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CSEC ON-LINE REFERENCE LIBRARY |
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ALBERT F. GILMORE, CSB
In the destruction of error, the Christian Science practitioner takes full cognizance of both these statements. The commonly held belief that disease has a material cause is superseded in Christian metaphysics by the knowledge that causation is mental. Therefore, in treating claims of disease, whatsoever the type of manifestation, it is never overlooked that the seeming cause is wholly mental. On page 411 of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” Mrs. Eddy makes this very significant statement: “Whatever is cherished in mortal mind as the physical condition is imaged forth on the body.” Since the cherished beliefs of mortal mind occasion the discords termed sickness or disease, when these erroneous beliefs are corrected, healing is accomplished. The practitioner deals with bodily conditions as wholly mental; that is to say, he “mentalizes” them. He deals with belief, not with its outlined manifestation claiming to be a material body. He destroys the seeming cause through uncovering its type and exposing it to the searchlight of Truth, which dispels every shadow of materiality. The process is analogous to the operation of the cinema. If the picture on the screen is disagreeable, revolting, and unlovely, remedy is effected not by manipulating the screen, but rather by replacing in the lantern the film which has produced it. When spiritual truth replaces false belief, thought is corrected and the outward manifestation becomes harmonious. This happy result ensues not from mental manipulation of the so-called physical body, not by holding it in thought as something to be healed, but rather by seeing the perfect man, the man who has never been, nor ever can be, less than perfect. Thereby is lost all sense of a so-called physical man. The spiritual understanding which reveals man as eternal and perfect destroys all belief in man as discordant and diseased. The truth about man supplants the erroneous concept, and man as the perfect reflection of God stands forth. On the page of Science and Health quoted from above, Mrs. Eddy also states: “The procuring cause and foundation of all sickness is fear, ignorance, or sin. Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed. Disease is an image of thought externalized.” The causes of sickness, “fear, ignorance, or sin,” are wholly mental states, to be corrected. Fear, always growing out of the belief that evil is real, is to be overcome by the certain knowledge that since God is infinite good, evil, the suppositional opposite to good, has no abiding place, no entity. In view of this the Psalmist’s words, “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling,” when we constantly abide in the divine consciousness, the “secret place of the most High,” are wholly scientific. We may know with Paul that God never gave man “the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind;” and that since God made all, fear has no basis in fact. Likewise, ignorance is overcome and thus excluded as a procuring cause of sickness, when the light of spiritual truth pervades consciousness. Ignorance is a negative condition which disappears when understanding dawns. It ceases to be a factor in causing seeming discord when it is supplanted by the divine idea, the truth about God and man. Paul conceived that God, who in former times had “winked” at the dense ignorance of the people, “now commandeth all men every where to repent.” Repentance follows when Christ, Truth, supersedes the ignorance of false belief. Then darkness is dispelled by the divine light. Sin as a cause of disease is also a mental state. It is the outcome of the erroneous belief that pleasure may be had and profit gained by the indulgence of sinful habits, which wrong one’s self or another. Sin obtains where spiritual truth is ignored, and is therefore also a negative condition. Mrs. Eddy makes a definite statement covering both claims on page 373 of Science and Health. “The fear occasioned by ignorance can be cured,” she writes; “but to remove the effects of fear produced by sin, you must rise above both fear and sin.” Here again fear, ignorance, and sin are linked together as the seeming cause of disease, and the remedy pointed out; that is, to rise above fear and sin. Attainment of the right understanding of God and man, which spiritualizes consciousness, destroys through elimination every false belief. How certainly, then, is healing wholly a mental process! Right practice takes cognizance only of mental states, erroneous beliefs, rather than of their seeming externalization in the belief of a sick body. As we rise spiritually into the atmosphere of Mind, the types of error called ignorance, fear, and sin will disappear, and man as God sees him will appear, eternal, perfect, and harmonious.
Christian Science Sentinel, February 19, 1927 |
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