Notes from a Class as Taught by Laura Sargent

Notes from a Class
A Biographical Sketch of Laura E. Sargent, C.S.D. and Victoria H. Sargent, C.S.D.

MAN, the fullness of divine knowledge, does not have to be taught. The recognition of this fact appears as my fuller understanding. This experience – Class – is not extraneous knowledge being imparted. All that takes place is in the Oneness of Being.

There can be no chemicalization. Chemicalization is only possible in belief, when two different identities meet and mix. It would require the belief that we have a human mind. Divine Mind, being All, precludes all human belief, all human conflict.

Divine Mind being All can only unfold itself as itself to itself. This activity constitutes myself. All that is ever happening is Truth unfolding its infinite self.

“I cannot understand” is false suggestion. Any statement of “I” not in accordance with Mind is not the present state of my thought or condition.

I am infinite understanding here and now because my true and only “I” is the full manifestation of divine Truth. The recognition of this spiritual fact is the law of annulment to any sense of restriction or limitation.

That which is taking place is a further revelation of what I already am. It is a welling up from within.

Divine ideas do not come to me. They originate as “I” or God, Mind, expressing itself. No inspiration can come from outside. I am not a person receiving the Truth. I am the activity of Truth itself. Truth never comes from outside, but is an inner subjective unfoldment.

Class is the activity of Truth which goes on expressing itself forever and is entirely impersonal.

The realization, “I am the fullness of divine Mind and include all right ideas,” makes me aware of all I need to know.

The divine Mind never repeats itself. It is infinite diversity. There is only one concept – the divine concept.

Receptivity formerly appeared as a person having a mind of his own receptive to Truth coming from outside. But now it means that the revelation of Mind is my own understanding. It is the recognition that the infinite range of Truth is already mine.

The purpose of Christian Science is to behold everything from the standpoint of Truth itself and thereby reject all limited sense.

Think radically. Speak wisely. There is only one point of view – Truth’s point of view. Man, the activity of Principle, is God’s being.

What is Christian Science? Mrs. Eddy speaks of the dual nature of the revelation in Science and Health, page 123:

1. The discovery
2. Proof of the correctness of the discovery through healing.

“...everything entitled to a classification as truth, or Science, must be comprised in a knowledge or understanding of God, for there can be nothing beyond illimitable divinity.” (Science and Health)

“Science is Mind manifested.” (Rudimental Divine Science) Science and Mind are the same thing. Think of yourself as Science instead of Scientist. (Miscellaneous Writings) “My name is Christ Science,” and there is no other concept of me in the whole universe. I am Christ Science itself. I see the lawful nature of myself as the emanation of lawful Principle. As Science, I already include everything which is being revealed.

Revelation means to uncover, to take away the veil.

Because Mind is infinite, it appears as infinite progression. It is the falling away of restrictions. Know yourself as joy, not a joyous person. Not that I have joy, but I am joy. Get away from having to being, then this appears as the having that we can never lose.

“There is only one Science. There is only one Life, and this is Truth and Love.” (Science and Health)

Human words are only indicative of divine ideas.

Healing is the clearing away of misinterpretations. I already include the right idea about any misinterpretation. The authority of Christian Science is in Truth, not in history. The authority of my perfection is in Truth, not in history. All there ever was to Jesus, and all there is to any one of us, is the Christ. Only that is true which coincides with the nature of God. The unfoldment of the Christ is progressive. It appears as:

l. The Old Testament prophecy
2. Jesus
3. The Science of Christianity

We read about the method in Science and Health, “I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration.”

“Christian Science must be accepted at this period by induction.” (Science and Health) We do accept Christian Science by induction. We admit the whole because the part is proved. Example: We see our neighbor healed, and so we accept God’s allness. Then further we understand that Christian Science is the actual Truth. Then we come to deduction – thinking out from Principle. The divine Mind, Principle, must interpret the universe. The small “i” is finite and cannot understand Principle, but I can. Anything that tries to limit me is mortal sense talking of its mortal concept of men, and not about me. I do understand.

“The universe, like man, is to be interpreted by Science from its divine Principle, God, and then it can be understood;…” (Science and Health) Ask “What is true about this situation from the standpoint of Mind itself?” The ability to understand everything from the standpoint of truth is not a human capacity. It is the capacity of the Christ. The capacity of the Christ is to let the human yield to the divine.

Divine Mind cannot suffer. Mortal mind is the only sufferer. To quote Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health, “…Mind is All and matter is naught as the leading factor in Mind-science.” And “...establish the truism that the only sufferer is mortal mind, for the divine Mind cannot suffer.” Also, “Mortal mind alone suffers, – not because a law of matter has been transgressed, but because a law of this so-called mind has been disobeyed. I have demonstrated this as a rule of divine Science by destroying the delusion of suffering from what is termed a fatally broken physical law.”

Jesus spoke of doctrine. Doctrine is always divine. “This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that Divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death.” (Science and Health)

“Question. – Have Christian Scientists any religious creed?

“Answer. – They have not, if by that term is meant doctrinal beliefs. The following is a brief exposition of the important points, or religious tenets, of Christian Science: –

“1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.

“2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God’s image and likeness.

“3. We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.

“4. We acknowledge Jesus’ atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man’s unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.

“5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.

“6. And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.” (Science and Health)

Christian Science is not a religious sect. It is the all-embracing truth of Christianity. It is the reality of existence. Christian Science as a whole is the reality of all things brought to light.

People say, “I couldn’t get on without it,” but we are the Science itself. If we believe we get on with it, we still believe ourselves to be persons. Christian Science reveals the actuality of Life itself.

There is no material point of view. Such a suppositional viewpoint exists only so long as we admit it for ourselves or in regard to anyone else.

Truth, by expressing itself, is explaining itself. Truth is self-understood, and has no relationship with the belief that consciousness is human and imperfect.

“The Bible was my textbook.” (Retrospection and Introspection) To Mrs. Eddy the Bible was her only textbook. To the Christian Scientist, Science and Health is the textbook.

Basic Values. New evaluation is all important. Soul, Spirit, alone is truly substantial. Everyone can avail himself of Spirit in infinite measure. Ideas are true substance. Matter is worthless.

“The miracles recorded in the Bible, which had before seemed to me supernatural, grew divinely natural and apprehensible; though uninspired interpreters ignorantly pronounce Christ’s healing miraculous, instead of seeing therein the operation of the divine law.” (Retrospection and Introspection) Miracles of any sort are natural.

Science is not a discovery to me if I know myself to be Science. It is only a discovery if I believe myself to be person. A discovery is really the acknowledgement of that which already is. Truth is. As a human person, one can become aware of Truth; but I am Truth.

“While we entertain decided views as to the best method for elevating the race physically, morally, and spiritually, and shall express these views as duty demands, we shall claim no especial gift from our divine origin, no supernatural power.” (Miscellaneous Writings) Willingness to let the human sense of existence yield to the divine fitted Mrs. Eddy for her mission, and enabled her to do her work. The highest mountain peak gets the first morning sun. Mrs. Eddy chose God to be her origin, her inspiration and her all.

Anything good, whether Jesus, Mrs. Eddy, or anyone else, is really a part of our own being. The fact that we see good means that we include it.

There is, in reality, only “I.” The only true immaculate concept is to see Being from its own point of view.

Dove is the “symbol of divine Science.” In the coincidence of the human and the divine, the human fades out. The real identity of Jesus is the Christ.

Mrs. Eddy’s autobiography in Retrospection and Introspection is the best. Her real biography is in her writings. “Those who look for me in person or elsewhere than in my writings, lose me instead of find me.” (Miscellany) Also 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.”

“Every human thought must turn instinctively to the divine Mind as its sole centre and intelligence.” (Miscellaneous Writings) When the human mind turns to the divine it yields to the divine. Hence it is no more human.

The woman in the Apocalypse is a symbol. All there is to the revelator is the revelation. The revelation is from the standpoint of Truth itself. Do not study as a human person acquiring knowledge from the book, but know that man is the divine idea itself. Every divine statement in the book is a confirmation of what I already am. Do not take in the statements of mortal mind. They do not refer to you. Mortal mind is never more than a false claim which has no origin, and its end is now.

Discriminate between absolute statements of Truth and relative. Absolute statements refer to you. Relative statements are but stepping stones for one who still believes he is a mortal. Such statements are to help an immature state of thought. Acknowledge the present divine good which you include infinitely and it will appear.

Statements leading immature thought to a higher sense: “God pities our woes with the love of a Father.” “Trials are proofs of God’s care.” “Trials teach mortals…” etc. “Christians are you drinking his cup?” This does not apply to you who know that you are Christ Science. So long as you believe yourself to be a person, you are keeping yourself on a faulty basis where you have placed yourself.

Statements for mature thought that are in No and Yes, “It is Truth’s knowledge of its own infinitude which forbids the genuine existence of even a claim to error.” “Dwelling in light, I can see only the brightness of My own glory.”

Resume: Whatever is divine reality constitutes my being here and now without a single restriction. “Truth has no consciousness of error.” (Science and Health) Place yourself upon that spiritual basis where the divine law operates irresistibly, from the standpoint of Truth itself. This is not a human endeavor to bring the Christ Truth into operation. The Christ is eternally operative. The divine Mind is All, therefore can express itself only as itself. This divine expression we call divine idea. This expression constitutes myself.

Every fact of divine reality is already included in man’s true being. This removes all sense of restriction and limitation. The purpose of teaching is liberation from the misconception. It is to lead out from a mortal sense.

Education is to lead out. “The entire purpose of true education is to make one not only know the truth but live it…” (Miscellany) Also in Miscellaneous Writings, “The education of the future will be instruction, in spiritual Science,…” Acknowledge that the only man is Truth’s own manifestation.

When there seems to be a gap between the question and answer, right there is the Truth, divine intelligence understanding itself without process, limitation or medium.

Science: There is one approach to it and one method – the understanding of the reality and actuality of existence. “Is there more than one school of Christian Science? Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, therefore, be but one method in its teaching.” (Science and Health)

“The Christian Scientist is alone [all one] with his own being and with the reality of things.” (Message, 1901) Alone means all one.

Every statement of Truth is a part of my own body. The fuller understanding is a fuller appearing of my own body. Whatever is not in accord with absolute Truth is not for me, but for immature thought. Never identify yourself as immature thought.

God does not think one minute “I am being cause” and the next minute “I am being effect.” The divine Mind is just being itself. All exists already in the perfection of Being. Instead of having to bring good about, we have only to acknowledge its ever-presence. “God is All-in-all,” means that God is the fullness of Being – the allness of existence.

Infinite Mind is infinitely expressed. The infinite does not permit anything besides Itself in extension or continuity. What appears as the material world is a misconception of reality, but the misconception cannot hide the reality.

Divine reality can never be obscured by a misconception. Error is a perversion – a misrepresentation of reality, and it is without entity and is therefore nothing. We are not trying to bring the things of God down to earth; but the realization of a spiritual fact always appears as improved human conditions.

The Nature of God: In the knowledge of God we find the truth about ourselves. You are not a person using Christian Science to solve problems. This would be the resurrection state of consciousness, and this is not final. It leaves one on the basis where one is a person reaching out for God, whereas man is the divine manifestation here and now. We are not using Christian Science to solve problems. We are living it joyously, and thereby harmony is preserved. The basic problem is the belief that man is a person. God is not outside of myself. In the revelation of God, I find myself.

The chapter ‘Recapitulation’ in Science and Health gives in a few pages the essence of Christian Science. Do not accept a human sense of being. Being cannot be limited by time, place or person. Our realization of the truth is the Word of God. Being is indivisibly One.

Attributes of God: Attributes are qualities of God Himself, and not as they appear humanly. They must have a sense different from the human in order to be attributes of God. For example, not human mercy; not justice weighing good and evil in the balance.

Attributes – effulgence, light, illumination, radiance, tenderness, vitality, brightness, righteousness, beauty, joy, gladness, glory, perpetuity, intelligence, loveliness, omnipresence, omniaction, omnipotence, fragrance, nobility, symmetry, perfection, immortality, authority, lucidity, sublimity, resplendency, cause, effect.

Synonyms of God: Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love. Other synonyms: The great I AM, substance, intelligence, Father, Mother. The nature of God being infinite, there are more than seven synonyms. Study Science and Health page 330:11-24. “I. God is infinite, the only Life, substance, Spirit, or Soul, the only intelligence of the universe, including man. Eye hath neither seen God nor His image and likeness. Neither God nor the perfect man can be discerned by the material senses. The individuality of Spirit, or the infinite, is unknown, and thus a knowledge of it is left either to human conjecture or to the revelation of divine Science.

“II. God is what the Scriptures declare Him to be, – Life, Truth, Love. Spirit is divine Principle, and divine Principle is Love, and Love is Mind, and Mind is not both good and bad, for God is Mind; therefore there is in reality one Mind only, because there is one God.”

Person: God “is the infinite Person.” (Message, 1901)

This term “person” as applied to Deity is used as a concession to the age. “As the words person and personal are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person, – in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense.” (Science and Health) “In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely individual, and not a person, as that word is used by the best authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining person as especially a finite human being; but God is personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit.” (Rudimental Divine Science) “God is Person in the infinite scientific sense of Him, but He can neither be one nor infinite in the corporeal or anthropomorphic sense.” (Message for 1901)

We can define God as Person only if person means infinite Spirit.

Agnosticism and Atheism: These deny God as supreme intelligence. Agnosticism is the doctrine that God is unknowable. We cannot know the nature of God with the human mind. Atheist must come to admit a cause, because he himself exists.

In Science and Health we read: “Unknown. That which spiritual sense alone comprehends, and which is unknown to the material senses. Paganism and agnosticism may define Deity as ‘the great unknowable;’ but Christian Science brings God much nearer to man, and makes Him better known as the All-in-all, forever near.”

“The individuality of Spirit, or the infinite, is unknown, and thus a knowledge of it is left either to human conjecture or to the revelation of divine Science.” (ibid) We read in Miscellaneous Writings, “Any inference of the divine derived from the human, either as mind or body, hides the actual power, presence, and individuality of God.” God is unknown so long as one pictures God as an entity separated from oneself. That only is known which spiritual sense alone comprehends.

Do not regard inspiration as taking in truth from outside. The wrong sense of inspiration is to breathe in from outside. “He fills all space, and it is impossible to conceive of such omnipresence and individuality except as infinite Spirit or Mind. Hence all is Spirit and spiritual.” (Science and Health) God fills all space. This means omnipresence. Avoid all sense of a three-dimensional universe. This is excluded by omnipresent Spirit. The “spiritual here” is omnipresence which includes the right idea about everything. The omnipresence of God is evidenced as all-inclusiveness. Where to human sense appears space, right there is God. God cannot be in the room. Where the suggestion of a room is, right there is God’s ever-presence. Never think that divine Love surrounds you. Know yourself as divine idea, infinite, and therefore cannot be surrounded. Get rid of earth-bound sense.

Eternality is not an extension of time. Time is a mortal belief which would limit. Eternality is the joyous sense of the continuity of existence which never began and which cannot be interfered with from within or without. This is the reality which Jesus termed the kingdom of heaven. There is no “without” to oneness.

Nature of God and How to Understand Him: “God’s interpretation of Himself furnishes man with the only suitable or true idea of Him; and the divine definition of Deity differs essentially from the human.” (Miscellaneous Writings) The only correct interpretation is God’s interpretation of Himself. It is the interpretation of divine Principle from the standpoint of Truth itself. In this correct interpretation, you find the definition of yourself as the true idea. As God’s knowledge of Himself, you, as the divine idea, know everything that is divinely true.

The greatest reverence we can give to God is in not ascribing to ourselves a single quality which is not in the nature of God. The knowledge of God is God’s knowledge, and this is man. God is forever expressing all that He is, thus constituting our joy, our peace, our harmony. Idea does not express God. Idea is God’s expressing, unlaboured, no antagonism, no obstruction.

Gratitude: We are not grateful to God. That would be two, and Being is one. God is not giving anything to me, but He is expressing Himself as me. Therefore I enjoy fully the love, goodness and perfection which constitute Being. I am not grateful to God. True gratitude is appreciation of everything from the standpoint of the Truth. God is the highest sense of light, love and beauty in an eternal and indestructible way, without any sense of time and person.

I – Principle

am – expression

all – nature

here – ever-presence

now – continuity

I am all here now.

God as I, I AM, or Ego: The word “I” is the indication of consciousness from the standpoint of itself. When you say “I,” you are conscious. The revelation of God as “I” or “I AM” shows the connection of yourself with God. There is only one “I.” The AM is the activity, man, the embodiment of “I.” Always use “I” in such a way that your statements conform precisely to the nature of Deity. The highest way to indicate the divine nature is from the standpoint of “I.” In reality there is no he, or she, or you, or they.

There is only one “I,” or “Us.” “Us” is the fullness – Father-Mother and child, one Being. “I am Spirit.” (Science and Health) “I” is the subjective nature of Deity.

In Unity of Good, read “Colloquy.” When evil talks it says nothing. Mrs. Eddy once said, “When error speaks, nothing has been said.” In Unity of Good we read, “I am the infinite All.” “AM” is the nature of Deity – man.

In the ascension, we recognize that the “I” which is God is the “I” which is man. We stay in this, and thus error gets rid of itself.

“I am the Lord,” is the subjective approach. The revelation of God as I AM is the greatest of all. It is the revelation of the oneness of Principle and idea.

Moses: In spite of Moses’ great qualities, his personal sense kept him out of the kingdom of heaven. He believed himself a person. Heaven is not a promised land to be entered, but a state to be acknowledged as man’s own being. Jesus showed that the Kingdom of Heaven is within.

The Old Testament gives a sense of persons getting rid of problems. The New Testament teaches identification with God, thus enabling problems to fall away for lack of identification. When Jesus said, “I and my Father are one,” he was not referring to his personal self, but to his Christ-selfhood. The Jews could not see this, so they tried to stone him.

Isaiah 51:12 shows correct sense of “I.” “I, even I, am he that comforteth you;” but “I am sick” – this “I” does not belong to me.

Egotist. One with human sense referring constantly to himself.

Egoist. The divine “I.”

“God is His own infinite Mind and expresses all.” (Science and Health) God is All. All is God. To understand God as Mind takes away the personal sense of God. Mind expressing itself remains itself but we call it idea. “The divine Mind, not matter, creates all identities, and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of Spirit, apparent only as Mind,….” (Science and Health) Note “apparent only as Mind.”

We start out from Mind and not as a person knowing about Mind. Starting from Mind, there we find idea. “Searching for the origin of man, who is the reflection of God, is like inquiring into the origin of God, the self-existent and eternal.” (Science and Health) In treatment we know what God is, and this constitutes man. We read in Science and Health, “The exterminator of error is the great truth that God, good, is the only Mind, and that the supposititious opposite of infinite Mind – called devil or evil – is not Mind, is not Truth, but error, without intelligence or reality.” The only Mind is the exterminator of error.

The small “i” is the suggestion that there is mentality apart from Mind. If I think I have a wrong thought in my human mind then I wrongly subscribe to a mere false suggestion of identity and mentality. Evil is a suggestion of the absence of divine Mind.

Treatment reaches another because there is not another. There is just the divine “I,” cause and effect.

Certain false beliefs parade in the guise of a person. Confront these beliefs with the truth and they fade out, and the human appearance is that of a person greatly benefited. Truth removes every misconception. Immediately reduce person to an impersonal belief ready to give itself up. “Evil is neither person, place, nor thing.” (Science and Health)

Mind with a small “m” does not refer to anything at all. Mind being All, there is no mentality apart from divine Mind. Consequently mind is not mentality. It is a false suggestion claiming to be mentality. It is a false claim and not mentality. God is the Mind of man. “Error is neither Mind nor one of Mind’s faculties.” (Science and Health)

“…man has no Mind but God.” (Science and Health) Have your Mind always with a capital M. Mind with small “m” is nothing. All there is to God is expressed as man.

Mind is the healer. “Our Master treated error through Mind.” (Science and Health) Let Mind declare itself without any sense that a person is declaring. Mind asserts itself in all its fullness and directness. The power that operates in treatment is the Christ, and not our understanding of the Christ.

The nature of Mind is all-inclusiveness. God’s nature is infinite, eternal, ever available, indestructible, all good, inexhaustible, the wholeness of reality. God and man are not two different entities, but two aspects of the one infinitude of Being.

In the understanding of coexistence, duality falls away, and we have oneness. The belief of creating is the very curse of the mortal sense of existence. Know yourself as pure being. Be and by being, heal the sick.

Important statement for practice. “Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind.” (Science and Health) Mind means God, and man the Ego.

Moses saw the subjective nature of existence as I AM. Start out from divine reality itself – I AM. Divine reality is your present state, and not a far off event. Salvation is the experience of everything from the standpoint of I AM.

Acknowledge Being from the standpoint of “I” and all that this I knows of itself constitutes the divine idea. Mind is a faculty which I already possess. The acknowledgement of Mind as my Mind frees from limitation, restriction and imperfection. Mind being All, there is no other mind to operate!

Do not deal with error as though it were a wrong thought to be eradicated from consciousness. Keep it as suggestion. Know that that which declares itself as the wrong thought of the patient is an impersonal false belief without any identity or reality. Then having impersonalized the error, we can confront the impersonal belief with the Truth. Then step aside and let Truth perform its perfect work. Avoid thinking we are going to destroy error. This is the prerogative of Truth alone. Mortal mind is a solecism, contradiction. It is no mind at all. The recognition that the divine Mind as the Mind of man is a wonderful understanding of our own being. No one can ever think of me in a mortal way. There is no human concept of me. Mortal mind never did have a concept of the Christ. When it is malicious, it can only strike at the human concept; and you never were in the human concept.

