until fear awakes consciousness. The belief of sin, grown terrible in strength and control, was an unconscious error in the beginning, — an embryotic thought, without motive, — that afterwards governed the so-called man. Passion, appetite, dishonesty, envy, and malice ripen into action, to pass on from shame and woe to their next stage, self-destruction.
When darkness comes over the earth the senses have no evidence of a sun. The human mind knows not where the orb of day is, or if it exists. Astronomy, the interpreter of the solar system, decides that question. The human senses yield to this opposite evidence, willing to leave with astronomy the explanation of the sun and its influence on the earth. If the personal senses see no sun for a week, we still believe there is solar light and heat.
Science, so far, has beaten illusion out of its crude theory, and established its own theory. Mortals should no more deny the effect of mortal mind on the body, when the cause is not seen, — and when the belief producing the effect is unconscious of its effects, — than it should deny the sunlight when the orb disappears.
The valves of the heart, opening and closing on the blood, obey the mandate of mortal mind, as directly as does the hand moved by the will; though anatomy admits the mental cause of the latter action, but not of the former.
Mortal mind is ignorant of self, or it could never be self-deceived. If it knew how to be better, it would be better. The inanimate, unconscious substratum of the human mind, that we call the body, is the seedling that starts thought, and sends it to the brain for consciousness.
We call the body matter, but it is as much mortal mind, according to its degree, as the brains that furnish the evolution of all mortal things, — which, strange to say, start from the lowest instead of the highest mortal thought. The reverse is the case with all the formations of the Divine, Immortal Mind. They proceed from the highest source, and constantly ascend the scale of infinite being.
In the lower, basal thought of mortals begin the formations of embryotic mind. Next we have brains, matter, the formation of beliefs. From belief comes the reproduction of the species — first inanimate, and then animate mind. But brain is ignorant of thought, ignorant of what it produces in its circle upon the body.
Thought fills the man with beliefs of pain or pleasure, of life and death, arranging matter into five so-called senses, that presently judge a man by the size of his brain and the bulk of matter gathered about him.
The birth, growth, maturity, and decay of mortals are as the grasses that spring from the dark and dirty soil to become beautiful green blades, — then to wither and return to their native nothingness.
The Hebrew bard swept his lyre with saddening strains about mortal existence: —
As for man, his days are as grass.
As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth;
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone,
And the place thereof shall know it no more.
When hope rose higher in his heart, and he grasped the realities of Divine Being, the Psalmist wrote: —
As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.
. . . . . . .
For with Thee is the fountain of Life;
In Thy light shall we see light.
Brains can give no idea of God's man. They can take no cognizance of Mind. They are not the organ of the Infinite. As mortals give up their delusion that there is more than one Mind, they will gain the likeness of God, the eternal good, and include in it no other mental element.
As a material life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man will dawn upon human thought, and lead to “where the young child lies,” even to the spiritual idea of Life and what it includes.
The human mind must escape from its own barriers. It should no longer ask of the head, heart, or lungs, What is man's prospect for life? Mind is not helpless. Intelligence is not mute before non-intelligence.
Whatsoever is incompetent to explain Soul, had better not undertake the explanation of body. Life is, was, and ever will be independent of matter; for Life is God, and man is the idea of God, that dust can neither make nor unmake.
Mortality causes sickness, and then, to cure it, recommends a double dose. It is like a physical irritation, which we falsely attribute to the quantity, rather than the quality, of some drug which has been taken. The Science of Being reveals man and immortality as based on Spirit. Personal sense defines mortal man as based on matter; and thence infers the mortality of the body.
Every method of medicine has its advocates. The preference of mortal mind for any method creates a demand for it, and the body seems to require it. You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology that he will take cold without his blanket; whereas the wild animal, left to his instincts, sniffs the wind with delight. Epizoötic is an evolved ailment, that a natural horse never has.
I have discerned disease in the human mind, and recognized the patient's fear of it, many weeks before the so-called disease made its appearance in the body. Disease being a belief, — a latent creation of mind, before it appears as matter, — I am never mistaken in my scientific diagnosis of disease.
Whenever an aggravation of symptoms has occurred, from mental chemicalization, I have seen the mental signs, assuring me that danger was over, before the patient felt the change, and have said to the patient, “You are healed,” — sometimes to his discomposure, when he was incredulous. But it always proved as I foretold.
I name these facts to show that disease has a mental origin; that faith in rules of health, or in drugs, begets and fosters disease, by attracting the mind to the subject of sickness, by exciting fear of it, and by dosing the body in order to avoid it. The faith reposed in these things should find a higher home. Understanding the control of Mind over body, we should put no faith in material means.
Science reveals the origin of all disease as wholly mental. It declares that all disease is cured by Mind, however much we trust the drug, or any other medium to which faith is directed. It is Mind, not matter, that heals the sick. You should heal the sick by means of divine power. The action of Truth restores harmony. Metaphysical healing enables one to heal the absent as well as the present. The spiritual capacity to apprehend thought is gained only when man is found not wearing his own righteousness, but reflecting the divine nature.
Science enables one to read the human mind, but not as a clairvoyant. It enables one to heal through Mind, but not as a mesmerist. When man is governed by Spirit, God, who understands all things, he knows that to Spirit all things are possible. The only approach to this affluence of Truth, that heals the sick, is found in Divine Science.
We walk in the footsteps of Truth and Love by following the example of our Master, and having the understanding of metaphysics. Christianity is its basis; and all error, that pins our trust to matter instead of God, is directly opposed to it.
Ignorant of the footsteps and the basis of metaphysical healing, you may attempt to unite with it mesmerism, mediumship, electricity; but not one of these can mingle with metaphysical healing, or demonstrate it. Whosoever reaches the understanding of this Science, in its higher significations, will perform the sudden cures of which it is capable; but this can be done only by taking up the cross and following Christ, Truth.
We are Christian Scientists only as we quit our hold upon material things, and grasp the spiritual, — until we have left all for Christ. Mortal beliefs are not spiritual. They come from the hearing of the ear, from person instead of from Principle, and from the mortal instead of the immortal.
Spirit never believes in God. It is God. Human power is a material belief, a blind force, the offspring of will and not of Wisdom, of the mortal mind and not of the Immortal. It is the headlong cataract, the devouring flame, the tempest's breath. It is lightning and storm, together with all that is selfish, dishonest, and impure. Moral and spiritual might belong to Spirit, who holds the “winds in His fist,” in accord with Science