Mental Practice
From Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy
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It is admitted that mortals think wickedly and act
wickedly: it is beginning to be seen by thinkers, that
mortals think also after a sickly fashion. In common
15 parlance, one person feels sick, another feels wicked. A
third person knows that if he would remove this feeling
in either case, in the one he must change his patient’s
consciousness of dis-ease and suffering to a consciousness
of ease and loss of suffering; while in the other he must
20 change the patient’s sense of sinning at ease to a sense of
discomfort in sin and peace in goodness.
This is Christian Science: that mortal mind makes
sick, and immortal Mind makes well; that mortal mind
makes sinners, while immortal Mind makes saints; that
25 a state of health is but a state of consciousness made mani-
fest on the body, and vice versa; that while one person
feels wickedly and acts wickedly, another knows that if
he can change this evil sense and consciousness to a good
sense, or conscious goodness, the fruits of goodness will
30 follow, and he has reformed the sinner.
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1 Now, demonstrate this rule, which obtains in every
line of mental healing, and you will find that a good rule
works one way, and a false rule the opposite way.
Let us suppose that there is a sick person whom an-
5 other would heal mentally. The healer begins by mental
argument. He mentally says, “You are well, and you
know it;” and he supports this silent mental force by
audible explanation, attestation, and precedent. His
mental and oral arguments aim to refute the sick man’s
10 thoughts, words, and actions, in certain directions, and
turn them into channels of Truth. He persists in this
course until the patient’s mind yields, and the harmonious
thought has the full control over this mind on the point
at issue. The end is attained, and the patient says and
15 feels, “I am well, and I know it.”
This mental practitioner has changed his patient’s
consciousness from sickness to health. The patient’s
mental state is now the diametrical opposite of what it
was when the mental practitioner undertook to transform
20 it, and he is improved morally and physically.
That this mental method has power and bears fruit,
is patent both to the conscientious Christian Scientist and
the observer. Both should understand with equal clear-
ness, that if this mental process and power be reversed,
25 and people believe that a man is sick and knows it, and
speak of him as being sick, put it into the minds of others
that he is sick, publish it in the newspapers that he is
failing, and persist in this action of mind over mind, it
follows that he will believe that he is sick,—and Jesus
30 said it would be according to the woman’s belief; but if
with the certainty of Science he knows that an error of
belief has not the power of Truth, and cannot, does
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1 not, produce the slightest effect, it has no power over
him. Thus a mental malpractitioner may lose his
power to harm by a false mental argument; for it
gives one opportunity to handle the error, and when
5 mastering it one gains in the rules of metaphysics, and
thereby learns more of its divine Principle. Error pro-
duces physical sufferings, and these sufferings show
the fundamental Principle of Christian Science; namely,
that error and sickness are one, and Truth is their
10 remedy.
The evil-doer can do little at removing the effect of sin
on himself, unless he believes that sin has produced the
effect and knows he is a sinner: or, knowing that he is a
sinner, if he denies it, the good effect is lost. Either of
15 these states of mind will stultify the power to heal men-
tally. This accounts for many helpless mental practi-
tioners and mysterious diseases.
Again: If error is the cause of disease, Truth being
the cure, denial of this fact in one instance and
20 acknowledgment of it in another saps one’s under-
standing of the Science of Mind-healing, Such denial
dethrones demonstration, baffles the student of Mind-
healing, and divorces his work from Science. Such de-
nial also contradicts the doctrine that we must mentally
25 struggle against both evil and disease, and is like saying
that five times ten are fifty while ten times five are not
fifty; as if the multiplication of the same two numbers
would not yield the same product whichever might serve
as the multiplicand.
30 Who would tell another of a crime that he himself is
committing, or call public attention to that crime? The
belief in evil and in the process of evil, holds the issues
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1 of death to the evil-doer. It takes away a man’s proper
sense of good, and gives him a false sense of both evil
and good. It inflames envy, passion, evil-speaking, and
strife. It reverses Christian Science in all things. It
5 causes the victim to believe that he is advancing while
injuring himself and others. This state of false conscious-
ness in many cases causes the victim great physical suffering;
and conviction of his wrong state of feeling reforms
him, and so heals him: or, failing of conviction and re-
10 form, he becomes morally paralyzed—in other words,
a moral idiot.
In this state of misled consciousness, one is ready to
listen complacently to audible falsehoods that once he
would have resisted and loathed; and this, because the
15 false seems true. The malicious mental argument and
its action on the mind of the perpetrator, is fatal, morally
and physically. From the effects of mental malpractice
the subject scarcely awakes in time, and must suffer its
full penalty after death. This sin against divine Science
20 is cancelled only through human agony: the measure it
has meted must be remeasured to it.
The crimes committed under this new régime of mind-
power, when brought to light, will make stout hearts quail.
Its mystery protects it now, for it is not yet known. Error
25 is more abstract than Truth. Even the healing Principle,
whose power seems inexplicable, is not so obscure; for
this is the power of God, and good should seem more
natural than evil.
I shall not forget the cost of investigating, for this age,
30 the methods and power of error. While the ways, means,
and potency of Truth had flowed into my consciousness
as easily as dawns the morning light and shadows flee,
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1 the metaphysical mystery of error—its hidden paths,
purpose, and fruits—at first defied me. I was say-
ing all the time, “Come not thou into the secret”—
but at length took up the research according to God’s
5 command.
Streams which purify, necessarily have pure fountains;
while impure streams flow from corrupt sources. Here,
divine light, logic, and revelation coincide.
Science proves, beyond cavil, that the tree is known
10 by its fruit; that mind reaches its own ideal, and cannot
be separated from it. I respect that moral sense which
is sufficiently strong to discern what it believes, and to say,
if it must, “I discredit Mind with having the power to
heal.” This individual disbelieves in Mind-healing, and
15 is consistent. But, alas! for the mistake of believing in
mental healing, claiming full faith in the divine Principle,
and saying, “I am a Christian Scientist,” while doing
unto others what we would resist to the hilt if done unto
ourselves.
20 May divine Love so permeate the affections of all those
who have named the name of Christ in its fullest sense,
that no counteracting influence can hinder their growth
or taint their examples.