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NOTE. The learner will derive more benefit from
studying this science with its author, than is possible to gain from teachers
in other departments of education. The metaphysical requires the elucidations
of spiritual sense, and personal sense cannot apprehend the explanations of
soul; hence a mere classical education leaves Spirit much out of the question,
and educates man only from the personal standpoint of matter.
Observation and experience teach us, those scorning
to swerve from a direct line of duty, or vainly to stoop to personal
aggrandizement at the sacrifice of conscience, and make popularity paramount to
Truth, are traduced by many whom that line of duty touches. In warfare with
error, you attack with intent to kill, and the wounded or cornered beast bites
you if he can; the sin you assail turns on you and succeeds in getting the
world to condemn you, that it may justify itself. It being found necessary to
uncover sin to destroy it, you must tell a sinner what his sins are before you
can do him good, and if he hates you for it, it is because he is unwilling to
reform. Those we attempt to raise give us their whole weight to lift, and when
we let go to have them take hold, sometimes fall back on us. Teach-
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ing the bigoted, reforming the licentious, or
exposing the hypocrite, who shall escape without censure? We commenced our
labors in the simple faith that all whom we healed would acknowledge it, and
those we taught would live up to our teachings if from no higher motive than to
promote their success in healing; but this has not always been the case.
Although it is plain the foundations of the science of being are Truth and
spirituality, and the seed that brings forth much fruit, must fall into the
"good and honest heart," yet all who know this are not willing to yield to it.
Truth stirs man to a better, or, temporarily, to a worse condition that
afterwards leaves him better; it affects error the same as it does sickness,
causing it to intermit before it yields and is destroyed.
The humanitarian is above the arrows in the quiver
of ignorance, envy, or malice; they fly beneath his feet, until spent of their
fury, they fall to the ground. Such as are identified with a cause, until that
cause is understood, are not understood; in its birth they have travail and
sorrow; in its infancy, toil and sacrifice; but clasp their nursling more
tenderly when menaced, knowing when he is a man he will speak for himself and
mother.
Nothing but a lack of spiritual discernment, or
dishonesty, could prompt one who in the least comprehends this science, to call
it mesmerism, or to practice mesmerism and call it science. When those bidden
of old to the feast of Truth came not, our Master accepted such as did come. In
like manner, to-day "the servant must be as his Lord," exercising no choice of
his own, but laboring for posterity, bearing all blame and scorn,
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and counting his victory in the far-off years.
Healing in science has its reward even here, but the task of teaching the
science of being is quite another thing. Pains of personal sense often make the
sick willing to part with its errors, but those in health and at ease in their
possessions are reluctant to change masters, hence the more thankless and
toilsome task of teaching, compared with healing. We instruct students to
recommend their patients to avoid, as much as possible, contact with minds
filled with opposite physics, hygiene, etc., while under treatment of
metaphysics, for it retards their recovery; but they forget the same right
belongs to a teacher, and the same necessity exists for students to avoid
contact with certain minds that hinder their advancement. Institutions have
their by-laws to restrain the evil passions of those under their care, but we
have had no such necessary protection in teaching.
Not to admit God the Principle of the science of
Life, is to be ignorant of this science; and to say God is its Principle, and
the discoverer, teacher, and demonstrator of the science is not taught of God,
is contradictory.
Students may dwarf, or destroy for the present,
their position in scientific healing through error, with falsehood, dishonesty,
or sensuality; in which case their demonstration advances no higher, and their
practice, if they have one, become mesmerism and no longer science. Such
students can never reinstate themselves aright except through repentance,
reformation and restitution. We should welcome back the penitent and support
the weak, but to him that covereth his sins and rejoices in his iniquity let
the reward of his hands be
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given; an accumulated debt more to be feared than
his creditor's account. The wickedest or the best man is not understood by the
age in which he lives; both are beyond its appreciation. The wickedest man
commits his sins knowingly and in secret, having not grown sufficiently to be
punished by Wisdom, he hides his evil in the manner we shall name; and the best
man is hidden from the present age in the Wisdom of future ages. When
separating tares from the wheat the mills of God grind slowly, and if the tares
that Wisdom casts away, predominate we see little results, but if there be much
wheat, stores are garnered because of the grinding.
"Whomsoever He loveth, him he also chasteneth."
