Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 32

216:3 Who shall say that man is alive to-day, but may be dead to-morrow? What has touched Life, G.o.d, to such strange issues? Here theories cease, and Sci- 216:6 ence unveils the mystery and solves the prob- lem of man. Error bites the heel of truth, but cannot kill truth. Truth bruises the head of error - destroys error.

216:9 Spirituality lays open siege to materialism. On which side are we fighting?

Servants and masters

The understanding that the Ego is Mind, and that 216:12 there is but one Mind or intelligence, begins at once to destroy the errors of mortal sense and to supply the truth of immortal sense. This understand- 216:15 ing makes the body harmonious; it makes the nerves, bones, brain, etc., servants, instead of masters. If man is governed by the law of divine Mind, his body is in sub- 216:18 mission to everlasting Life and Truth and Love. The great mistake of mortals is to suppose that man, G.o.d's image and likeness, is both matter and Spirit, both good 216:21 and evil.

If the decision were left to the corporeal senses, evil would appear to be the master of good, and sickness to 216:24 be the rule of existence, while health would seem the exception, death the inevitable, and life a paradox. Paul asked: "What concord hath Christ with Belial?" (2 Cor- 216:27 inthians vi. 15.)

Personal ident.i.ty

When you say, "Man's body is material," I say with Paul: Be "willing rather to be absent from the body, 216:30 and to be present with the Lord." Give up your material belief of mind in matter, and have but one Mind, even G.o.d; for this Mind forms its 217:1 own likeness. The loss of man's ident.i.ty through the understanding which Science confers is impossible; and 217:3 the notion of such a possibility is more absurd than to conclude that individual musical tones are lost in the origin of harmony.

Paul's experience

217:6 Medical schools may inform us that the healing work of Christian Science and Paul's peculiar Christian con- version and experience, - which prove Mind 217:9 to be scientifically distinct from matter, - are indications of unnatural mental and bodily conditions, even of catalepsy and hysteria; yet if we turn to the Scrip- 217:12 tures, what do we read? Why, this: "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death!" and "Henceforth know we no man after the fles.h.!.+"

Fatigue is mental

217:15 That scientific methods are superior to others, is seen by their effects. When you have once conquered a diseased condition of the body through 217:18 Mind, that condition never recurs, and you have won a point in Science. When mentality gives rest to the body, the next toil will fatigue you less, for 217:21 you are working out the problem of being in divine meta- physics; and in proportion as you understand the con- trol which Mind has over so-called matter, you will be 217:24 able to demonstrate this control. The scientific and permanent remedy for fatigue is to learn the power of Mind over the body or any illusion of physical weariness, 217:27 and so destroy this illusion, for matter cannot be weary and heavy-laden.

You say, "Toil fatigues me." But what is this _me_!

217:30 Is it muscle or mind? Which is tired and so speaks?

Without mind, could the muscles be tired? Do the muscles talk, or do you talk for them? Matter is non- 218:1 intelligent. Mortal mind does the false talking, and that which affirms weariness, made that weariness.

Mind never weary

218:3 You do not say a wheel is fatigued; and yet the body is as material as the wheel. If it were not for what the human mind says of the body, the body, like 218:6 the inanimate wheel, would never be weary.

The consciousness of Truth rests us more than hours of repose in unconsciousness.

Coalition of sin and sickness

218:9 The body is supposed to say, "I am ill." The reports of sickness may form a coalition with the reports of sin, and say, "I am malice, l.u.s.t, appet.i.te, envy, 218:12 hate." What renders both sin and sickness difficult of cure is, that the human mind is the sinner, disinclined to self-correction, and believing that 218:15 the body can be sick independently of mortal mind and that the divine Mind has no jurisdiction over the body.

Sickness akin to sin

Why pray for the recovery of the sick, if you are with- 218:18 out faith in G.o.d's willingness and ability to heal them?

If you do believe in G.o.d, why do you sub- st.i.tute drugs for the Almighty's power, and 218:21 employ means which lead only into material ways of obtaining help, instead of turning in time of need to G.o.d, divine Love, who is an ever-present help?

218:24 Treat a belief in sickness as you would sin, with sudden dismissal. Resist the temptation to believe in matter as intelligent, as having sensation or power.

218:27 The Scriptures say, "They that wait upon the Lord ... shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." The meaning of that pa.s.sage is not 218:30 perverted by applying it literally to moments of fatigue, for the moral and physical are as one in their results.

When we wake to the truth of being, all disease, 219:1 pain, weakness, weariness, sorrow, sin, death, will be unknown, and the mortal dream will forever cease. My 219:3 method of treating fatigue applies to all bodily ailments, since Mind should be, and is, supreme, absolute, and final.

Affirmation and result

219:6 In mathematics, we do not multiply when we should subtract, and then say the product is correct. No more can we say in Science that muscles give strength, 219:9 that nerves give pain or pleasure, or that matter governs, and then expect that the result will be harmony.

Not muscles, nerves, nor bones, but mortal mind makes 219:12 the whole body "sick, and the whole heart faint;" whereas divine Mind heals.

When this is understood, we shall never affirm concern- 219:15 ing the body what we do not wish to have manifested. We shall not call the body weak, if we would have it strong; for the belief in feebleness must obtain in the human 219:18 mind before it can be made manifest on the body, and the destruction of the belief will be the removal of its effects. Science includes no rule of discord, but governs 219:21 harmoniously. "The wish," says the poet, "is ever father to the thought."

