Chapter 5 — The Holy Ghost: Man’s Communion With God

From Christian Science, Its “Clear, Correct Teaching” by





In establishing your structure of Christian Science, you have accepted the word God to mean cause or Father, and man to mean effect or son.

In other words, you have established consciousness and that of which consciousness is conscious. You have seen that this constitutes the whole of being, namely, Principle and its idea, God and man, Mind and thought, Soul and body, your-Self and you.

But to establish full completeness there is one more point to settle.

It is to define the eternal relationship existing between consciousness and conscious being, the communion between God and man.




The Trinity Defined

These three elements — God, man, and the communion between them — constitute a trinity.

This leads us to a consideration of the word Trinity, which means three-in-one.

In the old theological sense, it is called the Holy Trinity, meaning the three persons of the Godhead. It is defined as the three-fold personality of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. But no theologian has ever explained this combination of three persons in one.

In Christian Science it is readily understood as God the Father and man the son, with the Holy Ghost as the communion between Father and son, their mutual awareness of each other, but never as one being the other.

You have found that Father and son are the first “two persons” of the Trinity, and that they are two-in-one, as it were, being Mind and its expression.

Could these intelligently know each other without communion?

This communion is the Holy Ghost.

By Holy Ghost you mean holy Spirit, or pure Spirit, isness, true being, true activity, conscious understanding, the activity that is ever present between Mind and thought, consciousness and conscious being — God directing His own idea.

Have you ever stopped to think what you yourself are doing every moment?

Are you not constantly meditating — thinking?

Does not this mean communing with something you call your mind? Paul expressed it, “Their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.” (Rom. 2: 15)

Where is the “accusing or else excusing” going on?

Humanly speaking, are you not communing constantly with your own mind — a purely mental operation?

In the realm of pure Mind, the eternal communion between God and man, cause and effect, is the Holy Ghost, the necessary completion of Father and son.

This constitutes the Trinity.

Mrs. Eddy defines it perfectly in Science and Health: “God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter. These three express in divine Science the threefold, essential nature of the infinite. They also indicate . . . the intelligent relationship of God to man and the universe.” (S. & H. 331: 30)

Can there be any oneness, any intelligent relation, any understanding between Father and son unless there is communion between them?

Of course not. Mind and thought must commune with each other.




How Communion Appears To You

When you began to build your argument in this class, you started with your own consciously being as the one pure fact that needs no outward evidence to prove its reality — that is true to you because it is self-evident, wholly apart from sense testimony.

It is your own knowing.

From this you induced that consciousness is, otherwise you could not consciously be.

So you found consciousness as that which is

and that which is, as all that is.

In this All that is, is included all entity or existence. Nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it. That “All” you named God, meaning by this term all isness.

Next you deduced idea or effect as necessary to God. For God to be God, to make Himself known, He must express Himself as man.

As you found God to be infinite, hence one, so you found man to be one man, not two; and you found yourself to be that man.

Does not that forever settle the question of man, in so far as your consideration of man is concerned? He is accounted for as yourself.

But you cannot deal with yourself. All that you can deal with is God, the Self of you. Effect does not turn to effect, to itself, but to cause.

In dealing or communing with God, how does the communing appear? “The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man.” (S. & H. 308: 14)

It is self-evident that God’s language, His manner of being known, which is your communion with Him, appears as idea and all that you have established idea to be.

This communion is God talking to you in His own language because whatever God is, His language must be. He appears to you as person, place, or thing.

So your consciousness of being seems to be made up of men, animals, minerals, vegetables, mountains, rivers, worlds upon worlds throughout infinity.

This one infinite language is like its cause, from the infinitesimal to the infinite. “The only logical conclusion is that all is Mind and its manifestation, from the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato-patch.” (Mis. 26: 5)

Does not everything come as consciousness to you and mean simply your communion with God, your consciousness, appearing in the language that you can most clearly understand, and that will best meet your need for progress and unfoldment?

Language does not imply merely words. It implies any mode or method whereby understanding is conveyed.

In communion, the eternal oneness of man with his Maker, the oneness of the idea with its Principle appears always as language, as person, place, or thing — whatever will best convey the sense of the omnipresence of good.

