Mental Practice MARY BAKER EDDY          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 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 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 a state of health is but a state of consciousness made manifest 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 follow, and he has reformed the sinner.          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 another 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 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 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 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 clearness, that if this mental process and power be reversed, 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 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 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 mastering it one gains in the rules of metaphysics, and thereby learns more of its divine Principle. Error produces physical sufferings, and these sufferings show the fundamental Principle of Christian Science; namely, that error and sickness are one, and Truth is their 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 these states of mind will stultify the power to heal mentally. This accounts for many helpless mental practitioners and mysterious diseases.          Again: If error is the cause of disease, Truth being the cure, denial of this fact in one instance and acknowledgment of it in another saps one's understanding of the Science of Mind-healing. Such denial dethrones demonstration, baffles the student of Mind-healing, and divorces his work from Science. Such denial also contradicts the doctrine that we must mentally 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.          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 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 causes the victim to believe that he is advancing while injuring himself and others. This state of false consciousness 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 reform, 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 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 is cancelled only through human agony: the measure it has meted must be remeasured to it.          The crimes committed under this new regime of mind-power, when brought to light, will make stout hearts quail. Its mystery protects it now, for it is not yet known. Error 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, 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, the metaphysical mystery of error — its hidden paths, purpose, and fruits — at first defied me. I was saying all the time, "Come not thou into the secret" — but at length took up the research according to God's 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 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 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.          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.   Excerpted from Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 219-223

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