There is but one possible way of doing wrong with a
mental method of healing, and this is mesmerism, whereby the minds of the sick
may be controlled with error instead of Truth. Whoever has witnessed the
effects of mesmerism, has seen it make a joint stiff or a limb lame, proving
beyond a doubt it can affect the body injuriously. Whispering into the minds of
the sick falsehoods, will do their bodies harm if Truth poured into their minds
does the body good. We have witnessed the proof of both these statements. For
years we had tested the benefits of Truth on the body, and knew no opposite
chance for doing evil through a mental method of healing until we saw it
traduced by an erring student and made the medium of error. Introducing
falsehoods into the minds of the patients prevented their recovery, and the
sins of the doctor was visited on the patients, many of whom died because of
this; cases that the Truth of being would have healed, his own error rendered
hopeless. Witness-
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ing these terrible results was our occasion for
learning their cause, or discovering this mal-practice, and our students are
well aware we have no difficulty in tracing the mental cause of disease. But
before we discovered this mal-practice and its motives, the evil bad reached so
far, and held such sway over the patient's minds, when we informed one she was
not recovering and had better return home, she answered with indignation, "My
doctor says I am recovering," but died before she reached her earthly home.
Wholly unconscious of his secret method of turning the minds of those he
manipulated, against his benefactor, or of its effects on their bodies, the
patients asked us if the doctor had lost his power, not understanding it was
his loss of Truth, and the hidden evil of his course that injured the patients.
A student of science cannot practice mesmerism honestly, therefore
successfully, as a Newton, who knows no higher method of healing. But the
mal-practice we allude to was more terrible than simply a change to mesmerism;
it chose darkness rather than light because its deeds were evil. Such a
practitioner putting aside our moral precepts retains that portion only of our
teachings which relates to the patient's belief of disease and the method of
destroying this belief by the doctor's opposite, verbal, and mental argument.
This is the very least of the science of being, and yet the only part the
mal-practitioner can avail himself of to heal the sick. The patients have no
recognition of how much error he may also mingle with this argument of Truth
that will affect their minds and bodies together, and to bad results as well as
good. If the sick recover from the effects of the doctor's mental
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argument opposed to theirs, it proves, on the ground
of science, he has changed their belief with regard to their disease, or the
body would not have responded thus; and now comes his opportunity to do evil;
for, if be can change their belief relative to sickness, he can also change it
with regard to an individual, or upon any subject. But, remember, it is only
the manipulator and mal-practitioner that can do this, and not those who heal
with the Truth of Science. First, because the latter do not manipulate the
head; and secondly, because their source of healing is science and Truth, and
if they should attempt to control the mind with error, they would not affect
the sick, while the mal-practitioner's principal power is to do evil, and a
crumb of science is all he has wherewith to heal; and his want of better
success is the result of his wickedness.
We have actually stood in awe at the absolute might
of Truth, when witnessing the effect a little has on the sick, and sadly
remembered how much could be done by the truly wise, "who put oil in their
lamps" and have not the power to abuse the science of being. Since witnessing
the evil one student did in the name of science, we have utterly objected to
students rubbing the head. The mal-practitioner's sin standeth "in holy
places." It is a crime against the highest tribunal of Soul, commending wrong
and condemning right, it tramples on every law of justice and Truth.
In defence of mesmerism is urged, that Dr. Quimby
manipulated the sick. He never studied this science, but reached his own high
standpoint and grew to it through his own, and not another's progress. He was a
good man, a law to himself; when we knew him he
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was growing out of mesmerism; contrasted with
a student that falls into it by forsaking the good rules of science for a
mal-practice that has the power and opportunity to do evil. Dr. Quimby had
passed away years before ever there was a student of this science, and never,
to our knowledge, informed any one of his method of healing.
The only practitioners of this metaphysical science
to-day, have been our students; but through wrong doing some have dimmed their
pure sense of Truth, while others stand firm in "the hope set before them."
We should condemn a physician for adulterating his
medicine and then claiming it was genuine. The medicine in scientific healing
is mind; and shall dishonesty, revenge, falsehood, or impurity, be the stronger
ingredient or quality of his mind, and the practitioner say he heals with
Truth, and the science of Life ? Worse than poisonous drugs is the mental evil
imparted through inoculation of mind. Such a practitioner is the most effectual
circulator of error on earth. Even though he may change a belief of sickness to
a belief of health, he has not the power to destroy error with Truth.
There are but two methods of healing, one is matter,
the other, mind. The scientist heals with Truth; therefore rubbing the head, or
manipulating the body is no assistance to impart Truth to heal the sick. To do
evil in science is not more possible than in prayer to God. We will consider,
briefly, some points of the mal-practice alluded to.