This is the language of God to man; in other words, this is the Holy Ghost.

Notwithstanding this self-evident truth, the constant temptation arises to imagine that you are dealing with persons, places, or things, as such, instead of knowing that you are communing with Mind in the language of Mind and so finding Mind to be all that you are concerned with.

This temptation to stop short of Mind will, if yielded to, destroy your structure of Christian Science and lead into the morass of human belief, which brings the fatal “three” into the argument.

Remember Jesus’ warning, “What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.” (Mark 13: 37)




Christian Science An Exact Science

Christian Science is based upon one Principle and one idea, no matter what name you give to the Principle or to the idea. You may call it God and man, Soul and body, Principle and idea; but whatever name is used, it is always one, one cause and one effect.

Departure from this fundamental fact is fatal to understanding and therefore to all metaphysical demonstration of Christian Science. “Whoever affirms that there is more than one Principle and method of demonstrating Christian Science greatly errs, ignorantly or intentionally, and separates himself from the true conception of Christian Science healing and from its possible demonstration.” (S. & H. 456: 10) Again, “Principle and its idea is one.” (S. & H. 465: 17) “To infinite Spirit there is no matter, — all is Spirit, divine Principle and its idea.” (S & H. 475: 3)

When Jesus said, “I and my Father are one,” (Jno. 10: 30) he was referring to this fundamental truth, this eternal communion of Father and son, without a third, this communion that is essential to your understanding.

Because the language of God always appears as idea; so, in your communion with God, God appears to you as the infinity of variety called persons, places and things.

But it is always God, with whom you are actually communing, and never what appears to be persons, places or things.

Mrs. Eddy says, “The Christian Scientist is alone with his own being and with the reality of things.” (’01 20: 8) God is the reality and isness of all things, hence the Christian Scientist is alone with God, his own being.

This must be clearly understood because no other deduction can be drawn from the premise that God is that which is and man is that which God is God to.

You are dealing, then, with what God, consciousness, is to you — in other words, with your own Mind, with what you are acknowledging your God to be.

The Apostle John put it thus, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.” (1 Jno. 4: 20) How could you love your God while hating that which is your interpretation of your God appearing to you? You interpret Him in your own language, in the only way you can understand Him.

If your God were to appear to you in language you could not understand, you would not know Him; therefore, He must of necessity appear to you in the language of your own acceptance.

This does not change the fact, however, that your God always appears to you in His own perfect language, as idea. But if you negatively interpret this appearing, He will seem to appear negatively, in other words, materially.

Are you tempted to murmur, as did the children of Israel in the wilderness, at the manner of His appearance, and to ask the reason for such an appearance?

You have your answer.

What are you acknowledging as consciousness, as God? Is it Mind; or is it the negation, unreversed, of Mind, appearing as matter?

If it is the latter, how can your God appear to you as anything but materiality? If you are accepting the negation of Mind as your God, He will appear in the language of ignorance, of finiteness, as death, in one form or another, for is not matter the negation of infinity, of Life?

Mrs. Eddy clearly states this: “Christian Science shows that matter, evil, sin, sickness, and death are but negations of Spirit, Truth, and Life, which are positives that cannot be gainsaid. The subjective states of evil, called mortal mind or matter, are negatives destitute of time and space; for there is none beside God or Spirit and the idea of Spirit.” (No. 16: 9)

Your Holy Ghost, your communion with what is, determines the appearance of all things to you. You are always dealing with your own

Mind, your own being; you are alone with your “own being and with the reality of things.” (’01 20: 9)

The ever-active communion between Father and son, the reality of things, appears as the infinity of persons, places, and things. It includes all that means family, position, money, friends, neighbors, country, world, universe, body. It includes all the terms you use to mean God and that which God is God to.

“Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.” (Ps. 40: 5) Science and Health expresses the same idea thus:

“There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity Hence the eternal wonder, — that infinite space is peopled with God’s ideas, reflecting Him in countless spiritual forms.” (S. & H. 502: 29)




Some Words Analyzed

What is meant by the word person?

The dictionary gives its origin as per, through, and sonare, to sound, hence, to sound through, show forth, identify.