Scientific beginning

We may hear a sweet melody, and yet misunderstand 219:24 the science that governs it. Those who are healed through metaphysical Science, not compre- hending the Principle of the cure, may misun- 219:27 derstand it, and impute their recovery to change of air or diet, not rendering to G.o.d the honor due to Him alone.

Entire immunity from the belief in sin, suffering, and 219:30 death may not be reached at this period, but we may look for an abatement of these evils; and this scientific begin- ning is in the right direction.

Hygiene ineffectual

220:1 We hear it said: "I exercise daily in the open air. I take cold baths, in order to overcome a predisposition to 220:3 take cold; and yet I have continual colds, catarrh, and cough." Such admissions ought to open people's eyes to the inefficacy of material hygiene, 220:6 and induce sufferers to look in other directions for cause and cure.

Instinct is better than misguided reason, as even na- 220:9 ture declares. The violet lifts her blue eye to greet the early spring. The leaves clap their hands as nature's untired wors.h.i.+ppers. The s...o...b..rd sings and soars 220:12 amid the blasts; he has no catarrh from wet feet, and procures a summer residence with more ease than a na- bob. The atmosphere of the earth, kinder than the at- 220:15 mosphere of mortal mind, leaves catarrh to the latter.

Colds, coughs, and contagion are engendered solely by human theories.

The reflex phenomena

220:18 Mortal mind produces its own phenomena, and then charges them to something else, - like a kitten glancing into the mirror at itself and thinking 220:21 it sees another kitten.

A clergyman once adopted a diet of bread and water to increase his spirituality. Finding his health failing, 220:24 he gave up his abstinence, and advised others never to try dietetics for growth in grace.

Volition far-reaching

The belief that either fasting or feasting makes men 220:27 better morally or physically is one of the fruits of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," con- cerning which G.o.d said, "Thou shalt not eat 220:30 of it." Mortal mind forms all conditions of the mortal body, and controls the stomach, bones, lungs, heart, blood, etc., as directly as the volition or will moves the hand.

Starvation and dyspepsia

221:1 I knew a person who when quite a child adopted the Graham system to cure dyspepsia. For many years, he 221:3 ate only bread and vegetables, and drank noth- ing but water. His dyspepsia increasing, he decided that his diet should be more rigid, and 221:6 thereafter he partook of but one meal in twenty-four hours, this meal consisting of only a thin slice of bread without water. His physician also recommended that 221:9 he should not wet his parched throat until three hours after eating. He pa.s.sed many weary years in hunger and weakness, almost in starvation, and finally made up 221:12 his mind to die, having exhausted the skill of the doctors, who kindly informed him that death was indeed his only alternative. At this point Christian Science saved him, 221:15 and he is now in perfect health without a vestige of the old complaint.

He learned that suffering and disease were the self- 221:18 imposed beliefs of mortals, and not the facts of being; that G.o.d never decreed disease, - never ordained a law that fasting should be a means of health. Hence semi- 221:21 starvation is not acceptable to wisdom, and it is equally far from Science, in which being is sustained by G.o.d, Mind.

These truths, opening his eyes, relieved his stomach, and 221:24 he ate without suffering, "giving G.o.d thanks;" but he never enjoyed his food as he had imagined he would when, still the slave of matter, he thought of the flesh- 221:27 pots of Egypt, feeling childhood's hunger and undisci- plined by self-denial and divine Science.

Mind and stomach

This new-born understanding, that neither food nor 221:30 the stomach, without the consent of mortal mind, can make one suffer, brings with it an- other lesson, - that gluttony is a sensual illusion, and 222:1 that this phantasm of mortal mind disappears as we better apprehend our spiritual existence and ascend the ladder 222:3 of life.

This person learned that food affects the body only as mortal mind has its material methods of working, one 222:6 of which is to believe that proper food supplies nutriment and strength to the human system. He learned also that mortal mind makes a mortal body, whereas Truth re- 222:9 generates this fleshly mind and feeds thought with the bread of Life.

Food had less power to help or to hurt him after he 222:12 had availed himself of the fact that Mind governs man, and he also had less faith in the so-called pleasures and pains of matter. Taking less thought about what he 222:15 should eat or drink, consulting the stomach less about the economy of living and G.o.d more, he recovered strength and flesh rapidly. For many years he had 222:18 been kept alive, as was believed, only by the strictest ad- herence to hygiene and drugs, and yet he continued ill all the while. Now he dropped drugs and material 222:21 hygiene, and was well.

He learned that a dyspeptic was very far from being the image and likeness of G.o.d, - far from having "do- 222:24 minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle," if eating a bit of animal flesh could overpower him. He finally concluded that G.o.d 222:27 never made a dyspeptic, while fear, hygiene, physiology, and physics had made him one, contrary to His commands.

Life only in Spirit

In seeking a cure for dyspepsia consult matter not at 222:30 all, and eat what is set before you, "asking no question for conscience sake." We must destroy the false belief that life and intelligence are in 223:1 matter, and plant ourselves upon what is pure and per- fect. Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not 223:3 fulfil the l.u.s.t of the flesh." Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter 223:6 instead of in Spirit.

Soul greater than body

Matter does not express Spirit. G.o.d is infinite omni- present Spirit. If Spirit is _all_ and is everywhere, what 223:9 and where is matter? Remember that truth is greater than error, and we cannot put the greater into the less. Soul is Spirit, and Spirit is greater 223:12 than body. If Spirit were once within the body, Spirit would be finite, and therefore could not be Spirit.

The question of the ages