“The emperor” represents the Christ-idea, and the statue represents the human concept. (See Miscellaneous Writings p.224) The Christ is never in the human concept, and is therefore unhurt. We are not reaching out for the Christ-idea. It is our present being. There is no malpractice in reality, and no malpractice in belief. “Since there is in belief an illusion termed sin, which must be met and mastered, we classify sin, sickness, and death as illusions. They are supposititious claims of error; and error being a false claim, they are no claims at all. It is scientific to abide in conscious harmony, in health-giving, deathless Truth and Love. To do this, mortals must first open their eyes to all the illusive forms, methods, and subtlety of error, in order that the illusion, error, may be destroyed; if this is not done, mortals will become the victims of error.” (Retrospection and Introspection)

If I think you have a human concept of me, I indirectly have a human concept of myself. I am “Christ Science” itself. What appears as a Christian Scientist is the personalization of Christ Science. “…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,....” (Science and Health) This is what happens when the belief is disappearing. The human mind relinquishes its error.

Healing is the lessening of the material sense of body. A better belief is not the belief improving, but lessening. Moses’ mistake was that he thought of himself as a person making the statement “I AM.” “I AM” is divine Mind’s statement of itself.

Mind: “Let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:” (Philippians)

“But He is in one Mind, and who can turn him?” (Job)

“...be perfectly joined together in the same Mind and in the same judgment.” (I Corinthians)

“And here is the Mind which hath wisdom.” (Revelation)

“For who hath known the Mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the Mind of Christ.” (I Corinthians)

Spirit: “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” (John)

“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (John)

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance:” “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatians)

Soul: “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine:….” (Ezekiel)

Principle: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John)

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James)

Immutable Nature of Principle: “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that man should fear before him.” (Ecclesiastes)

“For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:….” (Colossians)

Do not identify yourself with any locality, any human family. You are not identified in any material way, either by family, place, or business.

Love: “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” (Isaiah)

Life: Freedom is not freedom from. It is glorious liberty itself.

Decisions: This word means to divide. There is no dividing – no decision to be made in oneness. Mind unfolds itself as complete harmony wherein no decision has to be made.

There is no demand and supply in God, just oneness.

“Infinite progression is concrete being.” (Miscellaneous Writings) The only progression that can be identified with infinity is from its own infinite basis. Progress is not from the lesser to the greater.

Spirit: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (John)

The characteristic of Spirit is its natural ever-presence. It is never localized. “The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, – Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science, – contradict forever the belief that matter can be actual.” (Science and Health)

Where there seems to be immensity, right there is Spirit. Astronomers are trying to measure their material concept of their universe, but the spiritual reality is so great that they cannot do it. Light travels at 186,000 miles a second. The spiritual universe is infinite. It cannot be measured in any way. Yet, it is all here as ever-presence. There can be no there to ever-presence. That which to the astronomer seems so far away is here as divine idea. The spiritual here includes the truth about any material object claiming to exist.

Age of Universe: The spiritual universe has no age. It is timeless, eternal. All human events, past, present and future are only a limited concept.

Personality is the belief that Mind is divided into millions and millions of persons. The divine Mind, being infinite, is indivisible oneness.

“Whatever seems to be a new creation, is but the discovery of some distant idea of Truth; else it is a new multiplication or self-division of mortal thought, as when some finite sense peers from its cloister with amazement and attempts to pattern the infinite.” (Science and Health)

Perplexities result from the vain attempt to behold that which is infinite through the lens of the human mind. The material is the mis-statement of the spiritual. Lifeless matter is a misinterpretation of the forever Life which is God. The infinite Oneness cannot be divided into plurality as persons.

Spirit seems to be intangible and indefinite to material sense. That which seems to be material is actually the spiritual seen “through a glass darkly,” seen by the human sense, seen through the dark glass of the human mind. Spirit has infinite tangibility.

Three viewpoints:

l. Man as mortal.

2. When we think of ourselves as a man surrounded by other men.

3. As the infinite manifestation of God.

Man includes the universe. “Man is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas.” “Divine metaphysics explains away matter.” (Science and Health) The small ‘s’ is not Spirit. It is belief without individuality or identity. Spirit never deteriorates. We have only “newness of life as Spirit.” (ibid)

Dwell upon the spiritual nature of body. There is nothing in Spirit which ever could be touched by mortal belief.

The only way to be aware of unconsciousness is to be conscious. So there is no unconsciousness. The only death is a misunderstanding of existence. At night know, “I, Being, am never unconscious.” In the morning know, “I am not refreshed by unconsciousness. I am the idea of Mind, omnipotence itself, and this is my strength.” Vigorously deny that unconsciousness can contribute to your wellbeing. Being unconscious of a material sense of existence, is the reason of apparent benefit derived from sleep. Do resist the belief that you are refreshed and strengthened by unconsciousness. You are rested in the uninterrupted awareness of what you are.

Spirit knows no process. The Spirit of the Lord is the understanding of the Lord.

Principle: The divine Source can take cognizance only of its own infinite, perfect, immaculate nature. The unreality of evil is the prerequisite for the solution of problems. Approach the subject in the realization that you are the divine idea here and now. Any opposite sense is entirely unreal. Principle is not cold and distant. Principle indicates warmth, tenderness. It is never open to variation, interruption. There is no rigidity in Principle. If Principle seems to hurt, it hurts only a false sense of oneself which one has permitted. Principle is nothing but love, and therefore cannot be hurt. “Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God.” (Science and Health) Principle and idea, cause and effect, are aspects of the same Being and not two separate entities. This is emphasized in the statement, “Principle and its idea is one.”

The oneness of Being includes noumenon and phenomena.

Man is the operation of divine Principle, not a person making use of the operation of divine Principle in order to heal. My divine Presence is a law to the situation in which I am. This is the only law and there is no other law operating. My divine Presence is the law of exclusion of all else – of beliefs in heredity, physical laws, so-called laws of nature. Whatever appears as deviating from the law of God is a perversion of the only law, the law of Principle.

We never have to heal something in a material universe, but we need to get rid of the material sense of universe. There is one universe, one Principle in operation all the time. Whatever good seems to be accomplished, is not the consequence of human government, but in spite of it.

If elated by a human activity, then I attach importance to a human medium. Give no power to a human sense of things. Know that divine Principle operates fully, perfectly. The human then conforms to the divine.

Never attempt to separate cause and effect. Know the universality of joy. Living in the realm of divine Science which is Love, all is Love. Love your neighbour as yourself, not as your neighbour. The oneness of Being knows no neighbour.

Finally, “When the term divine Principle is used to signify Deity it may seem distant or cold, until better apprehended. This Principle is Mind, substance, Life, Truth, Love. When understood, Principle is found to be the only term that fully conveys the ideas of God, – one Mind, a perfect man, and divine Science.” (No and Yes)

Life: God, the only Life, is my Life. “Divine Principle is the Life of man.” (Science and Health) “He sustains my individuality. Nay, more – He is my individuality and my Life.” (Unity of Good)

Do not dilute your sense of Life when thinking of man. It remains Life. There is only one Life – no opposing element, no death. In the oneness of Being, there is no opposite.

Knowledge from the standpoint of Truth constitutes my Life – is my Life. There are no private lives. All sense of disease is based upon the belief that I have a life apart from God. The one Life forever constitutes my individuality and identity and is incapable of disease, decay and death.

You have no body apart from the one infinite embodiment. Life is never organic or organized. “Organization and time have nothing to do with Life.” “Life...is never structural nor organic,…” (Science and Health)

The body that is man is the “compound idea including all right ideas.” There is no inter-relationship existing between divine ideas. The only relationship is between Principle and idea. Ideas have direct relationship with Principle, and brings normal functioning.

There is no time. Life is eternal. Time is the very opposite. It is a sense of division, the attempt to divide the continuity of Being into three phases, past, present and future.

No birth. Many are willing not to die, but not so willing to admit no birth. Death begins in birth. Know there never was birth. “Life is the spontaneity of Love, inseparable from Love.” (Miscellany)

Soul: Soul is the source of all art, beauty, rhythm and music. Incidental to this our human self should show forth beauty and good taste. Beauty and Soul are inseparable. “Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught some glimpses of the underlying reality, when they called a certain beautiful lake ‘the smile of the great Spirit’.” (Science and Health)

“...beauty typifies holiness….” (Miscellaneous Writings) Be the glory of supersensible Life. You are the infinite manifestation of Mind here and now, notwithstanding beliefs to the contrary. A flower – the beauty is not in the flower. It is spiritual beauty faintly seen. Real beauty is perfect, ever-present, indestructible. As you know this, your flowers will last longer.

Start out from the spiritual reality and refuse to take in the material concept. Beauty is the kingdom within. The artist must get away from his human sense of art to behold beauty from the standpoint of reality. Beauty is divine. The material sense only is erroneous. There are no perversions in Soul. Soul and Spirit are spiritually embodied as the expression of Principle. “Soul or Spirit means only one Mind, and cannot be rendered in the plural.” “Truth will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures and pains of sense for the joys of Soul.” (Science and Health)

Give up the finite concept of joy and bliss in exchange for the real joy and bliss which never disappear. Give up the limited imperfect concept. Do not permit a personal sense of joy and bliss. They are independent of person. “Man is harmonious when governed by Soul.” (ibid) “Music is the harmony of being; but the music of Soul affords the only strains that thrill the chords of feeling and awaken the heart’s harpstrings.” (Miscellaneous Writings) “Man has an immortal Soul, a divine Principle, and an eternal being. Man has perpetual individuality; and God’s laws, and their intelligent and harmonious action, constitute his individuality in the Science of Soul.” (No and Yes)

Resume: Spirit cannot be localized. The less localized sense of existence we have, the freer we are from restriction and limitation. Spirit is never open to destruction or disintegration. Hence we show forth continuous fullness and newness without any sense of age. Spirit (small s) does not denote mentality, but is the absence of Spirit. It is nothing. The divine consciousness cannot be hidden even by the strongest belief of its absence.

The fact that man is spiritual, is the definite frustration to any belief of malpractice. To be malpracticed upon, we must first assume that evil can operate. The belief that we have a human body and a human mind is the only malpractitioner.

Without this belief, malpractice cannot operate. Refuse the suggestion that you are a person, and the whole picture of anyone malpracticing will fade away.

Spirit does not imply any process. The nature of Spirit is its spontaneous immediacy. Here. Now.

Principle is always unfolding itself lawfully as its own nature and admitting nothing else. Principle shows forth the lawful nature of the primal cause to be Love and nothing else. Principle operates for all without any respect of persons. It is warmth and tenderness.

Life reveals the immortality of our existence neither beginning in birth nor ending in death. The only Life going on is Life with capital “L” – one indivisible Life, and we have no separate life. Love alone is Life. Life alone is Love. We are alive in Love. All we do occurs in the continuous oneness of eternity.

Soul is identity. The more we understand Soul, the more do we understand ourselves, and the more shall we find human experience beautiful, effortless, versatile, rhythmic. Our human experience and human appearance should show forth the beauty of Soul – good taste and harmonious surroundings. The Primal Cause has no knowledge of anything but itself. My ability is the Christ, and not a human endeavor.

Truth stands for logical consistency which never changes nor wavers. Truth never includes any error. Truth is ever-present, everywhere, and there is no absence of Truth. The truth is, that nothing but Truth is going on, and that is why the presence of Truth is so potent in the destruction of the lie. Truth only operates when approached from the standpoint of Truth itself.

“Without a fitness for holiness, we cannot receive holiness.” (Science and Health) A mortal is never fit for holiness. You must first know that you are already divine idea in the mental real where Truth operates. Mathematics: You must start out from mathematical truth – not from the error. Truth is a synonym for Christ.

Christ Truth:

1. Christ is the truth about everything from the standpoint of the Truth.

2. Christ is true selfhood.

3. How it operates in the destruction of error when error is confronted with Truth. Truth is its own proof. We do not have to prove the Truth. Man is the evidence of Truth, the proof of Truth.

Believing that we have to prove the Truth is old theology. It is a person proving Truth. Instead, know what I am from the standpoint of Truth. Whatever I would prove is already the truth of my being as Mind’s own manifestation. This Life is easy, problemless.

I am the idea of Truth itself.

I am the consistency of Truth itself.

Man is divine Mind’s self-consciousness. This must always be the standpoint from which we work. Then we are Truth, and not persons trying to prove the Truth. Truth is its own evidence. It is self-evident. The mortal sense of mathematics is the realm of three dimensions. Mortal concepts are products of the human mind.

In the realm of Spirit, there are no numerals. I is not one of a series, but the One which is the only. In the realm of Spirit, there is no 2, 3, 4. Mathematical truth is not spiritual. It is logical, and appears because Spirit is logical. The fact that the cause of the universe is Principle enables mathematics to be logical. The essence and substance of things are never in the material concept, but in spite of it. The concept of infinity in mathematics is totally different from the concept of infinity in metaphysics. In metaphysics, it is the unbounded allness of existence. In mathematics, it is a huge number – it is not spiritual.

God is One – the infinite One and Only – not a numeral. Although mathematics is used to illustrate infinity, it is still in the realm of the finite.

Love: Love is the highest sense of Deity because it illustrates the Motherhood of God. “Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.” (Science and Health) Two main features of Love: It is all-inclusive and does not leave out anything at all; it is indivisible.

No matter how ugly a thing may seem to be, we must not leave it out, but must see it in Truth’s light and include it in our own being.

Indivisibility: In the divine allness of reality there is no he, she, you or they because that supposes a consciousness outside of the one “I.” “Whatever ye have done unto one of these in my name, ye have done it unto me” – done in honor to the individual Christ-body you really are. Good appears in spite of divided sense. Good is indivisible and divine. From the standpoint of divine reality, it is one indivisible whole.

The real selfhood of Jesus is my real and only selfhood. Christ is synonymous with man from the standpoint of Truth, but not when we think of a man. I am “the compound idea of God, including all right ideas,” and this is the Christ. In the highest sense, Christ in the divine image and likeness and man in the divine image and likeness, is the same thing.

Know existence from the standpoint of Truth. Good qualities in a neighbour are divine ideas. Bad qualities in a neighbour have no reality, no existence.

Peace between nations cannot be attained by starting out on the material basis and trying to achieve it. Understand existence in its original oneness in which there is no fear, no limitation and no strife. The universality of man is based on the fact that man is the compound idea, and you are this man here and now. We must live this, unruffled and without fear.

Love frees from condemnation. Love antidotes the sense of Jehovah. The Comforter is within. “Michael’s characteristic is spiritual strength. He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love.” (Science and Health) Michael represents the state of thought which thinks of itself as a person fighting evil. Gabriel is the understanding that man is here and now the fullness of Love. From the standpoint of Love, error is nothing.

If you think of yourself as a person with a human mind, the human mind becomes an arena of conflict and has an awful time. You are the divine idea itself, and this is the law of annulment of all unlike itself. We are not in the fight. Pure Being is All, and this precludes all evil.

Love is the oneness of existence undivided by personal sense. Love is the supreme characteristic of eternality. Love never condemns, and so heals sin. Whatever is unlike the nature of Love comes for healing, and not to frighten us nor make us indignant. If we are frightened or indignant, we identify ourselves with it. Error appeals to Principle for liberation, and the more we know that the appeal is to Principle and not to person, the better will be the results. All there is to a practitioner is the operation of Principle. Love is both the Fatherhood and Motherhood of God – all One. Love is spontaneous. It operates without process. Joy is universal, seen in the oneness of Being. Thus you experience the true universality which you are.

Man is body. He does not have a body. The real body is that of divine Love – indivisibly one. Love cannot be perverted. It is the joy of one’s own divine self-completeness. Love being indivisibly one, it is without personal sense, and without disintegration. Disintegration requires two – friction.

Attraction: “...whose attraction is Love....” (Science and Health) Attraction is not like a magnet. It is not a point to which everything is being drawn. The real sense of attraction is the attraction that is Love – not human attraction. That would make two. Divine Love remains itself as omnipotence, and there is no other power operative in the whole universe. There is in reality no thought transference. Divine good is ever-present and the only power. Man is the experience of all good.

No Concentration: Mind is infinite. It is all that could ever be desired. You cannot share divine ideas. Idea being infinite is indivisible. The fullness is the only measure. The prodigal asked only for his share. He had a limited view concerning his inheritance and himself. This led him astray. Then came dearth, and then the realization that it would be better to go back to the Father as a servant rather than to remain in the mistaken sense as part manifestation of sonship. The elder brother also believed in part manifestation. Hence the Father’s benediction, “All that I have is thine.” The sense of human personal good was eliminated.

Fear: We believe in the reality of the thing we are afraid of. We believe also that man is a person, insecure, vulnerable, and in consequence we are afraid. Love destroys fear. Fear is the belief in the existence of something apart from good. Love casts it out because Love understands the infinite oneness of Being without an unlikeness.

Two Misconceptions:

1. The reality of evil.

2. That man is a person. We must remove the belief that I have identified myself with a destructible sense of existence. Then the mental picture will change, and there will be no reason to be afraid.

God is Substance: “Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay.” (Science and Health) The Latin equivalent of substance is understanding. Understanding is the substance of things as they really are. Matter is the spiritual reality misinterpreted by human sense – seen through a glass darkly. Thus that which is spiritual and incapable of discord and decay, appears as matter presented as open to discord and decay. Seen from the standpoint of Spirit, substance remains forever substance, the stable basis of all true evidence.

“Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love.” (ibid) Each idea – joy, peace, strength, courage – has its own identity or distinction.

“Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms if they would gain the true sense of things....As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness.” (ibid) By not accepting the mortal concept of ourselves, we shall see Being as it is, in all its infinity, reality and completeness. Then limitation falls away. Man is the immortal idea. This understanding expands, and thus more of true Being appears as one’s human experience. “Matter is a misstatement of Mind; it is a lie,....” (Miscellaneous Writings) The true spiritual substance is tangible.

“Every material belief hints the existence of spiritual reality.” (Miscellaneous Writings) A chair is a finite concept of some spiritual idea. Every material belief hints (not represents) some spiritual reality. We must reverse the material sense of chair. Whatever really exists is eternal.

Spiritual beauty is ever-present. The real function of usefulness is unrestricted and eternal. As this is seen, much material sense will lift, and Being will appear as it really is. “Divest yourself of the thought that there can be substance in matter, and the movements and transitions now possible for mortal mind will be found to be equally possible for the body.” (Science and Health) My concept of Being is the concept to which no matter is attached. All ideas are included in my real Being. The more that we know that we do not need a medium, the more will the medium conform; for example, until the medium of transportation will finally become unnecessary. There is only the ever-present here. For instance, Jesus was immediately on the other side of the lake. The human restrictions will disappear when all is seen from the standpoint of spiritual reality. Distance is not real. It is relative; and through its relativity, it fades out.

Father and Mother and Synonyms: In the understanding of the Fatherhood and Motherhood of God and that man is the divine experience of this, then in this infinite oneness we find our divine self-completeness. This divine completeness counteracts sex. Sex is a belief of incompleteness needing something from outside. All the qualities of both bride and bridegroom are included in my being – hence the joy of marriage. I do not need a person, or anything else from outside, to give me completeness and satisfaction. Whatever seems to be an outside thing or person is in reality a divine idea, and is already and forever included in my own true being. In the spiritual acknowledgement and conclusion, the picture will conform to what I already am – spiritual satisfaction – the full satisfaction. I am satisfied and complete. Then whatever needs to be humanly adjusted will conform and harmonious adjustment will take place. The inclusion of bride and bridegroom qualities is the only marriage there is. We are never dependent on the human picture, but the picture will become harmonious and complete.

Man is not an entity apart from God, dependent upon God. Man is the fullness of divine expression – “I and my Father are one.” Do not think of yourself so much as the child of God, but as the operation of divine Principle. Unless metaphysically understood, Father and Mother and child could tend to duality. The Ego is Mind. “That saying of our Master, ‘I and my Father are one,’ separated him from the scholastic theology of the rabbis.” (Science and Health) The sense of oneness is a rebuke to scholastic theology. Know yourself to be the infinite manifestation of the divine Mind, and not a person trying to demonstrate it. The Ego is Mind, the subjective understanding of “I” from the standpoint of true Being, and not you, he, she, or they. Any attempt of error is aimed at the human concept. All crucifixion is in the human concept of Jesus, never in the Christ. We were never in the human concept.

God as Being or Esse: This brings out the inclusiveness of God as All-in-all, rather than only the cause aspect. Being represents the reality of all existence. “Esse” is used only once in Science and Health: “Whatever contradicts the real nature of the divine Esse, though human faith may clothe it with angelic vestments, is without foundation.” “My work is reflected light, – a drop from His ocean of love, from the underived glory, the divine Esse.” (Miscellany) In the measure that we know that we are not persons, we shall have a more expansive existence. The way is the way of knowing. It is narrow at first but expands as we go.

Synonym One: “From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite idea,....” (Science and Health) This One refers to the whole of Being including both cause and effect aspects. “In Science, Mind is one, including noumenon and phenomena, God and His thoughts.” (ibid) “Christian Science, which reckons one as one and this one infinite.” (Message for 1901) The primal Cause has no conflicting element within itself. Where there is oneness – the oneness of infinity and eternality – there is not one element that could oppose itself, not an element of restriction or destruction. This divine oneness is all good.

“The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” (Mark) One Lord, one understanding, understood as One. In the oneness of God we find the complete unreality of evil, and the status of man as the full manifestation of divine Mind. Being is One. We are experiencing the fullness because we are the fullness itself. We are Mind’s fullness of understanding. The Truth is revealed as “I.” I am nothing more nor less than Mind’s full manifestation.