Does not idea do that?

Idea shows forth Principle, hence person is another word for idea, language.

God embraces all within Himself, all that means, and is, person.

Hence God is the one and only Person. He is that which is shown forth as Person, and person is that which shows Him forth.

What is place?

Place means position, location, site of something.

God being all the something that is, place means, where God is. However, since God is known only as idea, place is merely another name for idea, man, the language of Mind, that which declares the presence of God.

Thus there is but one place and that one infinite, the presence of God, the “here” of conscious being.

The word thing, is analyzed in the same way.

Thing means entity, the product of, the idea of that which is shown forth.

God, being that which is shown forth, and being one, there is one thing only, one entity that fills all space.

Thus, person, place and thing, in their infinity of variety, show forth the infinity we call God.

Therefore, God includes within Himself all person, all place, all thing.

In your communion with God, the language of God appears always as person, place and thing, — as that which makes Him known.

But, regardless of what appears to you, your thought does not rest until it reaches Mind, the one source of conscious being, the source of all that comes to you as consciousness.

Universe means the aggregate of all existing things; the whole creation, the cosmos.

This universe comes to you as consciousness, otherwise there would be no universe to you. You could not cognize it.

Universe shows forth the infinity of Mind.

What you know about God as Mind is what you know about universe. There is but one infinite universe, because there is one infinite Mind.

This one universe is a living, intelligent universe because the Mind of which it is the idea, the language, is Life and intelligence.

It is a truthful universe because it is the presence of truth. The universe is obedient to law, for divine

Principle is infinite law. It is therefore harmonious.

How will you interpret body?

It, too, comes to you as consciousness and is, therefore, your communion with God. It is consciousness, Mind, defining itself to you.

How old is body?

There is but one answer. Body is eternal. It is infinite in its every quality and attribute.

There never was a time when body began, any more than there was a time when Spirit, that which is, began.

Consequently there is no time when this body of Soul ceases to be. How could Mind ever cease defining itself to you? “The so-called appearing, disappearing, and reappearing of ever-presence, . . . . . is the false human sense of that light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” (Un. 63: 7)

Body is the spiritual outline of being, of Soul, and defines the beauty, harmony, and perfection of being. “The beauty of holiness [wholeness], the perfection of being, imperishable glory, — all are Mine, for I am God.” (S. & H. 253: 2) Its loveliness is the loveliness of perfection.

Nothing short of eternity can show forth the beauty and loveliness and joyousness of body, since it is the language of Mind to you.

Like the unfolding of a beautiful flower, this body of God, this language of God, perpetually unfolds the beauty of holiness, completeness.

This body is one, and is, therefore, all the body you have. Ask yourself, then, Do I love this body or do

I wish to get rid of it?

Do I, as Paul says, present it “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God”? (Rom. 12: 1)

It is because of this truth about body that woman, the more spiritual sense of the so-called mortal, has ever endeavored to perfect her sense of body and make it more beautiful. In doing this, even though not understanding the reason, she has shown forth the innate spirituality of being. Materiality has laughed at her, calling it vanity, but she has persisted and won.

Body, then, is your conscious communion with Mind, that which declares Mind to you.

Willingness to be “absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5: 8) means that body, as the language of Mind, must carry you through to Mind.

You relinquish it for Mind.

But if your thought deals with body as something in and of itself, you will find yourself, as Paul says, “at home in the body, absent from the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5: 6)

This is true not only of body, but of every thought, word and deed. It is true of all that comes to you as your communion with God.




Your Communion Is With God

You relinquish what appears for the substance of its appearing.

If you are concerned with anything apart from Mind, if your communion stops short of its goal

— the finding of God alone as the reality of what appears — thought will perish in the darkness of ignorance and limitation, for there is no light there.

This is the whole of the anguish called sin, sickness and death.

Jesus exemplified man’s communion with God and proved his identity with Christ.

He said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” (Jno. 14: 9) and “No man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (Jno. 14: 6) Here the expression “cometh unto the Father” means simply to know or understand the Father.

