritual qualities which constitute the identity of man would be the same as would constitute the identity of animals. Therefore the identity of man constitutes the identity of animals, and they are one.

Man, spiritually speaking, includes animal. If you could refer to man as a spiritual idea, you could refer to animal as a spiritual idea, but remember always that the distinction between man and animal, or the classification man and animal, is purely a distinction or classification of the human consciousness. God knows nothing about a human man or a material animal. In using the term “spiritual idea” in connection with either man or animal, you would watch that no sense of confusion enter into consciousness through a material sense of either.

Man, then, spiritually speaking includes animal because the spiritual identity of each is the same and remains in God. A treatment for man would be all that would be necessary in the case of what mortal mind calls an animal. There isn’t anything in all creation that is not the image and likeness of God. Therefore there is nothing in all creation that would not come under the title of man. The qualities of thought, those qualities which constitute the individuality and identity of man, also constitute the individuality and identity of animals. Faithfulness, love, intelligence, all or any qualities which might be manifest through either man or animal, would constitute true individuality and identity.

God knows nothing about spiritual qualities as belonging to a dog or a mortal. God is conscious only of His qualities or ideas, and these ideas constitute man, no matter whether they may be humanly conceived to belong to a mortal or to belong to an animal. The assignment of a divine idea to a mortal or an animal is an assignment of the human consciousness, and not of the divine Mind. God is ever conscious of love, but not as belonging to an individual mortal. God is conscious only of His qualities or ideas, and those ideas constitute man, no matter whether they may be humanly conceived to belong to a mortal or to an animal. God knows nothing about mortals or animals. He knows only His qualities, and those qualities constitute man. You and I consign these qualities to humans or animals, none of which exist in God’s kingdom.

Intelligence, while a God quality, does not belong to a human or an animal, as far as God is concerned. Intelligence, God, is One. Intelligence reflected, is man, whether it be manifested through a mortal or through an animal. Intelligence does not lose its parenthood or its identity or individuality through reflection. The individuality and identity of all divine ideas remain eternally in the divine Mind from whence they emanate.

In “Science and Health” Mrs. Eddy tells us that, “Man is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas.” Therefore, anything that a mortal or an animal might include as individuality or identity, would be man. Man includes his universe. Therefore, if there is any divine quality which you and I humanly may attribute to an animal as its identity or individuality, that divine quality must be included in the general term, man. So, in treating animals, the truth about God and man is all that one has to know. The identity or individuality of man or of animal lies in God, and not in man or animal.

There are many things I would like to take up with you today, but I shall have to close. Perhaps I shall some day learn to finish my remarks within a reasonable time. Before closing, however, let me give you a few brief statements to take with you:

Remember that your concept of God constitutes your God;
That man is as infinite as God, and as pure and holy as God;
That man is not materially outlined, formed or shaped;
That man does not fill space or exist in place—he is consciousness;
That man does not include—he reflects;
That man does not contain—he expresses;
That man is an involuntary expression of God and cannot help but be as perfect as his Maker;
That man is God’s responsibility, and is himself under no individual responsibility, liability or obligation;
That God manifests Himself as man;
That God maintains His own reflection in infinity and throughout eternity;
That man’s individuality and identity remain eternally in Mind, and that man is inspired, animated, governed and controlled by God;
That man includes his universe, and that man and his universe are one;
That Life includes man—man does not include Life.

Sharing

There isn’t much that I can do,
But I can share my love with you,
And I can share my joy with you,
And sometimes share a sorrow too,
As on our way we go.

There isn’t much that I can do,
But I can share an hour with you,
And I can share a joke with you,
And sometimes share reverses too,
As on our way we go.

There isn’t much that I can do,
But I can share my flowers with you,
And I can share my books with you,
And sometimes share your burdens too,
As on our way we go.

There isn’t much that I can do,
But I can share my song with you,
And I can share my mirth with you,
And sometimes come and laugh with you,
As on our way we go.

There isn’t much that I can do,
But I can share my hopes with you,
And I can share my fears with you,
And sometimes shed some tears with you,
As on our way we go.

There isn’t much that I can do,
But I can share my all with you,
And I can share my life with you,
And ofttimes share a prayer with you,
As on our way we go.