Our understanding of what we really are, infinite understanding, humanly appears as the best means whereby we can acquire that understanding. “Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine ‘Us’ – one in good, and good in One.” (Miscellaneous Writings) “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis.” (Science and Health) The universality of our being as the expression of Principle, constitutes the government of our universe. The oneness of God means the infinity of God, and therefore the individuality of the divine cause and effect. Personal sense is a sense of division – the attempt to divide the infinite One into a sense of persons.

Intelligence as a Synonym: “Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. It is the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind, of the triune Principle, – Life, Truth, and Love, – named God.” (ibid) Intelligence is the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind. The human belief about intelligence is intellectuality, which may be termed the stultification of personal sense. In knowing what you really are – the manifestation of divine intelligence – your faculties are increased. The realization of intelligence offsets mortal mind’s claim of sagacity and brilliance, which are but human beliefs. We are divinely enabled to answer the questions with which mortal mind tries to confuse us. Divine intelligence is the only power and motivation. There is no human intelligence. Intelligence is divine, totally good, and can never be used for destructive purposes. The one and only intelligence is identical with God, so the contraptions of mortal mind’s destructive devices are rendered harmless. All destruction is based upon a wrong approach to existence.

Intelligence, being divine Mind, is never a person. Man is divine idea, not a person knowing something about God. The truth is that Mind manifests itself without any medium. The divine Mind does all the knowing. Mortal mind says we cannot have a thought without a thinker – a medium. Mind knowing is God being. The human “...mind is not a factor in the Principle of Christian Science.” (Science and Health) “Human belief has sought and interpreted in its own way the echo of Spirit, and so seems to have reversed it and repeated it materially;…” (ibid) “Christian Science...excludes the human mind as a spiritual factor in the healing work.” (ibid) In the realm of Mind accusation is an utter impossibility.

Resume: The naturalness of Truth is so ever-present, it just is and does not have to labor in order to be its own logical consistency. Truth is the only thing going on. Truth liberates an erroneous sense from itself. It is not “I” being liberated from an erroneous sense. If I think I have to be liberated from an erroneous sense, I have not placed myself upon the scientific basis of Truth.

Condition: That ye abide in me – the real standpoint, acknowledging only real being.

Truth is used frequently in connection with Christ. Christ is the truth about everything seen from the standpoint of Truth itself. Truth operates potently to liberate error from itself. The ever-presence of Truth is far above any mathematical concept. Real existence is lawful. It is the Word of God. Mathematical truths are used only by way of illustration. Be clear that Truth operates to help error to get rid of itself, instead of getting rid of error. To know God as Love is the highest way to consider the divine cause and true nature of existence.

Motherhood, Love, only partakes of its own loving sense. God as Love frees from condemnation. Love is spontaneity. Love is both all-inclusive and indivisible. Fear is based on the division of personal sense. See all from the standpoint of integral oneness and fullness. Then there can be no fear because there are no opposites. Love is never open to exhaustion or frustration when seen to be universal. The real Love beholds all as it is from the standpoint of Truth. The highest seems to be perverted by the false sense of love. In the indivisible oneness of Love, there is no disintegration. Disintegration is a form of fear, a belief of opposites. The real body is Love embodying itself in indivisible, indestructible oneness and wholeness.

God as substance stresses the spiritual nature of substance in contradistinction to mortal mind’s claim that substance is material. Looked at through the medium of mortal mind, we see only the material sense of substance. Whatever we experience of beauty is spiritual, and is experienced in spite of material sense. Our joy, our satisfaction is spiritual. The only thing we ever give up is material sense. My Life here and now is spiritual. Do refuse the material concept which believes life to be material and identified as a material body. We lose nothing but the material concept, limited, restricted, and sometimes a perverted sense. By giving this up, your human experience is more harmonious. You can never escape your consciousness. Insist that Life is spiritual, not material, and your sense of life will improve, because there will be less restriction, less fear.

Spirit cannot be entirely hidden by material sense; so whatever appears as substantiality and harmony is not material, but spiritual. The belief that there is substance in matter claims that this chair is outside of me: whereas it is a mental concept, therefore inside of me. If I have a mental concept of myself as a state of consciousness including Boston, then no transport is needed to go there. But if I accept substance in matter, then the medium is required to go to Boston. Whatever is spiritual and right about transport, is included within me. All there is good about a chair is a divine idea, already included in my true selfhood. This is a law which removes limitations, and this overcoming of limitations appears as better ways of transportation. When we realize that there is no medium of money between man and his wealth, and that man is the manifestation of the fullness of God, hence abundance, then money will appear as required.

Live from the standpoint of “I.” Stress divine sonship. The Son has the same qualities as the Father-Mother. Avoid the dualistic sense of Principle and idea. It is ONE. So to think of oneself as a child of God, is immature.

Christianity is Science, not the dispensation of a preconceived God. The Motherhood and Fatherhood of God make us see that man is the full manifestation, including true manhood and womanhood. Never think that you are demonstrating something to give you completeness – for example, a husband or a wife. Completeness is an established fact. As you feel this, then the human picture will conform to the perfection you are. Man is universal peace. The recognition of this fact makes us feel it here and now. There is no such thing as a person reaching out for peace. The more we refuse to be either down or elated by the human picture, because God is All, the more will the human picture conform to the pattern of the divine.

The understanding of God as One was the asset of the Israelites. In infinite Oneness there is no element of obstruction or opposition. The goodness of God is mightier than all sense of duality. We are not persons with a human mind perceiving God; otherwise there would be more than one. Man is pure being – Principle in operation. God is one alone, not numerically one.

Live as the direct manifestation of intelligence, as omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience. The human mind is not intelligent. It cannot take cognizance of ideas. It is not the medium of Mind. Intelligence cannot be hidden by a so-called human mind. Never use the expression, “I must clear my thought.” Otherwise you subscribe to a false mentality. There is only one Mind capable of expressing itself as ideas. These ideas are ever-present. They cannot be hidden. Error tries to perpetuate itself in the guise that it is your mind. It is no mind at all. All evidence of good is the divine Mind expressing itself in spite of the human mind. The imperfect concept is nothing and has nothing whatever to itself – no mentality, no substance, no entity. The problem is always the misconception of the fact.

Man: Man is used in three different ways:

1. As a mortal

2. One of a series

3. The compound idea

In Principle’s interpretation of itself, I find the fullness of my own true self. Human thought cannot approach existence in an absolute way, but only according to human view, the relative basis. Man includes the universe; also the right idea of body, temple, church. “Spirit is the only creator, and man, including the universe, is His spiritual concept.” (Unity of Good)

“Man. The compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind.” (Science and Health)

“Earth...To material sense, earth is matter; to spiritual sense, it is a compound idea.” (ibid) Earth is included in man – not man in the earth. Earth is a compound idea not the compound idea which is the infinite expression of infinite Mind. “Immortal man was and is God’s image or idea, even the infinite expression of infinite Mind.” (ibid) “Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance.” (ibid) For absorption you need two. Being is unalterably one. God and man are two different aspects of the same Being – cause-aspect and effect-aspect.

The second sense of man: – one of a series. I say, “I am the full representation.” You say, “I am the full representation.” Put all this together – that is, crowds saying, “I am the full representation,” and this is termed generic man. In this second sense, I have limited my own fullness by believing that there is a “you” who can say the same. What God knows of Himself is man – not a person knowing, but Mind knowing itself – One knowing One. That of which infinite Mind is infinitely conscious is itself, and this is man. Man is divine self-consciousness, and this is the most intimate way to know oneself. In the divine Mind, I find the infinite stable sense of myself – not ourselves. There is only one “I.” Totally abandon what seems to be, and accept that wonderful starting out from Spirit – the only One knowing its own infinitude.

The “greater love” is the willingness to lay down every human concept. It is the acknowledgment of the sublime and glorious sense of Being in which cause is being effect.

If we look for God, we find man. If we look for man, we find nothing. If we try to reflect the real man, then we are trying to reflect the reflection. Only from the standpoint of Truth itself is there any awareness of perfection. “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father is perfect” – not be ye perfect as man is perfect. “The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, – perfect God and perfect man, – as the basis of thought and demonstration.” (Science and Health) If you make this the basis of thought, there is no need to worry about the demonstration.

The understanding of God from the standpoint of God, constitutes the perfect man. Man is Mind’s knowing, not a person knowing about Mind. There is one realm – the realm of God and His idea. What appears as human experience is the mistaken and limited concept of this. Every idea is infinite.

Lesser Idea: Whatever is true about a dog may be called “lesser”; but even though “lesser,” the idea is infinite. We can never come to the end of infinity. Idea, meaning the whole manifestation, cannot be used in the plural, but this compound idea includes all ideas. It includes the spiritual fact of all things. The dog is “lesser” because it represents only a few ideas. Man includes all. The more you think of dog as an idea and not as a thing outside, the more intelligence it will manifest.

Money: Money points to abundance. Money is humanly the medium of exchange, but correctly seen it shows forth my wealth.

Resume: A person knowing about Truth, or thinking of himself as a spiritual idea surrounded by others, or as a ray of light, one of many, then this is the human approach. Now look out from the Truth, and we then understand existence as fullness, as the compound idea “which has not a single quality underived from Deity.” If I want to know man’s individuality in its undivided sense, I must find what individuality means to God. In God we find the individuality of man as the full manifestation of Mind. Use individual for God in order to offset the personal concept of Him.

“As the words person and personal are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person, – in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility. The term individuality is also open to objections, because an individual may be one of a series, one of many, as an individual man, an individual horse; whereas God is One, – not one of a series, but one alone and without an equal.” (Science and Health) God is one alone without an equal or without an opposite.

Discriminate between spiritual individuality and human individuality. Get the sense of individuality from the standpoint of God – the only true sense. “God is individual Mind.” (Miscellaneous Writings) In this individuality I recognize myself. “His being is individual.” (ibid) “Man has perpetual individuality.” (No and Yes) “Science defines the individuality of God as supreme good, Life, Truth, Love.” (Rudimental Divine Science) Individuality can be understood only from the standpoint of Principle itself. Spiritual individuality does not mean one of a series. The only individuality we can ascribe to ourself is one, and this not one of a series, but one alone. The consistent and scientific approach is to start out from divine Mind, and then the full manifestation is man. What humanly appears as your individuality will be enhanced by knowing, God is my individuality. “He is my individuality and my Life.” (Unity of Good)

There is no absorption in oneness. If I believe I am a single man – one of a number – this sense of one can partake only of the divine qualities, not quantity. Bunch all these “single men” together, and you get generic man. But the absolute sense, Principle and its idea, is one in quantity and quality.

“Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith: I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory, – all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man, for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all, because I am that I am.” (Science and Health) My only responsibility is to acknowledge that which God is: I AM as Principle in operation, and this acknowledgment constitutes my being.

Individual man is one aspect of man, and generic man is another aspect. Looking out from the one individual Mind, we find the one infinite manifestation, man. One God could have only one full manifestation. Start out as the full reflection. Reflection is oneness. Reflector would imply duality. “Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the reflection in multifarious forms of the living Principle, Love.” (ibid) When you know yourself identified with Spirit, then you have the true sense of reflection. “Your mirrored reflection is your own image or likeness.” (ibid) Not as good an illustration as “I AM.” The reflection of the divine Mind is always within the divine Mind. It never goes out of it. If you believe yourself to be a ray, you start out from idea instead of from God. Start out from God, and you enjoy freshness, beauty, bounty.

Man, the compound idea, is infinite being, infinite in quality. Compound just indicates the whole. Infinity never repeats itself. Hence the interesting nature of the infinite. The reflection is always within the divine Mind and this makes it subjective from the standpoint of “I,” and not from the standpoint of you, he or she. Deflection is impossible.

Say “I am,” not “you are.” It is a mistake to try to make a patient see the Truth. If you do this, you admit something outside of the Truth. The “I” expresses itself – I am wholeness. Then that which appears as he or she will say, “I am whole.” So long as you have a he or she, you have something outside. The “I” as divine Mind is expressing itself as the whole of Being. Be subjective instead of objective.

Salvation: If I say I am saved and believe that someone else is not, then I am not saved.

Man and body are in a certain sense identical, but man as the complete idea is body. He does not have a body. That which is called a body is not a body, but a misconception of the one and only true spiritual body. The misconception of body is a false claim, and not an actuality. Acknowledge the fact that there is only one body, and this one is spiritual. Then the material discordant sense fades out and harmony appears. The claim that we have a material body is all there is to a material body. “Matter is an error of statement.” (Science and Health) Body is not an organization. There is no organization in God. “Organization and time have nothing to do with Life.” (ibid) The only real relation is the oneness of Mind and idea – not a relating of two things. There is perfect coordination of divine ideas – peace, joy, harmony, strength, etc., all coordinate; but there is no interrelationship of ideas. All ideas are connected indissolubly with their source.

Divine Mind is divine harmony. A divine idea cannot show forth anything that is not the nature of divine Mind. There is no cooperation of divine ideas. There is no cooperation in oneness. There is perfect coordination. All operates rightly; and the recognition that I am not connected with the spurious concept, results in harmony of the mortal body. The infinite idea includes all that humanly appears to be desirable without any limit. We are gaining all through Christ – gaining even the highest good and the highest ideal. The only thing we leave for Christ is the human misconception. This results in the constant experience of greater joy and beauty. Real body includes all – the sunset, all the good which humanly appears as other people. This does not take anything from one’s neighbor. It is loving one’s neighbor as oneself. “He who gains the God-crowned summit of Christian Science never abuses the corporeal personality, but uplifts it. He thinks of every one in his real quality, and sees each mortal in an impersonal depict.” (Retrospection and Introspection) Have no condemnation. We live in the state of knowing truth only. The truth about every function of body is divine activity, and this will result in the normal functioning of the mortal body. We are not living in mortal body, but seeing it as a misconception.

Business: Business is the activity of Principle. I am the Father’s business. We must live so as to show forth the activity of every divine idea, and business will then be prosperous. I am never in the human sense of business or office or organization, but I include them as divine. Whatever may be our business career, our living Christian Science must always come first. Make everything subservient to Christian Science. We never have to make a good impression. Impression requires two minds. I am Mind’s infinite expression. This results in an excellent impression. “I am” is the law to every human situation. The art of business is to love. To love is to behold everything from the standpoint of Truth, in its undivided oneness. We are not in business, but are the true expression, or activity, of infinite Love. The purpose of business is to show forth all that constitutes divine reality, but not with profit motive. The highest motive in business is to exemplify divine reality. Do not place business on a commercial basis, but as the rendering of good.

Money in itself has no intrinsic value. Resist the temptation to believe that you can have this or that because of money. I include all right ideas, and this means that existence is a state of joy, beauty, spontaneity. We never work for money. We work to render service, and as a token of the abundance of being which we feel, there will always be enough money.

Resume: Man is one as the fullness of Being and what appears as the medium will conform. Never regard beauty in a negative way. Whatever is beautiful is always included in my spiritual appreciation. The right idea of whatever appears to be beautiful is already included within my infinite being. “All that is worth reckoning is what we do, and the best of everything is not too good, but is economy and riches.” (Miscellany) All that is good, is found in my own being without a single reservation. Never forget that you are independent of any medium. The whole purpose of a Christian Science practitioner is to make himself superfluous. All there is to man, is divine self-consciousness. This is the only man.

Man: What is revealed is the nature of God. In that revelation, we find man. Realize that man is Principle in operation, not an idea which is expressing Principle. There can be no tension or struggle because Principle is doing all the expressing. I have only to acknowledge that what is expressed by Principle is my own being.

Three ways of viewing man:

1. Buried in material sense – a mortal.

2. The resurrection viewpoint – the second baptism in “Pond and Purpose.” (Miscellaneous Writings) This man starts out from the human appearance –one of a series. This man, or this concept of man, reflects all the qualities of God; but because he starts out from human experience, he restricts himself.

3. The ascension viewpoint – the only scientific approach to existence, that is to oneself, is from Principle. The universe must be interpreted from Principle. If you start out from birth, growth and decay, the universe must continue to be an enigma. If you look at divine creation from the standpoint of the human mind, all is tainted by the medium you use. So look out from, not at. Look out from the Truth and find the reality of existence, the full representation of Mind, the universality of being, my real being, “the compound idea of God, including all right ideas.” “Man includes the universe.” “Man includes the universe” is from the standpoint of divine Principle itself. “The universe includes man” is from the standpoint that man is a divine idea reflecting God’s qualities, but not the fullness – not quantity.

Teaching is not an attempt to inform restricted thought, but to let Mind express itself in all its fullness. If I think of myself in the second baptism, “Pond and Purpose,” (Miscellaneous Writings) or the resurrection, then individual means one of a series. Generic man is all these ones of a series together. The third baptism or ascension viewpoint – the standpoint of Spirit – is the full manifestation, or man.

If I want to know anything about qualities, go to Deity and see what that quality means as Deity itself. “In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely individual, and not a person, as that word is used by the best authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining person as especially a finite human being; but God is personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit.” (Rudimental Divine Science) This undivided sense is to offset the prevalent belief that God is a person. God must be presented in an impersonal way. If I would know the full and universal nature of man, I must know God’s individuality. The term generic represents the male and female qualities. It stresses the fact that man includes the manhood and womanhood of God.

Man as a compound idea is the fullest expression of everything that divine Principle is. We have to get away from everything that we seem to be humanly in order to see all from Truth itself. In the first, second and third sense, each gives a different sense to the adjective we are attaching to the noun. The second, generic, starts out with man as idea. The third sense starts out with Mind.

Body: Man does not have a body. He is body – the activity of divine Principle embodying itself as the infinitude of ideas. There is only one body. In the practice, we are not attempting to heal bodies, or to be taken in by the misconception of body. Body is embodiment of ideas, a compound idea, and not organization. In organization, organs work by inter-relationship, but in true body there is only coordination. The only relationship is based upon oneness. The indivisible divine oneness can have no inter-relationship with itself. The coordination does away at once with the belief of obstruction. The one divine body is divinely sustained, maintained active without flaw or interference, and in perfect order. Divine Mind, being conscious of itself, embodies itself and this is the only body there is. It includes the truth about everything which is humanly evident. The idea of business is included in man, and man is not in business. When the purpose of our existence is to live divine reality, all else will be incidental and will blossom forth.

Whatever is right about my human self, is actually the functioning of Spirit – Spirit functioning in a perfect way. We cannot bring Christian Science into material business, but we bring business into Christian Science by refusing the discordant concept. There is only one activity going on. The greatest restriction is to accept the suggestion that I am a human body with a human mind. This would bring me under material law, heredity and restriction. You cannot have sin unless you believe mind to be human. When acknowledging divine fullness, body is the temple of the living God. Then I do not place myself in the realm where doom and depression, sickness and discord seem to be operating.

Practice is a sacred office of the Christ. Man is the Father’s business. Money, the medium of abundance, will appear more and more in the right way when we realize, “I am abundance.” Finite sense can have no sense of the fullness of infinity. From the standpoint of Mind, I include all the good qualities of Jesus and everyone else. This gives a sense of the majesty which I am.

God is individually conscious of Himself, and this appears so that you and I can talk and exchange ideas. What appears as true relationship, will be enhanced. What appears an inharmonious relationship, will be dissolved. The more we acknowledge the beauty and grandeur of Jesus, the more will this appear as a grander sense of ourselves.

There is only one reality, the reality from the standpoint of I, and this is true subjectivity. Error presents itself as a person with error in order for the error to be perpetuated. Know that error has neither identity nor reality. Everything unlike infinite good comes for healing and not for identification. Impersonalize it. It cannot then be perpetuated, and cannot perpetuate itself, having no mentality with which to identify itself.

Christian Science Practice or Prayer: Christian Science treatment is that activity which removes any misconception regarding the true nature of existence, and the oneness of Principle and idea. Illustrate treatment with four pieces of paper:

1. God.

2. The Child of God

3. Animal Magnetism.

4. The practitioner.

The child of God would have a separate entity, but God and man are not separated, so animal magnetism cannot operate. It can only operate when there is a suggestion of separation between God and man. The basic trouble is the belief that there is separation between God and myself. There is only divine Being going on. Do not make any separation between God and man. God cannot think of Himself one minute as Himself and then as man. Be clear that the basic trouble is the separation between Principle and idea and this is the first thing to be done away with.

1. The first thing in treatment is the affirmation of that which is divinely real and true.

2. The disappearance of error is incidental to the realization of the truth. “Disease is neither a cause nor an effect.” (Science and Health) Example: A cold. There may seem to be a connection between being careless and experiencing a cold the next day. Mortal mind may claim to be a cause, but mortal mind is not a cause, it is a claim. So reduce mortal mind and suppositional cause to a false claim. Point out never to seek a cause in matter. The problem is due to having identified oneself with the false sense of body, and the remedy is to know oneself as the divine manifestation. “Our Master read mortal mind on a scientific basis, that of the omnipresence of Mind.” (ibid) Our Master recognized the omnipresence of Mind. Realize the omnipresence of Mind as the only Mind, the only presence, power, activity. Beliefs will then disappear. One of these beliefs is that error can remain hidden, and thereby perpetuate itself. “An approximation of this discernment indicates spiritual growth and union with the infinite capacities of the one Mind. Jesus could injure no one by his Mind-reading. The effect of his Mind was always to heal and to save, and this is the only genuine Science of reading mortal mind. His holy motives and aims were traduced by the sinners of that period, as they would be to-day if Jesus were personally present. Paul said, ‘To be spiritually minded is life.’ We approach God, or Life, in proportion to our spirituality, our fidelity to Truth and Love; and in that ratio we know all human need and are able to discern the thought of the sick and the sinning for the purpose of healing them. Error of any kind cannot hide from the law of God.” (ibid)

Mind Reading Only: “Whoever reaches this point of moral culture and goodness cannot injure others, and must do them good. The greater or lesser ability of a Christian Scientist to discern thought scientifically, depends upon his genuine spirituality. This kind of mind-reading is not clairvoyance, but it is important to success in healing, and is one of the special characteristics thereof.” (ibid) Moral culture and goodness discern thought scientifically. Clairvoyance would be to read mortal mind, thus admitting that one has a mortal mind. This is a false suggestion. “If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous.” (ibid) The best approach to healing is the scientific way. You are not a person knowing the Truth, but Truth is being itself – Love itself being its own joyous selfhood. In the joy of pure Being, any desire to heal or to be healed is blotted out. “If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine.” (ibid) The only thing going on is Love expressing itself, being itself, and nothing else at all is going on.