Peter declared, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4: 12)

Is not Christ the truth about all that is, from the infinitesimal to the infinite? This Christ, this truth about everything is the “Lo, I am with you alway.” (Matt. 28: 20)

When you say “the truth about everything,” remember that “everything” includes all, as in Mrs. Eddy’s statement: “from the rolling of worlds, in the most subtle ether, to a potato-patch.” (Mis. 26: 6)

This Christ is the truth or true idea unto which “Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess.” (Rom. 14: 11)

“The real Christ was unconscious of matter, of sin, disease, and death, and was conscious only of God, of good, of eternal Life, and harmony. Hence the human Jesus had a resort to his higher self and relation to the Father, and there could find rest from unreal trials in the conscious reality and royalty of his being, — holding the mortal as unreal, and the divine as real. It was this retreat from the material to spiritual selfhood which recuperated him for triumph over sin, sickness, and death.” (No. 36: 12)




Instances Of Divine Protection

To Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, “the burning fiery furnace” (Dan. 3: 17) was not something to be feared. Having faith in good, in reality, in Life, in

Mind — their God, they knew that, if they remained true to the right interpretation of being, He could not appear in any language contrary to Himself.

So the fire became their protection and appeared as the destruction of all that threatened to harm them. “Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.” (Dan. 3: 22)

Daniel faced the lions fearlessly because he knew that his God, being omnipresent good, could appear to him only in the language of good.

With this understanding, the language of God appeared as harmless, God-like lions. “All that is, God created.” (Un. 64: 1)

Since he realized that communion with God was all there could be to lions, it was easy to see God also as the only King and to declare from his heart “O king, live for ever.” (Dan. 6: 21)

This was no subserviency to a so-called human power or king, but the acknowledgment of God as All-in-all, regardless of the appearance.

Elijah beheld his communion with God in the language of fire, consuming the sacrifice. “Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is the God.” (1 Kings 18: 38, 39)

Elisha saw his communion with God as a continuous supply of oil for the widow. “And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her,

There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.” (2 Kings 4: 6)

Note that the flow of the oil did not cease until the widow herself said that she did not have room for more.

Moses, under the government of fear, “fled from before” (Ex. 4: 3) the rod he had used for years as a shepherd’s staff, when he saw it turn into a serpent. But when intelligence destroyed his fear, his old, familiar rod reappeared.

His realization that matter, under any name or in any form, animate or inanimate, is but a state of consciousness, became a staff upon which he could lean.

It was the understanding of this truth that enabled him to perform such wonders as the leading of the children of Israel out of Egypt in the face of what seemed to be insurmountable difficulties.

Your communion with God is constantly appearing to you as all that you are conscious of. You determine for yourself, by what you are beholding, whether or not you are acknowledging God as All-in-all.

The same sea in which the disciples caught nothing, after toiling all night, yielded fish in abundance when they entertained a different concept of Mind. This was spoken of as casting “the net on the right side.” (Jno. 21: 6)

The Bible is full of instances which prove that what is seen takes outward form in accordance with what is acknowledged as consciousness. “Mortal mind sees what it believes as certainly as it believes what it sees.” (S. & H. 86: 29)

This proves that man’s communion with his God determines the appearance of all that he is conscious of. This constitutes man’s power and freedom, and fulfills the promise, “as he thinketh in his heart so is he.” (Prov. 23: 7)

What a man thinks constitutes his communion, whether with reality or unreality, Life or death, good or evil, abundance or limitation.

Communion with reality is the Holy Ghost.

Communion with unreality is hypnotism.

“Believing a lie veils the truth from our vision; even as in mathematics, in summing up positive and negative quantities, the negative quantity offsets an equal positive quantity, making the aggregate positive, or true quantity, by that much, less available.” (Mis. 62: 9)

God appears or is known only in one way — as idea. “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.” (Ex. 33: 20)

If man could see God other than as idea, man would be God; and, if man were God, there would be no man for God to be God to; consequently there would be no God.

Therefore, “no man shall see me, and live.” God sees Himself, God, as man or idea; but man does not see God. He sees God expressed in the language of his own understanding.

Completeness means Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; God, man, and the Comforter, which is the communion between them.

The three are one, and that one, God.

Paul sums it up, “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; .

. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” (1 Cor. 15: 24, 28)



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Love is the liberator.