We are dealing only with a false argument. In order to protect the practice and the reputation of Christian Science, discriminate in selection of patients. Find out if a patient is wanting to know more of Christ. The human motive may seem to be physical healing, but the real purpose of healing is to know more of your Christ-being. This would enable problems to fall away. Getting well is incidental, and not the primal purpose of Christian Science treatment.

Urgency is itself a claim to be met. If you accept urgency, you are believing in the reality of error. Use affirmation in the sense that Truth is being itself. Treatment must end in that wordless Being which is divine reality. The denial in itself does not heal. The healing takes place in the realm of true being. “The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, without a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument, has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases.” (Rudimental Divine Science) “The ultimate of scientific research and attainment in divine Science is not an argument: it is not merely saying, but doing, the Word – demonstrating Truth – even as the fruits of watchfulness, prayer, struggles, tears, and triumph.” (Miscellaneous Writings)

Recognition is divine Truth affirming itself. My real and only being has never left the joyous realm of Truth.

Argument: “Suffer it to be so now.” Never use a person’s name. This would be acknowledging as real the basic error. The basic belief is that error is personality itself, so we must see the incorporeal nature of impersonal error. Reduce the suggestion of “a person-with-a-disease” to a false claim which comes under the law of obliteration by Truth. It is impersonal suggestion without mentality, or identity, or anything at all. “Incorporeal evil embodies itself in the so-called corporeal, and thus is manifest in the flesh. Evil is neither quality nor quantity: it is not intelligence, a person or a principle, a man or a woman, a place or a thing, and God never made it.” (Message for 1901) The fact that evil is neither duality nor quantity is a very potent denial of error. Every treatment should be on the universal basis; then whatever is receptive to the healing Christ, receives the treatment. We do not have to establish Truth, but just acknowledge its universal nature. Do not be satisfied in healing just the specific patient. Truth operates universally.

If you say mortal mind cannot touch so and so, then you are merely making that one an exception, whereas there is no mortal mind in reality or in belief, and for this reason it is just nothing, and cannot operate in any way, in any place. The function of treatment is to rub out the rim of the naught. “...error being a false claim, they are no claims at all.” (Retrospection and Introspection) To see error as no claim at all, is to rub out the rim of the naught. When we have outgrown the immature statements, we can use the most absolute and impersonal statements. A patient is an impersonal belief never a person. The truth about the patient is that man is the full manifestation of divine Mind. Every treatment should be the progressive unfoldment of the previous one. Every treatment is divine Truth affirming itself, and this appears as error denying itself. Truth is All, and therefore that which claims to be the opposite of Truth can have neither presence, power nor consciousness; and that which is nothing cannot go on. Self-perpetuation of error is a false claim evidenced as chronic disease, so acknowledge timeless being. This denies time. Error is nothing more than a misconception, but as long as we believe it, we perpetuate it as our experience. Confront error with the truth about it, and the misconception disappears because there is nothing left by which it can be identified.

Resume: The activity of Truth itself constitutes the real and true nature of man. It appears humanly that we confront the error with the Truth; but actually Truth is all that is going on, and error has always been nothing. Never condemn in cases of sin, and never identify patient with punishment. The Christ-function of the practice is to behold everything from the standpoint of Truth. “Neither disease itself, sin, nor fear has the power to cause disease or a relapse.” (Science and Health) In identifying oneself with sin, we experience the restrictions and pains of a mistake. Behold all from the standpoint of Truth, never permitting the slightest condemnatory sense. If I criticize you, I myself get all the hell of that wrong identification. The Christ never condemns. Never admit that treatment destroys something. Treatment is proving the nothingness of nothing. Be and by being, incidental to our glorious being, we heal the sick. “It is this infinitude and oneness of good that silences the supposition that evil is a claimant or a claim. The consciousness of good has no consciousness or knowledge of evil; and evil is not a quality to be known or eliminated by good:….” (Miscellaneous Writings)

Instead of believing that we have to reject evil from human consciousness, know that there is no human consciousness. The mortal sense of consciousness is impurity itself. “When the unclean spirit is gone out of man, he walketh though dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” (Luke)

Better belief is not belief improving, but belief lessening. Then we have a fuller experience of that which is divinely true. “An improved belief cannot retrograde. When Christ changes a belief of sin or sickness into a better belief, then belief melts into spiritual understanding, and sin, disease, and death disappear.” (Science and Health) The primal purpose of Christian Science treatment is regeneration. We must recognize our spiritual ability to prevent problems from arising. This is the highest function of a practitioner. The function of a practitioner is to reveal the real basis of man and how Truth operates. “The genuine Christian Scientist is adding to his patient’s mental and moral power, and is increasing his patient’s spirituality while restoring him physically through divine Love.” “Healing the sick and reforming the sinner are one and the same thing in Christian Science.” (ibid) Evil is a suggestion claiming to be the absence of Truth. Detect the claim that mortal mentality is mentality. It is nothing.

Demonstration: The divine Mind is forever demonstrating Itself. “...demonstration is Immanuel, or God with us;….” (ibid) That is to say, we are not trying to demonstrate Truth. Principle is doing all the demonstrating. Man and demonstration are the same thing. I am Mind’s demonstration already, and this in the most perfect and loving way we could conceive of. “…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,….” (ibid) This is the result of a Christian Science treatment, but it is difficult to describe the disappearance of that which was always nothing, but this statement is the best way. The more we know there is no affinity between Truth and error, the more readily will evil disappear. “If mortal mind knew how to be better, it would be better.” (ibid) Mortal mind is the absence of the divine Mind.

Relapse or Recurrence: That which never occurred can never recur. The only happening is the divine event of continuity of good. Error never had a beginning. I am not a person who has been healed. Personal sense is the basic trouble. “If your patient from any cause suffers a relapse, meet the cause mentally and courageously, knowing that there can be no reaction in Truth.” “Neither animal magnetism nor hypnotism enters into the practice of Christian Science, in which truth cannot be reversed, but the reverse of error is true.” (ibid) Truth can never be reversed.

Chemicalization: Illustrate by chemistry. If you think you have a human mind which is the meeting place of good and evil, prevent chemicalization by knowing that all that is true of a patient is divine Mind. There are not two minds going on. There is the undisturbable oneness. “Mental chemicalization follows the explanation of Truth, and a higher basis is thus won;…” “If faith in the truth of being, which you impart mentally while destroying error, causes chemicalization (as when an alkali is destroying an acid), it is because the truth of being must transform the error to the end of producing a higher manifestation. This fermentation should not aggravate the disease, but should be as painless to man as to a fluid, since matter has no sensation and mortal mind only feels and sees materially.” (ibid) As a result of treatment, obnoxious traits and habits must be given up. Progressive unfoldment is painless. “Either by Science or suffering.” It should always be by Science, otherwise you have identified yourself with painful mortal sense. Stop doing this and the error fades out. Reduce evil to a belief, but be careful not to keep it going as a belief. Life, Truth, Love refer to divine ideas, but mortal mind does not refer to a thing.

Prenatal State: If in your practice you have to handle the influence of a prenatal state, know that there is no birth. Man is immortal now. “If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous.” (Science and Health) This statement is of great importance. All sense of having to be healed is lost in the pure joy and perfection of Being, lost in the beauty, completeness and satisfaction of the one Being. This results in healing. Knowing from the standpoint of “I” in all its universality and fullness, and the patient will say, “I am well.”

Certain points are fundamental:

1. That there is a cause of the trouble. Either I did something or someone else did something, or some unpropitious circumstance prevailed. Reduce this to suggestion, and know that nowhere in the universe can anyone ascribe a cause to that trouble.

2. That there is a place for the disease to manifest itself. This would require a material body and a human mind. Never admit the existence of a material body and a human mind. This is a fundamental point.

3. The belief that there is a law by which belief can perpetuate itself. Where there is no cause, there is no law. Law belongs to the spiritual universe. The spiritual universe is lawful, and material sense cannot hide the divine law – this humanly appears as law – the laws that keep the universe going. Laws that appear restrictive are perversions. God’s law is never broken.

It is more important to deny personal sense than to deny disease. In our treatment, we never declare material or human perfection. The human sense is always the very opposite of the real, even when it appears to be harmonious. If I think I am getting better, I am still sick. Healing never occurred to me as divine idea. I was never in a mortal picture. Reassure yourself that what is happening is Truth expressing itself, so what appears as the healing power is divine, not human. Truth is not human activity. It is Mind. It is the glorious divine Principle, Love, flawless and irresistible in operation.

Argument: Mrs. Eddy writes, “I never have practised by arguments which, perverted, are the weapons of the silent mental malpractice.” “I issue no arguments, and cause none to be used in mental practice, which consign people to suffering. On the contrary, I cannot serve two masters; therefore I teach the use of such arguments only as promote health and spiritual growth.” (Miscellaneous Writings) “The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, without a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument, has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases.” (Rudimental Divine Science) Christian Science treatment does away with the arguments of division. It appears that there is God, man, disease and practitioner, but in the oneness of God and man, the claim of animal magnetism, based upon duality, cannot operate. Hence, the conclusion of treatment, which is true at the beginning, is that there is only the oneness of Being. Only pure Being is going on, and we rejoice in that which really is. The function of the argument is merely a human auxiliary, to bring you to the point of seeing the reality. Mind sees the reality always, and needs no auxiliary.

The problem announces itself to a practitioner as a person to be helped, but everything unlike good is an impersonal claim. Reduce it to an impersonal suggestion. Treatment should be given on such a universal basis that it promotes the disappearance of the entire claim. The more universal the treatment, the more specifically will it operate on behalf of the one who asked for help.

Resume: Treatment is for the purpose of removing misconceptions. That which presents itself as material conditions is only a misconception. We are never healing a material body. We are being the divine body, the Christ-body, the full manifestation of the infinite Mind.

We only dismiss a false concept. Our approach must be always subjective from the standpoint of “I AM.” Jesus was successful because he knew himself to be the affirmation of Being. Positive affirmation is in itself a treatment. Reject that which appears as a misconception. The more you see that Christian Science treatment is not the availing yourself of an outside power, the more will you realize, “I am the divine activity itself.” Every treatment should refresh the practitioner as much as it helps the patient.

Treatment is always dealing with beliefs, and that is why our prayer is efficacious in the material realm. There is only one body – divine Principle embodying itself as the Christ-consciousness.

Demonstration: Only the divine Mind can demonstrate itself. Beholding from the allness of Mind, there is nothing but Mind to demonstrate itself. All is safe and secure because your origin and being are in God Himself. The misconception disappears, and thus we recognize what we already are. The human limited sense can never conceive of the infinite. Mind is infinitely versatile and never repeats itself, but is immutably One. Perfection and completeness are never static or monotonous. The human sense cannot grasp completeness, so finds more joy in the attempt to attain rather than in attainment itself.

Our life is not an attainment in Christian Science, but the acknowledgement of Being here and now as our own fullness. The more we acknowledge this, the more harmonious will be our human experience. Man is the fullness of Love in operation. Divine Mind never desires. It is conscious of its own omni-active fullness. The more we see that demonstration is spiritual, not something to be brought about, but the acknowledgement of that which really is, the more will human harmony appear in a fuller way.

Chemicalization: This is possible only if we think that two things are going on – the Divine Mind and the human. In the divine coincidence, the human sense fades out. The divine and the human never mix. The opposite qualities, tares and wheat, are separated through divine realization. Wheat, the divine presence in full evidence, is All; and there is nothing else going on. The human mind cannot be made the basis of life. The belief that the human mind is a creator, is the tares. Prevent chemicalization by realizing divine Oneness, and that suggestion is nothing at all. Couch the absolute Truth in words that will not offend the patient. The good we do is not in words, but in the Christliness of our own being. I am the Word of God in all its clarity and beauty and loveliness. We are not dealing with a human mind which has to be educated or healed.

All the good in the world is divine good; and what appears as evil has no presence or identity at all, and is not going on.

Sabbath: A joyous sense of fullness and well-being in which any sense of healing or being healed is wiped out. “They went seven times around these walls, the seven times corresponding to the seven days of creation: the six days are to find out the nothingness of matter; the seventh is the day of rest, when it is found that evil is naught and good is all.” (Miscellaneous Writings) This is the sabbath. In this sabbath, there is no place where evil can evidence itself. We must first admit that we have a mortal body before disease can appear. Refusal of a mortal body is all-important.

Whatever claims to be law apart from the one divine law, is no law and comes under the divine law itself. We must have reverence for treatment as divine law and never restrict it by thinking of my little understanding of truth. Personal sense is a sense of division. It is the fallacy that the one infinite is divided into minds many and bodies many.

Where there is no personal sense, there is no disease. Our only real being never leaves the kingdom of heaven – never goes down to arguments. The Christliness of the Christian Science practitioner is expressed in willingness to help immature thought in the way it can best be helped. The essence of the Christ is the ability to do the humanly loving thing without being touched by it.

Crucifixion: This is in a mortal, material concept of the Christ called Jesus, or any other name then or now. John is the most advanced state of discipleship. Hence Jesus’ meeting him on the mount, spiritual altitude, and saying, “They think they are crucifying me down there.” We are never in the picture that mortal mind presents about man. “Suffer it to be so now,” is the willingness to deal with claims to show immature thought the unreality of evil.

Obstetrics and Birth: The basis of the whole thing is that the universe is complete and needs no addition, because no part of the universe will ever fade out. The mortal, restrictive sense holds the belief that pro-creation is needed to replenish the earth. The truth about creation is that it has no beginning and no end. Man was never born and will never die. This is the divine law to the case and the delivery is painless and steady. “When this new birth takes place, the Christian Science infant is born of the Spirit, born of God, and can cause the mother no more suffering.” (Science and Health) When this new birth takes place – that is to say, when you have the concept of it – make plain to the mother that her responsibility is to live the Fatherhood and Motherhood of God, the fullness of her being, that she is not a medium for pro-creation. It is our responsibility to understand that there is only one man, existing as the fullness of Being without having to be created. Because this is man, I can read in the first person: “I am Christ Science.” (Miscellaneous Writings) I exclude all discord by my divine allness.

Law: It looks as if there is a divine law and a state law – vaccination, etc. If we believe ourselves to be persons, we believe we come under the state law. There is only the law of God, and whatever appears as another law is not the law of God, and we are not under it. State laws cannot interfere with divine good. We are never under a human law. Man is divine law. I am the law to every situation wherever I seem to be.

“The Christian Scientist, through understanding mental anatomy, discerns and deals with the real cause of disease.” (Science and Health) “Deals with the real cause of disease” means that disease has no cause at all. That which is divinely true constitutes our being, our motives and our acts. Anatomy shows our true selfhood. “It is a self-evident error to suppose that there can be such a reality as organic animal or vegetable life, when such so-called life always ends in death.” (ibid) Life is never structural nor organic. Spiritual anatomy is divine self-knowledge – man as idea. We are never dealing with qualities or properties of a body which seems to be organic, because mortal body is only a misconception. Ability to separate error from Truth by the sword of Spirit is important. By so doing, the firmament appears. “Firmament. Spiritual understanding; the scientific line of demarcation between Truth and error, between Spirit and so-called matter.” (ibid) Spiritual discrimination is not a human faculty, but divinely derived. God called the firmament heaven. The moment we begin to have spiritual discrimination between the real and unreal, and identify ourselves as divinely real, this is heaven.

Fever: Fear. Crisis. Know that error must disappear without any process. We are never dealing with a physical ailment. Sickness is never bodily, but mental. “Destroy fear, and you end fever.” Fear is due to the supposed reality of something unlike good.

Hay Fever: The belief that man is environed by a material world which includes irritants. Remedy: Man is not only surrounded by divine Love, he is the full manifestation of it. Man’s being is all-harmonious, and never clashes with anything in God’s universe. No resentment, no irritability. I am all-inclusive Love. “What an abuse of natural beauty to say that a rose, the smile of God, can produce suffering.” (Science and Health) The false concept of rose is all that claims to harm, not the rose.

Glands: Based upon the belief that body is material. God is not organization. There is nothing to man but the full manifestation, including all right ideas, eternally operative, functioning perfectly. A material body is a misinterpretation of the true body. Spiritual functioning is not a process.

Indigestion: Man is the ceaseless activity of the divine Mind – not machinery which has to be oiled. Action from the standpoint of Truth does away with the false sense of action. The reality and simplicity of divine understanding does not have to be digested. I am the fullness of divine understanding without any process. That which is eating, is only a false belief about myself. Know that you never came down to the belief which you see pictured in a mirror. Whatever is divinely beautiful is my being, and nothing else is.

Heredity: A belief of thought transference.

Nerves: A belief in the lack of identification with the infinite which never needs to be transferred. Remedy: Identification with the infinite. No separate selfhood. No transference.

Measles: Error follows no course. It has no course at all, and no after-effects. Man was never involved in any material belief. Hence sight and hearing are eternally intact. Reduce all disease to a mental misconception, knowing that matter was never an entity.

Time: The suggestion that error that happened a long time ago is now.

Distance: That error happened so far away that it is out of my reach. The belief is here and now, and that is why it comes under the law of my treatment. It is a false claim which says that in spite of God’s ever-presence, something can take place which is not in the nature of God. Man is the activity of Spirit.

Contagion: “Disease arises, like other mental conditions, from association.” (Science and Health) Wrong sense of association. Never associate yourself with a misconception. “Whatever man sees, feels, or in any way takes cognizance of, must be caught through mind; inasmuch as perception, sensation, and consciousness belong to mind and not to matter.” (Miscellaneous Writings) Know that the divine Mind alone sees, feels, and takes cognizance.

Pneumonia: No process; no crisis. The Life of man never operates through lungs. This removes fear, and then lungs operate normally.

Heart: Not the seat of life. The truth about heart is that it is a divine idea. The one infinite body is forever embodying itself and is divinely maintained. Therefore nothing can be wrong with it. Whatever appears erroneous is a misconception, nothing more.

For immediate healing, we must rid ourselves of the belief that disease is associated with a material body and has to run its course. Matter cannot be diseased. “The first erroneous postulate of belief is, that substance, life, and intelligence are something apart from God.” (Science and Health. The postulates are extremely important, especially the fifth. “The fifth erroneous postulate is, that matter holds in itself the issues of life and death, – that matter is not only capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but also capable of imparting these sensations. From the illusion implied in this last postulate arises the decomposition of mortal bodies in what is termed death.” (ibid) Life was never infused into matter and cannot leave it. The Life which is God, is the Life which is man, and was never in a finite form. Life is indivisible.

Insanity: Is the belief that man has a mind apart from God, and the belief that there is mentality in brain. Reduce this to a misconception. Mind is the only Mind going on. There is no deviation from the one Mind.

Sight: The truth about eyes is “spiritual discernment,” and this is a law obliterating the false beliefs about them. Faculties are spiritual, untouched by age beliefs. Man is the full likeness of God and needs nothing from “outside” and no medium to attain it. Keep the “I” single by not connecting anything to it which is not the nature of the divine “I.” The belief that we see through matter is a belief of mortal mind.

Poison: Always duality, opposition and friction – hence disintegration. Duality opposes the oneness of Being. Treatment banishes sense of duality, and we have the appearance of an improved material body.

Cancer: Being a wrong belief, there is nothing to it but a belief without a believer. Cannot exist without a material organism. Body is not organism, but a glorious idea. Never treat matter – banish misconception that man is a person and that body is a material organism. “...the infinite recognizes no disease.” (Unity of Good) “The illusive senses may fancy affinities with their opposites; but in Christian Science, Truth never mingles with error.” (Science and Health) This is most important – no affinities with opposites.

Liquor Habit: Have no sense of condemnation. Man is never frustrated because he is the full manifestation of Mind, and is the fullness of satisfaction and completeness. In divine Mind, there are no habits. Man includes what is true about liquor, and this excludes the misconception of perversion. Never tell patient that he must get rid of anything, but that he is complete. “Mind is not, cannot be, in matter. It sees, hears, feels, tastes, smells as Mind, and not as matter.” (Unity of Good) Spirit, Mind, is the source of all sensation. Spiritual sensation is the only causation. I am the activity of divine Mind itself. I am divine Principle in operation.

Smoking: I relax in my spiritual fullness and need nothing from “outside” as ease. Point out man’s real nature, spiritually complete, and this completeness is far more satisfying than if one tried to attain a sense of completeness in a human way.

Goiter: Confront false sense of body with body as a divine idea, which excludes emotional tendencies or suppressed emotions. “The material body manifests only what mortal mind believes, whether it be a broken bone, disease, or sin.” (Science and Health) Always insist on the fact that man is Christ-consciousness. The acceptance of a misconception as my own thought or that of others, is all that can bring disease.

Teeth: The only concept is the concept of the indestructibility of the divine Mind.

Disintegration: Material sense itself is the disintegration. There is no matter. All is infinite Mind and this constitutes the only body.

Age: Age is based on two cardinal mistakes:

1. The supposed division of existence into time.

2. The belief that substance is matter.

Reject the belief that man lives in the dimension of time, space, person. The one body is made without hands, eternal in the heavens. The restful activity of God constitutes the only body. God rests in action. I am not dealing with my condition. Discord is never my condition. Old age is a mental condition – a tendency to think backward. Youth is a tendency to think in the future. We are enjoying the everlasting now of true being. Live in the eternal now. Avoid getting in a rut. “Are you a Christian Scientist? I am. Do you adopt as truth the above statements? I do. Then why this meaningless commemoration of birthdays, since there are none?” (Miscellany) To think of the age of anyone, is to put him in the realm of death.

Mind expresses itself in infinite spontaneity and versatility, never repeating itself, never wearing itself out. Being is Oneness. There is nothing outside to interfere with the harmony of the infinite; and nothing inside can interfere, because every element is divine.

Change of Life: Life is changeless, eternal, ageless, immortal. To believe in change of life, is a disease in itself. My Life always maintains its original, infinite, timeless nature. “Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has neither birth nor death.” (Science and Health)

Scholastic theology starts with a person trying to improve himself. There is only one infinite, eternal activity, and therefore no opposition to the right. Man is all that God is. Man does not see. He is the seeing. He is the spiritual discernment itself. Man is joy. He does not possess joy. Man is law. He is the operation of divine Principle. He is the activity itself. Law is the emanation of Principle.

Supply and Demand: Realize that in the wonderful sense of oneness there is nothing to be supplied. Man is the experience of all the fullness and inexhaustible completeness which constitutes the divine nature. I am the fullness of divine expression. I am abundance and wealth and joy. No claim of discord can disturb my wholeness. Error has neither identity nor mentality. Soul, glorifying itself in beauty, spontaneity and satisfaction, constitutes my selfhood – the selfhood of Soul. Mind is forever embracing its own conception. Treatment is Mind’s self-realization and self-fulfillment. It is the law of instant annihilation to a false belief.

Death: No birth means no death. Death is incidental to the belief of life in matter. Matter is nothing more than a misinterpretation of Spirit. It is never an entity. The belief that we pass out of matter into life is a misstatement. All there is to death is the belief in it. “I am alive forevermore,” because God is my Life. God is All; therefore there is no evil; so we deal only with the belief that evil exists. Reduce that which announces itself as a reality to a false suggestion which is neither the thought nor the condition of myself or of anyone else. What I accept about another I indirectly accept as myself. All there is to man is the knowledge of eternal Principle. The idea of eternality can never cease or fade out, and this constitutes our eternality and immortality here and now. Eternality and immortality are not a goal to be reached when our understanding expands. Such an immature sense would belong to a person trying to demonstrate Christian Science. I am divine idea itself, the Science itself. Whatever does not come forth from Truth itself, must be eternally rejected. Life is one eternal consciousness without beginning or end.

“Mortals will lose their sense of mortality – disease, sickness, sin, and death – in the proportion that they gain the sense of man’s spiritual preexistence as God’s child; as the offspring of good, and not of God’s opposite, –evil, or a fallen man.” “Science reverses the evidence of material sense with the spiritual sense that God, Spirit, is the only substance; and that man, His image and likeness, is spiritual, not material. This great Truth does not destroy but substantiates man’s identity, – together with his immortality and preexistence, or his spiritual co-existence with his Maker.” (Miscellaneous Writings) Before the material concept, before Abraham, was the eternality of being. Preexistence is spiritual co-existence. Preexistence is the continuity of Being, no birth nor death.

Because all is “infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation,” there is no unconsciousness. That which seems to be the opposite of Mind, is the absence of Mind; and in its ignorance, it claims to be mentality. Probation after death is here and now because birth is incidental to the belief of life in matter, and this birth is the first death – the utter false belief that I exist within the mortal concept. There is no unconsciousness in reality or in belief. The fact that we understand immortality constitutes our immortality here and now. I am the idea of Life eternal. There is no “he.” There is only “I.” Whatever is good and true of anyone is idea, such as joy, peace, harmony, which are indestructibly included in “I” – in the one infinite Being; and whatever is not good is nothing at all.

Restoration comes always with the liberation from misconception. Mortal mind is a dead mind. The suggestion of a mortal mind never belongs to me at all. Reject the misconception and assert, “I am infinite understanding here and now, infinite perfection here and now, all without process of attainment. I am this divine reality itself, here and now. I am the I Am of Life forever expressing itself.” A limited human sense cannot conceive of continuity.

Indian philosophy tries to understand the things of God from the standpoint of the human mind. The “I” which understands continuity, infinity and eternality is totally indestructible. I am Life eternal.

Accident: “Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony. Under divine Providence there can be no accidents, since there is no room for imperfection in perfection.” (Science and Health) The divine idea never had to leave the mortal basis. It was never on that basis. For an accident to happen, I must first accept that I live in a mortal body, and that this body is again in a three-dimensional material world. My kingdom is the universe of Spirit. I am divine idea, forever security and safety itself. Divine inclusion of every right idea and exclusion of the false concept, is certain preventative of belief called accident.

Train, Car: What they do in overcoming distance hints to divine idea as ever-presence. My own spiritual ever-presence is illustrated by a train, car or plane.

Protection: Do not limit work to oneself. Work universally. I am in the oneness of divine reality, and not in the plurality of material sense. The more I recognize that I am divine idea itself, the less I need symbols. A parable is a symbol, a material finite concept. Understanding is always in spite of symbol, because it is Mind’s understanding.

World Affairs: The true nature of the universe is that which exists in oneness, and not in the extension of time and space. We cannot isolate ourselves, either in person, or city, or nation. “Ye are the light of the world.” Our interests and work must take place on a universal basis. The more universal my treatment, the more does it manifest the elements of Love itself. The more I persist in erroneous beliefs, the more I deface the tablet of my being. Any reluctance to help would involve two beliefs:

1. That I am not interested in what is happening to what appears as others.

2. That I cannot do anything about it with my limited understanding.

Whatever I permit to be wrong and do not correct, causes detriment to that which seems to be me.

Complexity: This is a misconception of the one universe, the one individual or indivisible experience of the one Mind which constitutes man in the divine fullness. In myself are all the elements required for that which appears as the material world to operate properly and progressively.

I am the fullness of Life. I am the fullness of Soul. I am the fullness of substance. I live my own universal Christ-self as the abundance, the peace, the joy, the security, which the world can neither give or take away. They are not to be attained, but exist here and now in all their fullness. There is one idea nation, including all good qualities of nations and no bad qualities. The idea of nation is within me. This is illustrated in the fact that I can think of it. Whatever I can think of which constitutes divine reality, is within me. I am not included in nation. The truth about nation frees us from the misconception of it. Frequently remind oneself that that which appears as the complex material world is in reality the spiritual universe here and now as one infinite in every way. I must not try to reform persons, seen through a glass darkly, but drop the dark glass. When it is dropped, I see all to be “very good.” I do not have to accept the suggestion that there is something wrong with you.

Intrinsically, there is no difference between beliefs – neither small or great. Belief is nothing. I must not take in the suggestion that there is anything going on but the Christ-consciousness. Evil is always “suggestion” parading as I and my, but I am here and now the Christ-consciousness, and not a person trying to attain it. I am the salt of the earth, the light of the world. We hide our light when we place it under the bushel of personal sense, and we are showing forth the true light when placed on the candlestick of true individuality. Never swerve from the basis of perfect God and perfect man. This forestalls evil beliefs from appearing. Whatever announces itself as contrary to the nature of good is not my thought or my mentality. To recognize this will “overturn, overturn, overturn” till he come whose right it is. He “whose right it is” is my Christ-realization. The realization that Truth is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, gives error no claim to presence or power. Error claims to be consciousness.

True psychology is the Science of Spirit. “The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the preventative and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science, as would be readily seen, if psychology, or the Science of Spirit, God, was understood.” And, “We should prevent the images of disease from taking form in thought, and we should efface the outlines of disease already formulated in the minds of mortals.” (Science and Health) The welfare of the world is in the prevention of discord, the prophylactic function of Christian Science. Prevention is in knowing that we have never left the basis of Spirit, and are dealing only with beliefs which have no reality, no mentality.

Lectures: The divine Principle expresses itself as its own word or understanding. The more you see the lecture free from the aspect of persons, time and space, the better it will be. Man is identical with the Word of God. To think of sowing seed is immature. This process is on stony ground in varying degree. Instead of sowing seed, we are to acknowledge the Word of God as ever-present, self-understood, without any measure or process. Sowing seed implies waiting for harvest. The full evidence of the Word is now.

Because God is All, anything unlike the nature of divine Mind does not exist. You cannot fear what does not exist. I am the Christ-consciousness itself, not a person with a human mind knowing about the Christ-consciousness. The basic error is in accepting the misconception that you are a person with a human mind. If you accept this, you submit to malpractice. The beholder must reform himself and not what he beholds.

If you believe error to be an entity against which we have to protect ourselves, we make a reality of it. It is never an entity, so reduce error to a false belief and know that you cannot assume the consciousness of false belief. Nothing apart from the Christ-consciousness was ever my being. The objectification of “my fear” is a false suggestion. Allay fear with the assurance of divine Love, and know that the divine law is the only law operating. Nothing but God is going on in reality or in belief.

Never work for rain or you have a material concept of production. Know that creation is complete and spiritual, and whatever is real is divinely expressed without flaw or limitation. The human appearance will then be good crops.

“As named in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal mind.” Also, “Animal magnetism is the voluntary or involuntary action of error in all its forms;….” (Science and Health) There is no voluntary or involuntary action of error. Speak of suppositional activity of error, so that you do not make the patient afraid. Error has no action. Animal magnetism has no scientific foundation. It is mortal mind’s acceptance of a suggestion. We do not work against what “seems” to be the trouble, because if we believe something is wrong, this is animal magnetism itself, and this is all we have to deny. “I have a pain.” This is first just a suggestion. If you take it in long enough, then you give it the chance to appear as a material condition of a material body. Animal magnetism appears as a suggestion. Be alert. Dismiss the suggestion. Because I am the Christ-consciousness, I can never have such a thought or belief. The only experience is that of divine Love itself, and this annuls the belief that animal magnetism exists.

Resume: Death is merely a misconception of the Life which is. The trouble is always in the misconception. Show the impossibility of a misconception, its spurious nature. There is no misconception to suggest itself as a sick person. Many attempts are being made (ignorantly) to remove effect. “Acute and chronic beliefs reproduce their own types. The acute belief of physical life comes on at a remote period, and is not so disastrous as the chronic belief.” (Science and Health)

Chronic and Acute: Symptoms of old age are chronic. Belief that there is danger of dying is acute. Refuse to submit to the suggestion that you have a material mind and a material body. In this way we are protected from every form of discord.

Robes Washed White: This is to be free from the belief of a material mind and material body and to know yourself as divine idea.

Animal magnetism and malpractice is the supposed activity of mortal mind. Mortal mind is a solecism, because all Mind is Mind, divine consciousness, never mortal. Mortal mind is the absence of Mind. There is no mortal mind in reality or in belief, and the belief that such a thing could have activity is a mere dream. The belief that we are living in a material world, is already animal magnetism itself. The only danger is in the suggestion that I am a human mind with a human body. “I” and “my” must never be identified with any statement which is not in accordance with divine perfection.

Refrain from identifying yourself with pain. Refuse to think, “I have a pain,” or it will objectify itself in discordant material conditions.

I must not identify myself with a human mind. This so-called mind buries itself in a mortal concept of body. The one indestructible whole is not open to disintegration. Danger is not in any material condition, but in my own wrong identification as a human. Divine Mind is my Mind, and I am in the realm of indestructible ideas.

The day of the Lord is the understanding of substance as Spirit. As the result of true identification, material sense begins to see its own unreality. All good is a certainty which I embody. I never had to “put off” anything, because discord was never part of my being.

The indivisibility of divine Love is forever appearing and asserting itself. Atomic force is the indivisible power of divine Love. We are indestructible, and as we see this, the human situation will improve.

Starting out from Mind, we find that Mind includes every divine idea, so man includes both bride and bridegroom. I am bride and bridegroom. Marriage is the understanding of the inclusion.

Man does not experience. He is experience. He is Mind’s consciousness of itself. There is no matter in reality or in belief. There is no environment to man. He is the full expression of Love, and this may appear as a human being lovingly surrounded.

Error, having no mentality, can have no reluctance to give itself up. “Secret mental efforts to obtain help from one who is unaware of this attempt, demoralizes the person who does this, the same as other forms of stealing, and will end in destroying health and morals.” (Retrospection and Introspection) The effort to obtain health from anything but divine Principle, is a mistake in itself. Error is a dream picture within a dream. We never deal with anything but a misconception. Every disease is identification with something ungodlike, and this in itself is sin.

To deal with aggressive beliefs trying to attack the movement, government, or me:

1. There is no mortal mind in reality or in belief.

2. There is no transference of mortal mind. That which we think of as mortal mind is not mind, but only a belief and therefore naught. One cannot transfer naught.

3. Man is divine manifestation and not a person, so all malpractice is directed against a misconception and this misconception has never been a part of me. I am the Christ, and therefore I am not in a human concept, not in a personal concept.

When we awake each morning, we should realize that because divine Mind is ever conscious, the continuity of my conscious being cannot be interfered with by unconsciousness or sleep.

Insomnia: Divine Mind is ever conscious, “neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Divine Mind expressing itself constitutes the freshness and the vigor of my being. This is the healing of insomnia.

All that is happening is the unfoldment of “Day” as defined in the Glossary. (Science and Health) Day is not time, but the unfoldment of eternity. I am the unfoldment itself, not a person trying to avail himself of it. The more I love what I am, the more will restrictions fall away. The divine presence of spiritual completeness is the spiritual fact about accomplishment.

Recurrence: If I believe that I am a person who has been healed, I lay myself open to the belief of recurrence.

Incurability: Is merely the viewpoint of the physician from the standpoint that matter is a creative agent. Accumulated medical knowledge, like all material knowledge, is ignorance and cannot hinder divine law. Material law is not law, but a false claim.

Look out from the standpoint of Mind and you find that there is only the activity of Mind and nothing else. Animal magnetism was never part of my being in reality or in belief. There is none, and that which does not exist cannot operate. Divine Mind being All, animal magnetism is neither cause, nor effect. Understand the nothingness of every supposed activity of evil. I am not in a material world, nor have I a material body.

Roman Catholicism: Romanism is a belief of mortal mind parading under a religious guise. The attraction which Roman Catholicism uses is the attraction of material sense. The fact that Spirit is the only attraction annuls a false sense of attraction.

Be alert to what you really are – not a person in a three-dimensional world. Then beliefs attached to personal sense fall away. Never go down to mortal sense about yourself. You are not a person with a mortal body. I am the “house built without hands.”

Hypnotism: This is the specific attempt of mortal mind to operate. The one Mind, stable and invariable, is invulnerable. Hypnotism says the world has been broken up into persons and things. Our understanding of the oneness of Being – the unchangeable nature of existence and our identification with this – is our protection against hypnotism. The basic belief is that we place ourselves as persons in the realm of mortal misconception.

Astrology: This claims to operate as planetary influence and the relation of planets to each other which operates through horoscope. Man is not surrounded by planets, but includes the truth of all things. Man was never born. The only power is the all-embracing power of Spirit. Astronomy, astrology – the truth about it is useful. It helps at sea, etc.

Electricity: Mrs. Eddy writes, “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.” (Science and Health) All is light, and this is illustrated in human experience by electricity producing light. There are no opposites. The power is there because the divine Mind is omnipotence itself. When we see that there are no opposites, we are not touched by electricity. The whole belief of human generation is a belief of friction – electricity. Know that man is completeness itself, hence no need to procreate.

Materia Medica: There is no power in matter. Whatever healing is accomplished to human sense by matter is in spite of the material senses, because misconception cannot do anything. Physical diagnosis induces disease. If you wish for a diagnosis this means that you have identified yourself with a material body – the basis of disease. The Christian Science method and materia medica have nothing in common. “A Christian Scientist’s medicine is Mind, the divine Truth that makes man free.” (Science and Health) What shall I do if I break a leg? Only mortal mind could ask that question. I never have knowledge that such could ever be the case.

Why is there evil and what is its origin? Evil never existed as an entity or reality, so it has no existence and no origin. Real existence alone is original. Certain questions, such as “How did the mist arise when all was primeval harmony?” are attempts to keep us busy with that which is not; and we must silence such attempts by knowing that there is no mind to ask such questions. “The supposititious parent of evil is a lie. The Bible declares: ‘All things were made by Him [the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything made that was made.’ Also, “Jesus said of personified evil, that it was ‘a liar, and the father of it.’ Truth creates neither a lie, a capacity to lie, nor a liar.” (Science and Health)

Romanism is merely mortal mind in the guise of religion. Its beliefs are:

1. That man needs a human priest.

2. That God has a mother named Mary – a personalization of the Motherhood of God

3. That we need saints in order to get favors.

It is a belief in personality, punishment and damnation.

The true church is built on the recognition that man is the Christ-idea. We can unite with true church only when we know ourselves as the Christ-idea. Then the “Gates of hell” – a false suggestion – can never prevail against me. “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt.) The kingdom is within. The keys to the kingdom are not in the hands of any person.

Bound and Loosed: This is the realization that what is divinely good can never be undone and what is not good cannot persist.

The fear engendered by the Roman Catholic religion keeps it going. There is no material sense of existence, so material sense cannot dominate through religious beliefs. The Roman Catholic practice is the material sense of existence in the guise of church, so see that there is none. Existence is spiritual. Our Life is the Christ itself, and this proves that a material belief can have no organization. In order to be affected by discord, I must first be afraid and must be regarding myself as material mind and a material body. Roman Catholicism measures progress merely by numbers. Instead of trying to get more persons in our movement, we must get rid of our own personal sense of existence, and this will appear as those who are really seeking Truth in finding Christian Science. The Roman Catholic church depletes its members. Malpractice can only operate within its own misconception; and if we do not place ourselves within the misconception, we cannot be touched by it.

Judaism: Is the belief that the spiritual has to be materialized and personalized before it can be of any value. It is an attempt to crucify the Christ. It is a misconception.

Chosen Nation: This does not refer to a number of persons, but is a state of Mind available to all.

Man is God’s seeing. Man is art. He is beauty. Error cannot evolve a mist of obscurity. There are no material conditions good or bad, but spiritual conditions only. Mind expresses itself directly, without the restrictions or limitation of channels. Man is the expression of Principle which constitutes all action. Energy is Mind, not matter. Principle is invariable in operation. The fact that I am here and now, divine expression, prevents sin from expressing itself.

There is no mystery to Christian Science. When approached from the standpoint of Truth or Principle, everything is clear. If all is not clear this is because you have started out from the human basis. Spirit could only seem to be a mystery to the human mind. The mystery of Godliness pertains to material sense only.

Superstition: This mesmerism is dispelled by Science – which is exact knowledge. There is one Mind and this is my Mind. Therefore there is no mind to be hypnotized. I have never been in the realm of material belief. This fact is sure protection from hypnotism. Fakirs, lying on spikes, exhibit mind over matter. This is not Christian Science, which states Mind to be all and matter to be non-existent.

Truth: Truth understands itself. I am Truth’s self-understanding. The Truth is myself as divine manifestation, and when I know this I shall not be limited by symbols. “May apostate praise return to its first love, above the symbol seize the spirit, speak the ‘new tongue’ – and may thought soar and Soul be.” Also, “We learn from the Scriptures that the Baalites or sun-worshippers failed to look ‘through nature up to nature’s God,’ thus missing the discovery of all cause and effect. They were content to look no higher than the symbol. This departure from Spirit, this worshipping of matter in the name of nature, was idolatry then and is idolatry now.” (Miscellany) Ours is spiritual understanding, spiritual worship, spiritual love. I am never where mortal belief claims that I am. There is one realm only – the realm of eternal Life. All else is misconception.

Spiritualism: This is the belief that there are two realms. It is the belief in mediumship, a state of retrogression of returning to beliefs outgrown.

Duality: Duality claims many spirits, many controlling influences – the departed so-called spirit controlling. The remedy is to know one Spirit, one realm, one controlling power.

Theosophy: Believes in transmigration of souls, and reincarnation. Transmigration is impossible for there is one Soul or God.

Muhammadanism: This religion believes in one God, but very personal. In the heaven of Muhammad you have all material pleasures forever that you wished for on earth. It is the heaven of physical sense – no heaven. Heaven is spiritual bliss, free from all sense of person, place or time. Divine Love is unhampered by the senses.

Malpractice: If I believe that you are malpracticing upon me, I am malpracticing upon you because of the misconception I entertain of you. For malpractice to operate in my kingdom, I have to make the first wrong move. Again, I have to believe myself to be a person with a material mind and a material body. Protection is never needed against an outside force, but against my belief that an outside force exists. Divine Mind’s embodiment of itself constitutes my true selfhood. I am never in a human concept. Always reduce all error to an impersonal misconception, which has nothing to do with me. Know that government cannot be misdirected. All there is to the activity of mortal mind is zero.

Christian Science treatment is divine Mind’s acknowledgement of infinite, ever-present perfection. Every treatment which begins with words must end in wordless being.

Every treatment is Mind’s progressive unfoldment of its own infinite nature. I am the fullness of divine understanding. We are practitioners because we are living Christian Science, and this will appear as healing. A Christian Science practitioner discriminates as to which cases he takes. There must be some inkling of the Christ – something beyond a mere desire for physical healing in a patient. “Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin;…” (Rudimental Divine Science) Sin is all that deviates from the nature of God. Healing sickness and sin is incidental to Truth’s awareness of itself – the recognition of man as divine idea. “Hatred, envy, dishonesty, fear, and so forth, make a man sick, and neither material medicine nor Mind can help him permanently, even in body, unless it makes him better mentally, and so delivers him from his destroyers.” (Science and Health) Hatred is a form of extreme fear. The understanding of Love as omnipotent and omni-active banishes it.

Explain to your patient that he comes to Christian Science to know himself from the standpoint of Truth, and as he does this, everything unlike Truth will disappear. Symptoms were never part of our being, so refuse to identify yourself with them. Do not dwell on physical healing, but spiritual wholeness. Practitioners should give no human advice. Be moderate, not too startling with statements of Truth. Healing does not take place within the dimension of time. Thus nothing can be chronic. Treatment is Christ operating, and not my human understanding of the Christ. Never use the expression, “I must clear my thought.” You have not a mind in which you can harbor material beliefs. You are Mind’s fullness.

The operation of divine Principle is unbreakable divine law. Divine Principle expresses nothing but itself, and in this expressing of its nature, it remains invariable, and that which Principle expresses remains constant. Divine Principle is identified only with that which is infinite and eternal. Divine law can never harm anyone. It operates always in favor of man, and is free from opposition or restriction. Law is Principle in expression. Everything in reality is lawful – law in operation; whatever appears inharmonious is a belief that the law of God is not operating fully. Whatever seems to be a human law operating contrary to the divine is a perversion – a misconception. Divine law is forever unrestricted, without any limitation at all.

There is no mortal law. This is only belief and not law. If there were mortal law, we could not do away with it; but knowing it as belief, we see it fall away. “Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake.” (Science and Health) We must be a law to ourselves. Man, as divine manifestation or activity, is the equivalent of law. He is not a person availing himself of divine law to protect him, but is divine law itself. “The Christianly scientific man reflects the divine law, thus becoming a law unto himself.” (ibid) We are not persons who bring divine law into operation. Everything that announces itself as unlike good is instantly under the law which banishes it. My being, my wholeness, my work, my harmony, is divine law. When we are living from the divine standpoint, we are the divine law and nothing else is going on. Divine activity constitutes man.

“Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no sense of hatred. Life has no partnership with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God.” (ibid) I declare nothing unlike God. This is Truth, Life and Love declaring itself, and is the law of annihilation to everything unlike good. The law of God is not a power radiating from a divine spot. It wells up from within its own unlocalized being. The divine reality remains itself from everlasting to everlasting without change, but at the same time the infinite never repeats itself. The divine power constitutes my experience. Only when the law of the land is in conformity with the law of God can it be enforced.

Security: Do not place security on a human basis. No human condition is responsible for my security, but the fact that security is an unalterable law is responsible for harmonious and safe human conditions. There is one law and this law is the assurance that so-called human laws cannot interfere with what is right.

Obedience: Obedience is derived from divine law and should never be based on human authority, such as, “I am your mother, so you must do this.” The divine Principle expresses itself in strict accordance with its own unerring nature. The divine idea never deviates in the least from its divine nature. This is obedience. To obey divine Principle is to be in strict accord with Principle. We do not obey if we think of ourselves trying to obey.

Guidance: This does not mean God’s big hand holding my little hand. That which is divine law has no dimensions. Love is the activity of Principle, but it does not need a channel through which to operate.

Resume: Law as used in the Bible. “But his delight is in the law of the Lord;….” (Ps.) The law of the Lord is the fullness of the activity of divine Principle. The Commandments are an intermediary state towards obedience, but not the full revelation. When Jesus gave the commandment “Be ye perfect,” he attached no penalty. This commandment is conceived from the standpoint of Divine Mind itself, and is of the greatest importance. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Matt.) I am come to fulfill the law – I am come to reveal the operation of divine Principle.

The sin of the Pharisees was that they kept to an outward form of human code – outward worship – away from Spirit. Then the letter killeth. Truth’s understanding reveals man’s absolute oneness with Spirit. Knowing this, we shall use the correct words, but the power is not in the words. It is the understanding of Mind itself – Mind’s understanding.

“For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter;....” (Romans)

Circumcision: Belief that people are specially favored by God. God cannot ever select a person to do certain work. We choose God and incidental to this the highest work appears.

Chosen: These are the people who understand man to be the full manifestation of infinite Mind. “...put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” (Colossians) Put on the new man – neither Greek nor Jew. This is the falling away of human restrictions and divisions. In the acknowledgement of Being from the standpoint of divine oneness and allness, error disappears. The ever-present inclusiveness of Mind evidences itself; right where there seems to be a question, there is the answer. Divine Mind is Truth, self-understood, self-explained, and the Christ is always from within.

Law: All divine law is the eternal operation of divine Principle itself. “Clothed, and in its right Mind, man’s individuality is sinless, deathless, harmonious, eternal. His materiality, clad in a false mentality, wages feeble fight with his individuality, – his physical senses with his spiritual senses. The latter move in God’s grooves of Science: the former revolve in their own orbits, and must stand the friction of false selfhood until self-destroyed.” (Miscellaneous Writings) “The friction of false selfhood” – this is what seems to happen if you identify yourself with a false belief. Whatever presents itself which is opposed to the nature of divine good is not a power, but a misstatement. Our prerogative is our capacity, divinely derived, to identify ourselves with the Christ, and not to take in the misconception. It is not the attempt of a person. Everything continues to unfold in strict accordance with divine Principle itself. So if something which is not good seems to be unfolding, see that there can be no perversion of law. Whatever appears as good does not result from a material law of a material universe, but from spiritual law operating in spite of the suggestion that the universe is material. The power which operates in Christian Science treatment is divine law. Whatever is not good is not law, and is therefore open to instant dismissal and obliteration. The law of God is conducive to right unfoldment in human experience, and is never obstructive. Nothing contrary to divine law can present itself as my experience.

The Manual: This is the progressive spiritual unfoldment of the true sense of law – the imperative operation of divine Principle. Recognize the quality of opportunity to experience all that we divinely are. Government by the Manual is autocracy, which when perverted, becomes dictatorship. Dictatorship is not the operation of divine Principle, but the deification of personal sense, which is disastrous.

“Jesus taught and demonstrated the infinite as one, and not as two.” (No and Yes) The infinite is one. I am not a person knowing something about the Infinite. This would mean two, not one.

The essential element upon which democracy is based is Christianity. This reveals the understanding that what appears as each one of us has equal opportunity to be what he divinely is. In the recognition that God is the source of all good and that good is not something to be shared and leveled down, then the bondage of limitation is ended.

Truth and God are identical; and whatever human opinion may appear to be right, will prevail through the understanding of Truth as the only power. The Christliness of my being demands the subservience of my human wishes for the good of all. Infinite divine Principle reveals infinite opportunities for all. Your experience illustrates the autonomous operation of divine Principle. Never think of yourself as a person guided by Principle, but know that you exemplify the unerring nature of Principle. All that is going on is the unerring, irresistible and continuous activity of the divine Principle. Divine Principle is always unerring. Infinite initiative belongs to man.

Aggressive Mental Suggestion: Man is divine idea. All mental suggestion is directed against a misconception which is not in us, and we are not in it.

One Christ: Christ is the full manifestation of the divine Mind – one only. All that there is to any situation is Principle in operation; and as we see this, whatever is wrong will fall away.

Church: Church is the consciousness of Truth and Love and not a person trying to realize this. “He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ ” (Matt.) Jesus connected the true concept of man as the Christ with Church. If your knowing is out from Principle – the consciousness of Truth and Love – then this is the reason why hell cannot prevail.

“We can unite with this church only as we are new-born of Spirit, as we reach the Life which is Truth and the Truth which is Life by bringing forth the fruits of Love, – casting out error and healing the sick.” (Science and Health) To unite with Church is to be reborn of Life and Truth. We must live as the consciousness or “structure of Truth and Love.” In the recognition that man is the compound idea, he includes the right idea of Church, and in this sense, church and man are identical.

Keys of Heaven: There is no outside lock. That which is divinely true is compelling the harmony of even that which appears as a material sense of existence, and whatever is not true cannot exist even in a material sense of existence. The universality of a declaration is specific in its operation.

Resume: Life is not to be viewed in the way that it appears. We must behold everything from the standpoint of Truth itself. The capacity to do this is the Christ. It is not a human endeavor reaching out for something. It is the acknowledgement that that which is true, is the only thing going on, and all that is true, is the truth about me. It is not a future attainment, but is a present actuality. Whatever is revealed, is not coming to me from outside. It is progressive spiritual unfoldment from within, and is divinely subjective.

If something says, “I cannot understand,” I am listening to false suggestion and not to my own thought. The more readily we leave the realm of “trying to attain,” the more easily can we exchange the wrong approach from the acknowledgement of Truth itself.

Association Meetings: Such meetings represent a continuous unfoldment of spiritual understanding which is the Christ. In the recognition that Christian Science teaching is not the increasing of knowledge from “outside,” but a fuller recognition of man’s status as the compound idea including all right ideas, we find that the divine understanding constitutes man.

The best approach to church work is to understand clearly that all that is going on is the divine Truth expressing itself. Teaching Christian Science is the dismissal of false concepts which try to suggest that our knowledge of Truth is limited and obscure. Truth is expressing itself in all its fullness and directness, and this appears as child or student saying, “I understand.” The more we eliminate you, he, they or she, the more effective will be our work. The infinite “I” knows the Truth always. This “I” expresses itself irresistibly, continuously, fully, and the result will be that all which appears as he, she, you or they, will understand. It is so necessary for us to understand that there is but one “I” or “Us.”

Principle is the source, substance and activity of Church. The Board of a church is not persons guided by Principle. There is no personal sense. Principle directs itself.

The Christian Science movement stands for the great fact that infinite good is all, and whatever would oppose this has neither place, presence or power. The more we see that man is directly the divine manifestation of infinite Love and infinite Mind and not the medium of salvation, the more appreciably and harmoniously will operate that which for the moment appears as a medium. There is nothing to our movement but Principle in operation.

A medical diagnosis increases the suggestion that man is connected with a mortal body. Christian Science treatment refuses the suggestion that body is physical, and therefore liable to disease. You first have to accept the suggestion of a material body before disease is possible. Therefore the denial that body is physical and material, is more important than the denial of disease itself. A Christian Scientist does not diet. If he does, he puts himself in the realm of materia medica.

“Moses advanced a nation to the worship of God in Spirit instead of matter, and illustrated the grand human capacities of being bestowed by immortal Mind.” (Science and Health) How can immortal Mind bestow grand “human” capacities? Divine Mind is forever expressing itself in strict accordance with its own nature – infinite capabilities and capacities. This expression appears to human sense as wonderful human capacities.

To experience the ceaseless ever-presence of Being, is a wonderfully natural activity. Man is the full, effortless, unabatable and unwavering Word itself. The Word is the very function of Mind itself, understanding itself and expressing itself. The Word is the unfoldment of Mind’s self-explanation and self-contained joy. One either exists as Christ Science which is Christ-consciousness, or is not existing at all. The impersonal Word is divinely self-impelled.

Mere religious sentiment is void of power. Science alone is power. “On our subject, St. Paul first reasons upon the basis of what is seen, the effects of Truth on the material senses; thence, up to the unseen, the testimony of spiritual sense; and right there he leaves the subject. Just there, in the intermediate line of thought, is where the present writer found it, when she discovered Christian Science. And she has not left it, but continues the explanation of the power of Spirit up to its infinite meaning, its allness.” (Miscellaneous Writings) Paul of Tarsus reasoned up to spiritual evidence – such a struggling way.

Deep sincerity is better than genius, and is sure of success for God takes care of it. Christian Science reckons all from the standpoint of infinity.

“Again I repeat, person is not in the question of Christian Science. Principle, instead of person, is next to our hearts, on our lips, and in our lives.” (ibid) Principle does not require time or place or person or material conditions. Let the source of all being unfold itself without interference from the so-called human mind. A merely localized sense of church and man must be abandoned. Live in reality and do not try to improve a human being first. The nature of infinity is safety. Do not permit a mediocre state.

We must come out from the material world and be separate – separate from a material world – not thinking of oneself as a person. Everything is incidental to ever-present being. All activity must be divinely eventful and fruitful, as ever-present experience within. The oneness and allness of divine Love is the basis and substance of our being. Science constitutes the Scientist. Love in all its all-inclusiveness and indivisibility, is the source and impulsion of all reality. Living the rhythmic radiance of reality brings redemption from the restriction and uncertainty attached thereto. Eternality is oneness. God is one and evil has no entity. Duality, being a misconception of allness, the seeming power which duality may claim to have is a misconception of the one power, one knowledge, one presence, infinite good, or God. Duality cannot explain oneness. The true interpretation of oneness must take place within oneness. Only the infinite can be self-interpreted as one, not as two. “...Christian Science...reckons one as one and this one infinite.” (Message for 1901) This explains the misstatement of the infinite by the finite as limitation. Limitation is the first error.

“Since there is in belief an illusion termed sin, which must be met and mastered, we classify sin, sickness, and death as illusions. They are supposititious claims of error; and error being a false claim, they are no claims at all.” (Retrospection and Introspection) Deal with error as no claim at all.

Before beginning a Christian Science treatment, we must know that it is the divine Mind, affirming and expressing itself as All, thereby denying all evil. Only to the oneness of Truth is duality unreal. This oneness and allness of Truth must be consciously felt and understood. Then error will disappear, not leaving even a trace behind. All knowledge being Mind, knowledge is infinite. Belief is consciousness misinterpreted. It is a personal sense of love. Love includes all, and thereby unifies. Personal sense objectifies and is separation.

Science discloses all-inclusiveness. All consummation lies in subjective acknowledgement. It is the power of Science lived as Love which prevents chemicalization – Science lived as Love in full expression. Love is so naturally all-inclusive that it precludes anything external to itself. “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,....” (I Corinthians) By one Spirit is all conceived of us as one body, and it is Love understood in terms of Science which enables us to leave in our path the aroma of loveliness.

Mount Zion: The oneness of Love, the summit of living Love, does not appear forbidding to one in need of help and comfort. The help should appear as one’s own Christ-ability to help oneself, rather than as charity extended by a person.

Solution: To solve a complex problem of conflicting personalities, reduce the claim of duality and confront it with oneness. In what appears as an age-long fight between duality and oneness, duality is fighting itself. Oneness does not recognize it. “God is one. The allness of Deity is His oneness.” (Science and Health) Oneness antidotes duality. That which is One and All can be defined only by the word good. Evil, self-arrayed before good, wears itself out. There is neither date nor time to oneness. Duality is a false concept about oneness. Duality is a kingdom divided against itself.

Duality left to itself will never get rid of itself. Duality’s misrepresentation of oneness will go on with its cruelty, etc., unless confronted with the oneness which is God. “I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is;....” (Ezekial) He whose right it is, is the Christ.

Truth recognizes all to be divine, and therefore allness remains allness without any effort. This allness knows nothing of error even as a belief. The divine all-power and all-presence knows no opposite.

The Feeling of Spirit: This is Truth, Spirit, understanding, feeling – all that is its own nature; and this is going on even if error says, “I do not understand.” I am Truth’s own feeling. Then denial is “suffer it to be so now” in order that immature thought may be helped to understand the glorious oneness of Being.

My own true being is self-perpetuated. It is Truth’s own self-awareness without the slightest interference. My true self was never involved in mortal mind’s conflict. Such conflict is never anything but mortal mind fighting itself. Oneness is never understood from the standpoint of duality.

The understanding of the Christ and the acknowledgement of oneself as the sacred Christ-idea, is most important. The Christ enables us to affirm Truth scientifically. This is Christ’s affirmation of its own Christliness, which is my being. The marvel of the Christ is that it is joyfully, clearly, naturally maintaining its own integrity while destroying error with divine precision.

Oneness is the corner-stone of the Christian Science practitioner’s office. There must be less preoccupation with comfortable personal results. The sense that something has to be accomplished must yield to the happy acknowledgement of universal well-being and wholeness already existing.

A material concept of body is the basis of disease. A material concept of Mind is the basis of sin. Our Life is not organic. It is not an organism. Life is inorganic, infinite Spirit. “Organic Life is an error of statement that Truth destroys.” (Miscellaneous Writings) The material structure assumed to be body is not a fact, but is mortal mind misinterpreted as life. Life, expressing itself as divine idea, is without a process of coming into existence, and is without a process of maintaining itself.

Cancer: A mere suggestion of an organism within an organization called a human body – nothing more than this. Refuse to believe that body is a material organization. You thereby prevent the belief that one organization can build itself up within another organization. Be definite that body is not organized matter, and know this even when it seems to be functioning in a harmonious way.

Time and Age: Many people who believe they are growing older, begin to worry. They admit the effect of time. The trouble is the worry caused by the belief of old age. Remedy: See that old age is merely a wrong belief, which is presenting itself for our spiritual attention. If we take false beliefs to ourselves, we are not fulfilling our Christ-function. Life is timeless, ageless.

Tuberculosis: Deal first and foremost with the belief that matter is substance. Man was never identified with a material organization called material body. Realize emphatically the nature of Love. Love, being oneness, the belief of disintegration cannot touch it. A personal sense of mind and the material sense of body, must first be acknowledged as one’s being before disease can operate. By being conscious of itself, Love’s oneness and indivisibility constitute spontaneous, joyous, self-perpetuation. Divine self-consciousness, felt as one’s own true being, operates as a law of total obliteration to the belief of consumption, friction, or any other belief of disintegration. Spirit is imperishable substance.

Wholeness Means Holiness: Wholeness is the essence of Allness, the measure of the infinite. God is indivisible. The indivisibility of the infinite is the indivisibility of my being. We must find the oneness and harmony of our world within the wholeness and fullness of our own infinite self. “As a divine student,” Christ Jesus “unfolded God to man, illustrating and demonstrating Life and Truth in himself and by his power over the sick and sinning.” (Science and Health) The human consciousness could never be the dwelling place for this unfoldment. The human sense yields, and “... the idea of Truth...becomes more beautifully apparent at error’s demise.” (ibid) Ideas of Life, Truth, Soul, constitute the ideal – the real universe.

Oneness ensures its own sufficiency. We must consciously include these ideas in order to see them appear humanly as divine phenomena. The false world is the misconception of the one spiritual universe. The human mind is dualistic in its grasp, limited in its scope. Spiritual understanding, being ever-present, is here. Spirit now includes the truth of all events.

The divine Life understands its own infinity and eternality. The one “I” always understands. By recognizing that one’s capacity is divine, false suggestions are routed without any possibility of their return.

The false concept of millions of persons in a material world must be reduced to one false belief. By attempting to heal an effect, you are believing in a misconception, and this procedure multiplies the error sevenfold.

A Good Person: There is no safety in that.

Body: There is one infinite body. “Take, eat, this is my body,” illustrates the subjective inclusion of the universal idea, body. Thus the suggestion of a fearful or sick body fades out. To eat the Christ-body is to identify yourself as the one infinite body. We never use Christian Science to bring about a material condition.

Understanding: This is substance. True substantiality is effulgent, translucent, non-resistant. This non-resistance of Spirit constitutes its irresistibility.

Reading Room: A Christian Science Reading Room is indicative of the forever completeness, permanence and perpetual functioning of the Christ-idea itself. This Christ activity operates as a divine law dispersing mists.

The acknowledgement of the perfection which already exists is the Christ-power of a Christian Science treatment. We can attain only that which we already are. The endeavor to attain must always be made subservient to the subjective acknowledgement of reality.

The recognition that man is the full divine idea is the key to the kingdom, and is always within the kingdom. I include my kingdom subjectively. There is no key to the kingdom; the acknowledgement is from within. In being the kingdom, whatever appears as needing the compelling power of Principle to enforce it, is bound by the finality of divine reality – heaven itself. Whatever human bonds need to be severed, shall be loosed forever in such a way that no memory of the former bondage shall remain. “A great sanity, a mighty something buried in the depths of the unseen, has wrought a resurrection among you, and has leaped into living love. What is this something, this phoenix fire, this pillar by day, kindling, guiding, and guarding your way? It is unity, the bond of perfectness, the thousandfold expansion that will engirdle the world, – unity, which enfolds the thought most within us into the greater and better, the sum of all reality and good.” (Miscellany) The bond of perfectness is the oneness of being, and this is the cornerstone of the Church universal. “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” (Ephesians) Those who still think of individuality in the divided sense, believing that they are ideas surrounded by others, enjoy only partial expression. “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:…” (ibid) This is multiplicity, instead of oneness.

“Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity.” (Retrospection and Introspection) This is the human appearance. The method for bringing out particular fitness is not by thinking of ourselves as persons or individuals equipped in a specific way to fill a specific niche. The fullness of Christ – nothing less – is man’s status. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Thus immature thought is led to the basic fact of oneness – the stature of the fullness of Christ. “Infinite perfection is unfolded as man attains the stature of man in Christ Jesus by means of the Science which Jesus taught and practised.” (Miscellany) Start out as the stature of the fullness of Christ. The very fact that man includes all aspects makes it possible for us to view ourselves as the existence with all the attainments which otherwise would be impossible to achieve.

“Science defines the individuality of God as supreme good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense of Deity, takes away the trammels assigned to God by finite thought, and introduces us to higher definitions.” (Rudimental Divine Science) Even humanly speaking there is nothing outside of mentality. Our personal body is a state of educated belief. Resist the mesmerism of thinking out from a sentient material body.

“Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony. Under divine Providence there can be no accidents, since there is no room for imperfection in perfection.” (Science and Health) Sickness is just as much an accident as a collision or a fall. The danger is in identifying oneself with a restricted and insecure sense of body. Be poised in and as what you really are.

The picture in the mirror of this material body in no way represents our true selfhood. There is no personal trait in God’s knowing. “The illusive senses may fancy affinities with their opposites; but in Christian Science, Truth never mingles with error. Mind has no affinity with matter, and therefore Truth is able to cast out the ills of the flesh.” (Science and Health) The most efficient way is by joyfully remaining one’s infinite self. Evil is thereby precluded, and infinite progression is spontaneously assured. In the realm of the real, all is one – one indivisible infinite. Competition, fear, or lack of opportunity, do not exist. The best way to help others is to know there are no others since all is infinite Love in effulgent self-fulfillment.

“Eternal harmony, perpetuity, and perfection, constitute the phenomena of being, governed by the immutable and eternal laws of God;…” Also, “Man has perpetual individuality; and God’s laws, and their intelligent and harmonious action, constitute his individuality in the Science of Soul.” (No and Yes) Man’s harmony is a fixed rule.

“The inverted images presented by the senses, the deflections of matter as opposed to the Science of spiritual reflection, are all unlike Spirit, God.” (Science and Health) Deflection arises from using a bent mirror, but such misinterpretation cannot touch one. The right idea precludes the misrepresentation as having anything to do with oneself.

1. The material body is deflection.

2. The remedy is in abandoning the bent mirror.

The only way to deal with nothing, is to see it as nothing. “Your mirrored reflection is your own image or likeness. If you lift a weight, your reflection does this also. If you speak, the lips of this likeness move in accord with yours. Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror divine Science, and call man the reflection.” (Science and Health)

Material evolution tries to explain existence by leaving God out of the picture. The nature of the eternal infinite One can be identified only with God. Material evolution is the sin of intellectual pride, the specific sin of the devil. “I am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I can cheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I elude detection by smooth-tongued villainy. Animal in propensity, deceitful in sentiment, fraudulent in purpose, I mean to make my short span of life one gala day. What a nice thing is sin! How sin succeeds, where the good purpose waits! The world is my kingdom. I am enthroned in the gorgeousness of matter.” (Science and Health) Mortal mind that does not know goodness, can never understand creation.

Subconsciousness: The belief is that conflicts smolder and perpetuate themselves in subconsciousness. Remedy: Refuse the beliefs:

1. That the human mind is consciousness

2. That man exists in a time and space universe

That which has no consciousness whatsoever does not possess subconsciousness. Evil in the past cannot produce evil in the present, conscious or otherwise. Evil cannot operate by the belief of being one’s inherent nature. All there is to subconsciousness is purely superstition. Evil cannot claim authority, influence, power or law under the guise of philosophy or psychology. “Let us remember that God – good – is omnipotent; therefore evil is impotent. There is but one side to good, – it has no evil side; there is but one side to reality, and that is the good side.” (Christian Healing) Good is really not human, but divine. God is All, no opposite, no good and bad side, therefore never a clash.

“A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon’s mouth. Love is the liberator.” (Science and Health) It is not enough that we utter immortal sentences. We must breathe divine justice – breathe from within. The fullness of scientific knowledge – the Christ – becomes immeasurably operative in human affairs.

Kingdom of Heaven: “The reign of harmony in divine Science; the realm of unerring, eternal, and omnipotent Mind; the atmosphere of Spirit, where Soul is supreme.” (Science and Health) The kingdom is within, and is Mind’s manifestation of all that Mind is. The kingdom cannot be localized or personalized. Know that there is one divine Body. This fact is the law of harmony to what appears as a material body. “... Spirit is discerned to be the Life of all, and the deathless Life, or Mind, dependent upon no material organization.” (ibid)

Communion: “This spiritual meeting with our Lord in the dawn of a new light is the morning meal which Christian Scientists commemorate. They bow before Christ, Truth, to receive more of his reappearing and silently to commune with the divine Principle, Love.” (ibid) Communion is entirely spiritual – no symbols. “Divine Science has rolled away the stone from the sepulchre of our Lord; and there has risen to the awakened thought the majestic atonement of Divine Love.” (Miscellaneous Writings)

Tenets: “As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.” (Science and Health) Every inspired word is in accord with the teachings of Jesus, and whatever deviates from his teachings is a mere misconception.

All Truth operates independently of place, person and time.

“We acknowledge God’s forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.” (Science and Health) To identify oneself with whatever is untrue brings perplexities. Pain is the punishment for unwillingness to give up the sin of identification as a mortal. I was never identified with a misconception, and this is the end of punishment.

Whatever is said about me that is not spiritually true is said of the statue, and the statue is not in me and I am not in the statue. “A courtier told Constantine that a mob had broken the head of his statue with stones. The emperor lifted his hands to his head, saying: ‘It is very surprising, but I don’t feel hurt in the least.’ ” (Miscellaneous Writings)

Prayer: The more infinite and all-inclusive your prayers, the more efficient they are. The realization of Christ as divine idea, and the denial of everything that makes us believe that we are persons is powerful prayer. In the revelation of Christian Science, I find the Truth about myself.

Readers: See all in the oneness of Being – Truth revealing itself. Do not think of yourself as a person standing there. This is the only danger, so protect yourself from the misconception of yourself. Do not stress personal pronouns – our Father, Give us grace – if you do, you shut others out. I am the capacity to know that where any misconception seems to be, right there is the perfect, indestructible immutable idea.

Jesus: All there is to Jesus, and all there is to us in reality, is divine. “Jesus’ true and conscious being never left heaven for earth.” (No and Yes) Jesus’ true and conscious being is the Christ, and Christ was never in a human concept. What we read in the four Gospels is what a certain state of thought could conceive of Christ and of the activity of the Christ. “Jesus’ personality in the flesh, so far as material sense could discern it, was like that of other men; but Science exchanges this human concept of Jesus for the divine ideal, his spiritual individuality that reflected the Immanuel, or ‘God with us.’ This God was not outlined. He was too mighty for that. He was eternal Life, infinite Truth and Love. The individuality is embraced in Mind, therefore is forever with the Father. Hence the Scripture, ‘I am a God at hand, saith the Lord.’ Even while his personality was on earth and in anguish, his individual being, the Christ, was at rest in the eternal harmony. His unseen individuality, so superior to that which was seen, was not subject to the temptations of the flesh, to laws material, to death, or the grave. Formed and governed by God, this individuality was safe in the substance of Soul, the substance of Spirit, – yea, the substance of God, the one inclusive good.” (Miscellaneous Writings)

Jesus’ personality in the flesh is merely the human concept of Jesus. “As the Wisemen grew in the understanding of Christ, the spiritual idea, it grew in favor with them. Thus it will continue, as it shall become understood, until man be found in the actual likeness of his Maker. Their highest human concept of the man Jesus, that portrayed him as the only Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and Truth, will become so magnified to human sense, by means of the lens of Science, as to reveal man collectively, as individually, to be the son of God.” (Miscellaneous Writings) “The lens of Science” – not the dark glass of the mortal viewpoint. “Jesus. The highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man’s immortality.” (Science and Health)

Jesus was the Christ because he never permitted a human concept of himself. Had he thought of himself as a wonderful person doing wonderful works, he could never have fed the multitude. He insisted that man is spiritual – the full manifestation of God, and this took care of the hunger attached to the misconception about man, and did so in the normal way by providing normal food. We never have to do anything for a person – give him back his health, etc. If you do, you are working at something which is not the trouble. All lack of health is found in the misconception about man. But we confront the misconception with the fact that man is omnipotence, omnipresence itself; and then it is impossible for the misconception to remain. It just fades out. Insist, “I am the Christ-presence and the Christ-activity itself and nothing less.” This shows the folly of human economics to divide up everything that appears as substantial. Jesus did not cut up what seemed to be available. He thanked God. That is, he acknowledged with gratitude the divine facts of being and their inexhaustible nature.

To look up to heaven is to tum away from material suggestion. The human concept was never part of Jesus, or of us. “To carry out his holy purpose, he must be oblivious of human self.” (Miscellaneous Writings) To be oblivious of human self is sheer joy and loveliness and beauty. “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.” (No and Yes) That which seems to be the human self, has always a retreat into that which one really is as divine idea, until finally the only awareness is the conscious royalty and reality of being. The first stage is the resurrection. Then comes the ascension in which there never was a human concept. So instead of retreating, we keep out the suggestion that there was ever a human concept about me, and this means the continuous enjoyment of spontaneity and perfection without one material belief. Hence, “Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind.” (Science and Health)

Crucifixion: Christian Science prevents crossbearing from appearing. The recognition that “I am the Christ-idea here and now” prevents all sense of crucifixion. All the trouble is in our human or personal concept. The recognition that “I am the Christ-idea here and now,” means infinite understanding without any limit at all. I am Life’s understanding of itself, and not a person understanding Life. Read in first person, “My real and conscious being never left heaven for earth.” In the ascension stage, “I do not have to find rest – I am the divine idea.”

“Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother:….” (Matt.) Early in life Jesus repudiated claim of obligation based on human relationship.

Water into Wine: Jesus’ mother first tried to use her human authority, wanting Jesus to show what he could do, so he refused. “What have I to do with thee?” He did not take orders from person. When she became meek and withdrew, he did change the water into wine. Jesus exemplified his divine sonship, or Christ, by always identifying himself with the Father. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “I and my Father are one.” The Science of all that Jesus said and did reveals his works to result from the operation of divine law, not a personal dispensation.

Let us consider the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.

1. The crucifixion humanly appeared as the end of Jesus’ human career, but all the trouble is in the mortal concept; and as we realize that we are not in the mortal concept, we can end this crucifixion here and now.

2. This brings the resurrection as a state to be experienced, not as the result of death, but by spiritualization of thought. After the resurrection, the disciples’ human concept of the Christ appeared as a human form. In the resurrection, the disciples became aware of the wonderful fact that the Christ is impersonal. Their restrictive sense regarding the personal Christ, had made them believe that they could not do his works; but when they recognized Christ’s impersonal nature, they knew that the impersonal Christ remained and they could do the works. The Messiah – Prophecy promised the coming of the Saviour, and it was the hope of every Israelitish girl to bear the Messiah in the flesh. This was crystallized by Mary. Had Mary known enough, she would have brought forth the impersonal Christ – Christian Science. “Through all the disciples experienced, they became more spiritual and understood better what the Master had taught. His resurrection was also their resurrection” (Science and Health)

3. Ascension. The Christ did not disappear. Only the material sense of him vanished. The more we see that the things we value in life – beauty, loveliness – are spiritually tangible, spiritually felt, the more shall we experience them in effortless continuity. The substance is never in a material sense. In the ascension comes the immaculate conception – the conception of everything from the standpoint of Truth itself. Mary’s conception of Jesus was not wholly immaculate. Had it been, she would have brought forth Christian Science. “Jesus was the offspring of Mary’s self-conscious communion with God.” (Science and Health) It was the Christ which enabled Jesus to be what he was and to do the works he did. No one is born into Truth. Truth must be conscious recognition. The recognition of his Christ-being came to Jesus after permitting the human concession – being baptized with water by John. He did the humanly loving thing without being touched by it. Then he came to the wonderful recognition that all there is to him, is the Christ-idea, with no human concept about him. “This is my beloved Son.”

Dove: “A symbol of divine Science;…” (Science and Health) The recognition of Jesus that he was divine Science, and not a person trying to practice it, was symbolized by a dove descending upon him. At that moment, Jesus realized his divine sonship. The recognition of the Christ does not in any way depend upon the human circumstances of birth. Jesus’ recognition of what he really was, changed the human concept about him.

Resume: The whole of human consciousness is a misconception in the realm of belief I am a divine fact. True immaculate conception is the approach of existence from the standpoint of Truth and in terms of Truth.

Mediator: The personal sense of mediator is that man is a sinner and God is sinless, so Jesus was to form the link between the two. The true sense of mediator is oneness. In this true sense, in the ascension state of consciousness, there is no mediator.

“Jesus came to rescue men from these very illusions to which he seemed to conform: from the illusion which calls sin real, and man a sinner, needing a Saviour; the illusion which calls sickness real, and man an invalid, needing a physician; the illusion that death is as real as Life. From such thoughts – mortal inventions, one and all – Christ Jesus came to save men, through ever-present and eternal good.” (Unity of Good) The purpose of the mediator is to see that whatever appears to stand between man and his health is done away with. The impersonal nature of the Christ is Christ Science, and this does away with all that is not. The most subtle suggestion regarding any medium is that mortal mind is the medium or mediator between man and the Divine Mind. Whatever is evil is not mind at all, but the suggestion of the absence of Mind, and is always without mentality.

“Its only priest is the spiritualized man.” (Science and Health) The recognition that man is spiritual, is the priest. “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father;….” (Revelation) We have received from Jesus the real understanding of man as one with the Father.

“For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,….” (Hebrews) Our concept of heaven and earth is not touched by limited human concept. The material sense of earth and heaven is all that can be shaken.

The Bible: The key for the intelligent and scientific approach to the Bible is given in our first tenet by the word inspired – in strict accord with the teachings of Christian Science. Whatever deviates from Christian Science is not inspired. In proportion that we permit the historical limitation of time and sense to fall away, we shall experience all that Truth promises – not for the future, but here and now, as the spiritual divine idea in all its fullness.

Calamites Prophesied: The power of the Christ forestalls them. Whatever is prophesied as future good must be understood as good here and now. Whatever seems good in the past is here and now. The Word is Science – not the word of a personal Saviour. All condemnation in the Bible refers to person, but as divine idea I have never been in any such concept. All perfection starts out from Principle, not from man. “In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks....And in the four and twentieth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel;.…” (Daniel) Mourning – abstaining from a material sense of existence and as a result of this abstaining, Daniel found himself by the side of the river Hiddekel. “Hiddekel (river). Divine Science understood and acknowledged.” (Science and Health. Daniel was acknowledging existence as it is seen from the standpoint of Divine Science. Daniel, as a result of desire for spirituality, saw man as he really is – brightness, radiance, not as the mortal concept.

“And I Daniel alone saw the visions: for the men that were with me saw not the vision;.…” Whilst Daniel saw this spiritual reality, those with him could accept only the mortal sense. Daniel saw that there is no beauty in the human concept, yet he returned to it, but awakened from his stupor. He saw that he must maintain his correct standpoint. From the moment he saw that he must refrain from the mortal sense, there was the spiritual response.

Persia: This stands for the five personal senses. Personal sense tries to obstruct the refraining from material sense. “And when he had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb.” (ibid) Another relapse. He could not see how, from the human point of view, he could be acquainted with the spiritual. “And said, O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong, and when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my Lord speak; for thou hast strengthened me.” (ibid) “Let my Lord speak.” Let me approach everything from the standpoint of Truth itself, and in terms of Truth itself. “Grecia” means tenderness.

Transfiguration: Analogous with the experience of Daniel. A better sense of man was experienced – less dark, less dull, less restricted. When this came about, and the darkness and limitation of the mortal sense faded out, Moses and Elias became a picture.

Peter: Tabernacles – showed that Peter’s sense was too material.

Elias: The falling away of false concepts appears as restoration. Man is divinely complete, and has suffered no loss at all.

Art: God is the only creator and source of all being. The artist should look out from Truth – infinite versatility. As the limited concept falls away, the beauty of the universe appears more vividly with all its detail of loveliness. Seeing the universe as it really is, is exemplified as beautiful art.

Music: Music is the expression of Soul – omnipresent.

Children: The human sense of procreation is attached to the limited sense of existence, but the limited sense of existence cannot hide the continuity of being. Existence is here and now spiritual and complete – hence no need for procreation. Spiritual creation exists in spite of the belief that life is material and temporal. That which appears humanly conforms to the self-perpetuation of Mind.

There is no person giving and no person receiving, but just universal infinite Love aware of its omnipresent completeness and oneness, aware of its own beauty and affluence. The pure in heart see God and this is God seeing – the seeing of God.

I am the operation of divine Principle which is Science. Spirit never stands in its own light. The mortal picture is but the objectification of personal sense. Mortal mind’s misconception of itself. Truth operates as the law of extinction to mortal belief and to the evidence of mortal belief. Man needs no object of affection. He is love itself.

Christ: The cornerstone of Christianity. Old theology tried to drown the Christ in mortal concepts. Three aspects of the Christ:

1. The Christ is the truth about everything. “Christ is Truth, which rises no higher than itself.” (Science and Health)

2. The Christ expresses God’s eternal nature. “Christ expresses God’s spiritual, eternal nature.” (ibid)

3. The Christ is the true idea voicing good. “Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to man speaking to the human consciousness.” (ibid)

First aspect: The truth about everything can only be understood from the standpoint of Truth itself. The truth about everything is Truth expressing itself as everything.

Second aspect. Truth incarnate – the true and only selfhood of Jesus. “The Christ was Jesus’ spiritual selfhood,” and is not only the spiritual selfhood of Jesus, but of that which appears as each one of us. Christ is the truth about my selfhood. Christ and man are synonymous only in regard to the true sense of man – not if we think of man as one of many.

Third aspect: The activity of the Christ. When the erroneous suggestion is confronted with the Christ, then Christ operates as divine activity, dispelling the illusion of the senses, causing harmony to appear in human experience.

Our awareness of Truth as All, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, causes evil to be seen as nothingness; and in this way error disappears. If you admit that error is a claim, you perpetuate it. It is our special Christ function as Christian Scientists to confront error with the truth. The more we remain in the realm of Truth, the quicker will be the disappearance of error and the more universal will the operation be.

We must exemplify Love in our daily knowing and being. If I have a personal sense about man, then I have a personal sense about God. On behalf of my freedom, I lay down a human sense of life. This enables one to avail himself of his Christ-selfhood anywhere, at any time, in a scientific way. “...the divine message...” does not come from the outside. God is not an outside power revealed to me. If I believe I am a person, I cannot include that which is infinite, impersonal and divine; but when I see myself correctly, I know that ideas do not come to me. They originate as me. If ideas have to come to me, I admit myself to be apart from divine reality and not complete. All good being divine and impersonal, it never comes from the outside. It is already my very being, and therefore I only acknowledge its already presence. I have to get nothing from outside. Nothing is excluded from my Christ-being. “I do not find my authority for Christian Science in history, but in revelation. If there had never existed such a person as the Galilean Prophet, it would make no difference to me. I should still know that God’s spiritual ideal is the only real man in His image and likeness.” (Miscellany) Christian Science is the impersonal Christ understanding itself. If existence had been scientifically Christian, there would never have been Christ Jesus.

To partake of the Master’s cup is the personal approach to Christianity. To partake of Christ’s cup is the impersonal approach. These two approaches may be compared with Michael and Gabriel, the son of man and the Son of God – the resurrection and ascension. The Christ is to be lost as something to be followed, and found as something to be embodied.

The Holy Ghost or Comforter is the activity of Truth coming to the flesh. The Comforter is available universally, independent of time, place and person. The Christ is very sacred, for it is so closely connected with Love. The Christliness of living Christian Science makes it possible to be aware without interruption of being the activity of Truth itself. We are the divine capacity to do whatever is kind without being touched by erroneous evidence. This is Love. The Christ was never crucified. What seems to be harmful or malicious is not aimed at me, and thus I enjoy my fullness and joy without impediment. Never doubt the spiritual efficacy of Christian Science prayer or treatment.

Acknowledge: Act knowledge. I can act that which I know myself to be. Church is included in man, not man in church. If you think of yourself as a stone in the building, or pillar of the church, this is only the resurrection state. To know oneself as the full manifestation, is the ascension. The basic requirement for uniting with church is to let go the mortal, limited, personal concept. This is the church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail when man is understood as Christ. Then no matter what may be the suggestions of evil, they cannot prevail. Live the true definition of church in daily life.

Resume: Christ – three aspects, indivisibly one in nature:

1. Christ is the true selfhood of Jesus, and also of man in the sense that man is the “full representation of Mind.”

2. What happens when error is confronted with Christ. Because Christ knows no mortal nature, error is obviously devoid of power, presence and mentality. Thus the belief fades out.

3. The main error of scholastic theology is to personalize everything. Personalization is division. To personalize God is to materialize Him. Personalization is frustration. Externalization is desolation.

If confronted with two possibilities, rise so much in the oneness of Being that only one possibility remains. The way to stand porter at the door of thought is to know that there is no door of thought.

Repetition: The impersonal nature of the Christ shines forth in the full effulgence of divine accuracy as my subjective Christ-understanding.

Let us then be single-minded – the “I” only. Acknowledge this one “I.” Feel it. Be it in spontaneity, reality, loveliness – even the inexhaustible changelessness of all that is already your being. Life is its own sheer joy and shining beauty, because Love alone is Life.

Oneness is the great theme of Life. “The infinite is one, and this one is Spirit; Spirit is God, and this God is infinite good. This simple statement of oneness is the only possible correct version of Christian Science.” (Miscellany)

A Biographical Sketch of Laura E. Sargent, C.S.D. and Victoria H. Sargent, C.S.D.

Ancestral History

The parents of Victoria and Laura Sargent were Samuel Adams and Minerva Randall Adams. Our introduction to them is while they resided at Bowdoinham, Maine, a small village in the eastern part of the state. It is only about three miles from the larger town of Bowdoin, Maine.

Samuel Adams, the father, was a first cousin of that other Samuel Adams who distinguished himself in Revolutionary times. Patriotism did not die out with the passing of the elder Adams. Samuel the younger had a zeal befitting the family name, and took no little pride in keeping on display the family coat of arms. The latter, in due process, passed to the Sargent home.

Minerva Randall Adams was a Purrington before her marriage. Her folks were likewise patriotic, the name having an honored place with that of other founders of the country. The point is important, because it establishes a link with the past, and enabled at least one member of Victoria Sargent’s family (Mrs. Bessie Roper, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin) to obtain membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The third child, a daughter, was born to the Adamses on May 28, 1848, and was given the name of Victoria Hortense Adams. Her birth place was Bowdoinham, where she attended the common schools a few years. At the age of eleven she went with the parents to live in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Soon after the family arrived in the West, another daughter was born. The date was April 26, 1857, and to that second child was given the name of Laura Ella Adams. In addition to Victoria and Laura, the Adamses had three other daughters, who were born in Maine.

The trip from Bowdoinham to Green Bay was made under minor discomforts. Travel facilities in those days were not so plentiful, and where existent, were crude in comparison with modem standards. No one moved from one location to another for the sheer love of moving. The Adamses obtained rail passage, such as it was, only to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and completed their journey to Green Bay on a horse-drawn sled.

In his earlier years, Samuel Adams had sailed the seas for a livelihood, rising to the rank of captain. While living on the Eastern seacoast, or in that general neighborhood, he learned the art of building ships. He knew all parts from keel to super structure. This dual experience paid off, for in his new location he was destined to use them both. He supervised the construction of two vessels at Green Bay, both believed to be schooners, the second of which was named the Pamelia Flood. Adams captained the Pamelia Flood across the Atlantic while it was being delivered in London. It was the first seagoing vessel to be built in Green Bay.

Early Years

The Adams daughters grew up in Green Bay. Their parents were not wealthy, but were able nevertheless to give them both a good education. Victoria received all her schooling in the common schools of that city. Being a precocious child, she learned rapidly and finished all the grades with honor to herself. Laura attended the same public schools, but went on for some advanced work with the Young Women’s Academy of Green Bay. Victoria was married to Henry Sargent just prior to reaching her eighteenth birthday. The date was April 13, 1866, and the place Oconto, Wisconsin. On August 30, 1876, Laura married Henry’s brother, James Sargent.

The Sargent brothers were natives of Escuminac, New Brunswick, but had moved to Oconto to enter the lumber business. They operated retail lumber yards. Each was a Presbyterian, and Henry read his Bible religiously. He was also a member of the Masonic Lodge. This business venture was successful, so that they became well to do, and both were highly respected citizens.

Two children were born to Henry and Victoria Sargent. The first was named Minerva Randall Sargent, the second Bessie Sargent. James and Laura Sargent had no offspring.

Another prominent family in Oconto, the Hugh McDonalds, were associated with the Sargents in business and socially. While the three families lived in Oconto, whatever news applied to one applied equally to the other two, for visiting back and forth was daily routine.

Between 1880 and 1882, the McDonalds moved to Green Bay. The friendship continued, however, growing even closer after Christian Science appeared on the scene.

Mrs. McDonald was invalided about 1882. A steamboat inspector heard of her condition, and recommended Christian Science. He explained the method of treating, which is done by practitioners, and so confident was he that it would heal Mrs. McDonald that he urged Mr. McDonald to try this new remedy.

There were no practitioners in either Oconto or Green Bay, but Hugh McDonald was so favorably inclined to seek Science help for his wife, that he sent her to Milwaukee, the nearest city where help was available. Mrs. McDonald was healed completely, and returned to her home a well woman.

Mrs. Laura Sargent was sorely in need of healing about this time, for she, too, was a near invalid. While in Milwaukee, Mrs. McDonald sent for Mrs. Sargent, even before she herself had been healed. She felt her healing was in process, and was so confident of results that she never hesitated a moment to recommend Christian Science to Mrs. Sargent. Again a perfect healing resulted. When Mrs. Sargent returned to Oconto, she brought back with her a copy of Science and Health. It was the first copy of the textbook ever to appear in Oconto.

Among others to inspect the book was Grandmother Adams. She was a great Bible student, so her daughters, Victoria and Laura, wanted her approval of their study of this new book.

At that time Mrs. Adams was confined to her bed with what appeared to be a broken ankle. Some days later, while her daughters were serving her breakfast she picked up the copy of Science and Health and said, “Girls, this book is of God. I have read it through and I find nothing in it that interferes with the Bible. I believe it is the ‘second coming of Christ.’ I want you to study it.”

The girls took the mother’s tray and went downstairs. Soon they heard Mrs. Adams calling them. They ran upstairs to her. She said, “My ankle has slipped back into place.” From that time on she was a well woman.

Obedient to the mother’s recommendation, both Victoria and Laura Sargent began to make Science and Health their daily companion It was the turning point in their lives.

Mrs. Eddy taught her first and only class in Christian Science in the West in May, 1884. The place was Chicago, and registered from Oconto were these four students – Mrs. Laura Sargent, Mrs. Lovina Milledge, Miss Libby Beyer, and Mrs. Emma McDonald. After arriving in Chicago, Laura Sargent wired her sister Victoria, suggesting that she hasten to Chicago and join the class. Although Victoria Sargent acted promptly, bringing with her Almeda M. Pendleton, they were too late for class.

Mrs. Eddy remained in Chicago a little over two weeks, teaching a Primary Class, and both Sargent sisters stayed at the same hotel in order to be near her. Miss Minerva Sargent also accompanied her mother to Chicago, and writing of the experience more than half a century later, she told a friend; “Our first books were the 7th and 8th editions of Science and Health, and they are precious to me for my mother (Victoria Sargent) was healed in the summer of 1884 by reading these books. My mother bought her book from our dear Leader’s hand. Mrs. Eddy said to mother, ‘Mrs. Sargent, this is the same healing that Jesus did.’ While searching to know how Jesus healed, mother was healed.”

During the Primary Class held in Chicago, Mrs. Eddy met each day at the luncheon hour with her students from Wisconsin. The discussions which took place enabled Mrs. Eddy to discover qualifications in Laura Sargent, and after the class had adjourned, Mrs. Eddy said to Laura, “This is not at all like my class in the College, and I should like you to come to Boston this fall and take the Primary Class there.”

In December, 1884, Mrs. Eddy had six Wisconsin students in her College – Victoria and Laura Sargent, Mrs. McDonald, Mrs. Milledge, Mrs. Pendleton, and a Mrs. Freeman. The study in that class, together with association with Mrs. Eddy, gave them great spiritual inspiration. They began to heal the sick as soon as they returned to their homes.

Church affiliation for the Sargents continued to be with the Presbyterian Church. They worshiped there, but they were in process of being driven out. Rev. John H. Kerr, the pastor, preached violently against what he thought Christian Science to be, and he alienated all who had any interest in Christian Science. The Rev. Kerr disliked Victoria Sargent so much that in the spring of 1886 he wrote her a letter, asking her to leave the Presbyterian Church. As requested, she withdrew, and as a result of her withdrawal, the others who were interested in Christian Science also left.

The first building ever erected for Christian Science worship was in Oconto. The church organization there dates from June 10, 1886. At that time a church was formed with the following members: Victoria Sargent, Laura Sargent, Mrs. Lovina Milledge, Almeda M. Pendleton, Edwin Hart, and Elizabeth Hart. They qualified as trustees to hold property acquired by the church, and immediately following, Henry Sargent donated a site on the corner of Chicago and Main Streets.

Mrs. Victoria Sargent submitted plans for a church building. Their acceptance by the other members was immediate. She was thereupon appointed a committee of one to receive contributions and subscriptions to a building fund. Money was forthcoming as fast as needed, so that the corner stone was laid in due course, after which there were no interruptions. The structure was completed toward the end of October, but before the last nail was driven a service had been held. The little group of pioneers held their initial service on Sunday, October 31, 1886.

That first service was conducted by Laura Sargent and Edwin Hart. They read passages from Science and Health and the Bible, and closed the service by reading the ‘Scientific Statement of Being’ from Science and Health, which, though they did not know it then, was eventually to be the established practice in all Christian Science churches.

But reading from the Bible and Science and Health was not adopted immediately by the Oconto church. Rev. Lanson P. Norcross, a Congregational minister then serving his church at Bloomington, Illinois, volunteered to conduct devotional services in this new Christian Science church. His first sermon was preached on September 2, 1888. He occupied the pulpit there for approximately a year. The following year he was called by Mrs. Eddy to become the pastor of The Mother Church in Boston. As a duly constituted minister of the Gospel, he was empowered to solemnize weddings, and he joined in wedlock Will McDonald and Minnie Sargent. McDonald was the son of Hugh McDonald, who, it will be remembered, was a close friend of the Sargents. The nuptials were performed in the Oconto church, and was one of the very few weddings ever to take place in a Christian Science church.

Mrs. Eddy watched with genuine pleasure the growth of Christian Science in and around Oconto. At one time she began making preparations for a vacation, which she proposed to spend in the adjoining pine forests. The house of Governor Scofield, on the outskirts of Oconto, was readied for her. Subsequent developments, however, made it necessary for her to change her plans. She never vacationed in Oconto.

But while Mrs. Eddy was deprived of the privilege and pleasure of that Oconto vacation, she never ceased to watch over the progress of the Sargent sisters. She saw them enroll in her Normal Class – Laura in May, 1886, and Victoria in October, 1886. Both sisters were awarded the degree of C.S.D. The following year Laura enrolled with the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and received instructions in obstetrics. This was in December, 1887. She herself taught a class – her first – in Marinette, Wisconsin, late in 1887. The following year, at the request of Mrs. Eddy, she went to St. Paul, Minnesota, on a special mission, remaining there several months.

A Call to Boston

Following the completion of the work in St. Paul, Mrs. Sargent was asked to come to Boston. Mrs. Eddy had work for her which could not be fully disclosed in the initial meetings. She made several trips to Boston, all at the request of Mrs. Eddy. When Mrs. Eddy decided the right time had arrived, she made known her purpose. Laura was to remain permanently in Boston as Mrs. Eddy’s personal companion. This arrangement was worked out satisfactorily with her family.

At that time Mrs. Eddy did not live in Boston. Her house was at 62 State Street, Concord, New Hampshire, where she was engaged in revising the fiftieth edition of Science and Health. As pages of the text book were made ready, Laura carried them to the printer in Boston. In 1896, when Miscellaneous Writings was submitted to the publisher, Laura acted as messenger to carry all the proof sheets from Pleasant View to Boston.

It was in 1890 that Mrs. Eddy revised the fiftieth edition of Science and Health. Before beginning work for the day, she would take a short stroll through the grounds, and Laura had standing instructions to have her wraps in readiness each morning. One morning, she became so deeply absorbed in her writing that she did not notice Laura standing by with the wraps. The apparent neglect continued for several minutes. But Laura understood; that was an extraordinary occasion. It was her testimony later that she had never before been in such heavenly atmosphere. She was impelled by the circumstances to leave the room for the time being.

When Laura returned to the room, Mrs. Eddy was still writing, oblivious to her surroundings. Laura slipped the overshoes on her feet, then stepped out of the room again. This time she waited for Mrs. Eddy to summon her with the bell. She waited a full hour. When the bell had rung and Laura stood once more in Mrs. Eddy’s presence, she was instructed to call Calvin Frye and other members of the household. The members were seated, and then Mrs. Eddy addressed them thus: “I want to read to you what God has given me this morning.” What she read to them was the closing pages on the chapter, “The Apocalypse,” in Science and Health.

Mrs. Eddy beamed happiness as she read those wonderful statements. She alone, of course, understood their full import. With a radiant face, she announced that she was ready for the morning walk. “It is now past time to go and walk,” she said to Laura, but almost in the same breath she added, “Will you bring me my overshoes?” Laura had to tell her that the overshoes were already on her feet. “When did you do that?” she inquired.

Laura Sargent continued to make annual trips back to Oconto during the early years of her stay with Mrs. Eddy, but only once did she teach a class there. That was in 1892. It was the second class taught by her.

When she visited her family in December 1889, Mrs. Eddy wrote Victoria Sargent and Laura Sargent the following letter:

Concord, N. H.

No. State St.

December 27, 1889

My Beloved Students:

Your most beautiful Christmas mementos came duly. Oh I wish you knew how dear these sweet emblems of memory and love are to me this season, after the cross that I have borne all this long year. So sweet to know that you love me still and have kept such Christian pace with God’s mighty movements as to understand them all and cheer my burdened heart.

Oh my dear, dear ones how near you are to me. How I hope that God will give me the order again to meet with you in His own good time and way. Meanwhile come and see me after I get over my tasks now on hand and return to Boston. Thanks, and a joyful Christmas and a heavenly hope for all time be yours.

Ever thine own,

M.B.G. Eddy

Owing the Communion season, Laura served as hostess in the Mother’s Room when it was maintained in the original Mother Church edifice. She just about made herself indispensable to Mrs. Eddy, especially in the latter years of her service. She was Mrs. Eddy’s constant companion, going along on the daily drives. She was present when our Leader passed on.

Laura liked to relate an experience she had soon after joining Mrs. Eddy’s household staff. A certain task was assigned her, and when sufficient time had elapsed for it to have been completed, Mrs. Eddy asked for a progress report. Very little of the work had been done, and sensing embarrassment, Laura replied, “Mother, the Moores came in, also others, and....” She stopped short, for she saw her explanation did not satisfy Mrs. Eddy. She came boldly to the point and said, “I will not justify myself any more.” It was probably something less than a full explanation, but it pleased Mrs. Eddy. Her face lighting, Mrs. Eddy said, “If my students would stop justifying themselves, it would take them into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Laura learned on still another occasion that excuses do not always excuse. She was asked by Mrs. Eddy to do the household bookkeeping. That was not along her line, and she told Mrs. Eddy that she knew nothing about bookkeeping. “Laura,” Mrs. Eddy said to her, “God is a business God. He attends to the business of the universe, and you reflect His business ability.” The books were thereupon posted and balanced.

It is not out of place here to say that Laura Sargent made it a practice to support Mrs. Eddy in all the latter’s promptings from God. Her faithful support was a comfort to our Leader – yes and more – it was a real help. Only Mrs. Eddy could ever know its full measure of helpfulness. In this connection, Mrs. Sargent once remarked: “Every change our precious Leader has made in her writings God gave her for us.” That same broad vision of Laura Sargent lives on.

While residing at Pleasant View, Mrs. Eddy was visited one day by a delegation of newspaper reporters. They came for an interview with her, and were ushered into the parlor by Calvin Frye. They were informed by Mr. Frye that Mrs. Eddy would see them prior to going out for her daily drive. Shortly before one o’clock Mrs. Eddy came down stairs, accompanied by Mrs. Sargent. Before entering the parlor where the newspaper men were assembled, Mrs. Eddy paused a moment outside the door. Then she entered and talked freely with the group. After she had left the parlor – after she was out of hearing of the rest of the reporters, Laura asked her why hesitation outside the door. “I wanted the Christ to precede me,” Mrs. Eddy replied.

Mrs. Sargent was provided for in Mrs. Eddy’s will for the long stay in the household. After Mrs. Eddy passed on in 1910, Mrs. Sargent continued to live in the Chestnut Hill home. She was always willing to lend a hand wherever she could be helpful. She served a year on the Bible Lesson Committee, and in 1913, taught the Normal Class in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. She departed this life September 4, 1915, leaving behind an example of saintliness to bless our time.

The following poem, composed by Mrs. Sargent for a friend, reflects the purity of her thought:

O, struggling heart, though tempest tossed,
Thy baque will safely ride the wave.
Thy wrestling faith cannot be lost,
His ‘Peace be still’ will surely save.
Look up, nor faint beside the way,
The darkling cloud will break and lift:
Love’s light will usher in the day
Of perfect rest, God’s gracious gift.

Laura E. Sargent

“Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through the understanding of God.” (Science and Health)

Victoria Hortense Sargent

Mrs. Laura Sargent continued as First Reader of the Oconto church until Rev. Norcross began preaching here in 1888. This type of service lasted for about a year, or until Rev. Norcross was called to Boston to serve The Mother Church. Then the church at Oconto went back to Readers. Mrs. Victoria Sargent was elected in 1889 to the position of First Reader, which position she held until 1894 (the three year rule for Readers had not yet been promulgated).

During her years of readership, Victoria Sargent supervised a large household in which there were a number of servants. She devoted more and more time to the practice of Christian Science, extending her field to Green Bay, where she often went to give treatments. She became a teacher of Christian Science in 1895, her first class being held in Green Bay. Little time was available for social activities, but she regarded that as no loss to her, for living now had a new meaning – a goal where Spirit is supreme.

Although not at that time a member of First Church in Green Bay, Mrs. Sargent was nevertheless elected Second Reader, and served in that capacity from August 25, 1899 to July 21, 1902. Mr. Hugh McDonald was elected as First Reader.

Mrs. Sargent’s class instruction was painstaking and correct. She never left a student to wrestle unaided with the doubt in his own consciousness, but followed through until she knew the particular point or lesson had been mastered. In all her classes she stressed the following: man’s unity with God; the daily handling of malicious animal magnetism; the correct concept of Mrs. Eddy and Mrs. Eddy’s relation to Christian Science; loyalty to The Mother Church and the Christian Science Board of Directors.

The following letter to a student shows how important Mrs. Sargent regarded the handling of malicious animal magnetism.

My dear student:

I was glad to hear from you today. Faithfulness will have its reward. Do not forget to handle malicious animal magnetism for each patient because this is the false belief of the whole trouble. This is the lie trying to make us believe there is something beside God, good. Handle the laws made to the patient. Mortal mind is not a law-giver. Jesus walked over all these so-called laws and He said: “The works that I do ye shall do.”

With love to each dear one,
Yours in Truth and Love
V. H. Sargent.
Friday evening October 25, 1902.

She liked to tell her students of little incidents which occurred in Mrs. Eddy’s classes, or on occasions when she would be visiting Mrs. Eddy.

Mrs. Sargent’s understanding of Christian Science was profound, and she usually had a ready answer to every query, but not on this occasion. One day while teaching the Primary Class in 1884, Mrs. Eddy inquired as follows: “What would you do if a case would not yield to Christian Science treatment?” After a moment of reflection, Mrs. Sargent replied: “It would yield to Truth and Love.” “But,” insisted Mrs. Eddy “supposing it did not yield to treatment; what would you do?” Mrs. Sargent answered meekly, “I do not know.” Mrs. Eddy evidently saw an opportunity to drive home an important lesson. “Why wouldn’t you handle animal magnetism?” she asked next (she had given the class one lesson on animal magnetism). The answer was taken for granted, because Mrs. Eddy did not wait for a reply in so many words. Looking straight at Mrs. Sargent, she said: “God gave me the name ‘animal magnetism’ to give to the class, and I promised Him this morning that I would teach you what animal magnetism is, even if I had to keep you in class two weeks longer. Now it has become malicious because it is fighting the truth.” The entire day was devoted to instructing the class in malicious animal magnetism.

Mrs. Eddy wanted her students to be precise in the use of words. She told Mrs. Sargent and others that when instructing on the subject of animal magnetism, they should counsel students to use the full term – malicious animal magnetism – and never to be content with the simple words of error or evil.

Recognizing the high quality of her mental work, Mrs. Eddy called Mrs. Sargent to Concord in 1907 to help handle the error arising from the lawsuit, known as the “Next Friends” lawsuit. Mrs. Sargent went to Concord and remained there several weeks. She was able to go to Pleasant View a number of times, where she visited with her sister, Laura, and with Mrs. Eddy. On one of these visits Mrs. Sargent addressed her Leader thus, “My students recognize you to be God’s witness and mouthpiece. They are convinced that God is guiding you in this work which you are carrying on for the cause of Christian Science. They feel that you fulfill the prophecies of the Scriptures – that you represent the God-crowned woman mentioned in the Apocalypse.”

Mrs. Eddy was quick to respond to these sentiments, pointing her finger upward, she said, “That is from above.”

Mrs. Sargent relates the following incident which occurred while she was visiting in our Leader’s home: She was asked by Mrs. Eddy to shorten a table scarf by cutting cloth off each end. When she returned later, Mrs. Eddy observed that Mrs. Sargent had cut from only one end of the scarf. That, of course, was what Mrs. Eddy expected in the first place. Mrs. Eddy approved the operation in these words, “That is right, dear. Your idea of rightly doing material things registers your ability to heal.”

Mrs. Sargent’s practicality elicited the commendation of our Leader in this instance, but there was really nothing unusual about it. She was always doing what was right, and doing it from practical standpoint. She taught her students to be both practical and inspirational.

Mrs. Minnie McDonald, a daughter of Victoria Sargent, in a letter writes:

Mother was always so happy that she was near to Mrs. Eddy and able to help when she was called upon. She was healed reading Science and Health the summer of 1884, and never was ill and she never spent a day in bed for 46 years. Also she would never lie down to rest in the daytime. When Mrs. Eddy asked my Aunt Laura to go to Boston and take care of the Mother’s room, in a letter to my mother my Aunt Laura wrote, ‘I wish you could have heard the loving word that Mother said of you today. She told me to forget self and be self-sacrificing as you are, and then she said of you, ‘She is God’s anointed child.’ I knew these words would cheer your dear heart and give you strength to do whatever God requires.’

Clarity of thought was stressed by Mrs. Sargent in all her teaching. Her students learned that lesson well, because they saw the teaching was by example as well as precept. It was inspirational merely to be seated by her side, as her students so often remarked, for she unconsciously and continuously breathed forth the truth.

After Laura Sargent’s passing on September 4, 1915, The Christian Science Board of Directors appointed Victoria Sargent custodian of Mrs. Eddy’s Chestnut Hill house. She took over these new duties in October, 1915, being accompanied on that occasion by her daughter, Minnie McDonald. Her fame had traveled far, and Christian Scientists from all over the world, when they came to Boston, called on her. And invariably they left feeling a spiritual uplift.

Mrs. Sargent regarded Green Bay as her teaching field. Classes were held there until 1925, when she discontinued teaching, and in 1928 she moved her Association to Boston. The 1928 and 1929 sessions were held in the original edifice of The Mother Church. Mrs. Sargent passed on March 30, 1930, and the Association was moved back to Green Bay.