First, as a weapon of revenge. The modus operandi of
the mal-practice is as follows: The doctor rubs the
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heads of his patients, communing with them mentally
as he does this, but instead of speaking to them only Truth, and that which
promotes harmony, he takes this opportunity to introduce into their minds
side-issues, such as suit his sinister purpose, imparting his own likes and
dislikes to the patients, either from vengeance or ambition. It the doctor
helps the patients through head-rubbing, it is through their belief he does it,
and mind is controlled either with Truth or error. And a bad effect can as
certainly follow this practice as a good one, but the patients are wholly
unconscious of this, or how it is produced. If be has imparted error he
certainly will deny it, but if he had not done this we should never have
learned what this mal-practice was. Through an erroneous influence on their
minds the patients are made, in a day, worse physically, while to him whom they
owe this state, even the author of it, all unconsciously they turn to be
healed. We have learned this mal-practice is impossible in science, and is
mesmerism demoralized. Had it been possible for us to control mind through this
subtle, criminal agency, we could not have been tempted to do it, even in
self-defence; the temptation, even, could not reach us, and we resorted to our
pen to expose this evil that reached, for the first time, our apprehension.
Some newspaper articles falsifying the science,
calling it mesmerism, etc., but especially intended, as the writer informed us,
to injure its author, precipitated our examination of mesmerism in
contradistinction to our metaphysical science of healing based on the science
of Life. Filled with revenge and evil passions, the mal-practitioner can only
depend on manipulation, and rubs
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the heads of patients years together, fairly
incorporating their minds through this process, which claims less respect the
more we understand it, and learn its cause. Through the control this gives the
practitioner over patients, he readily reaches the mind of the community to
injure another or promote himself, but none can track his foul course; the evil
is felt but not understood. It can demoralize a community, and the
mal-practitioner be undiscovered in his work and claim fidelity in mental
healing -- a sacred and solemn trust. Controlled by his will, patients haste to
do his bidding, and become involuntary agents of his schemes, while honestly
attesting their faith in him and his moral character. Talking one way and
acting another, he occupies a position the very opposite of Truth. This is no
idle picture of pen or imagination, but a faint portraiture of facts discovered
through the victims of this mal-practice; facts that we submit to others for
proof. Try it, whoever will, manipulate the head of an individual until you
have established a mesmeric connection between you both; then direct her
action, or influence her to some conclusion, arguing the case mentally, as you
would audibly, and mark the result. You will find, the more honest and
confiding the individual, the more she is governed by the mind of the operator.
But learn the lessons of the science of Life, and through these go up higher,
to the discovery of this great Truth, and do this if you can; it would be as
impossible as for light to be darkness.
If you had the power that mesmerism gives to
influence minds wrong as well as right, the science herein explained would take
it away. To control minds with
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sinister motives, or in any but a right direction,
would destroy your position in science. Influence the minds of others from
motives of selfishness, revenge, impurity, or any bad motive, and you would
lose your ability to heal in science, and never regain your position until you
had suffered sufficiently from this error, to forever destroy it, and not
venture again on ground so dangerous. A mal-practitioner can never reach the
standard of scientific healing. It would be as impossible as for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle.
To prevent the evil of this criminal outlawry
growing without let or hindrance, the community should understand it; this
error can lift its giant proportions above common modes of doing evil, and hold
more arbitrary sway over minds than any other past or present power of sin. The
science of healing is incapable of evil, but this opposite practice is as
clearly proved capable of great mischief, and even crime; able, while it lays
high claims to right, secretly to work out a hidden wrong against humanity,
justice and Truth. Malice will sometimes show itself and defeat its own
purpose; falsehood, uttered aloud, is met with rebutting testimony; but this
method of injuring others by a silent, and subtle impregnation of falsehoods
and prejudices in the minds of individuals, to be spoken by them to others, is
"Satan let loose," the sin that "standeth in holy places." Law cannot restrain,
or punish it as it deserves, and community will be slow to acknowledge the
heinous crime, until they learn its power to work iniquity, and note its
workings; "more subtle than all other beasts of the field," it coils itself
about the sleeper, fastens its fang in innocence, and kills in the
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dark. We thank Wisdom, that revealed this great
error to us before these pages went to press, that the years we have labored to
bless our fellow-beings be not wholly lost through this trespass upon the
blessing of mental healing.
We knew of no harm that could result from rubbing
the head, until we learned it of this mal-practice, and never since have
permitted a student, with our consent, to manipulate. We gained the little we
understand of the Truth of being through our own experiences and proofs, and
learned this opposite error standing face to face with it, through another's
mal-practice; shall we deny the ability of the mathematician to say wherein the
mistake lies of examples wrought incorrectly, or say to the musician who gives
the true tone, you are not able to say what is the discord?
Because we never manipulate the sick, the
opportunity to learn any evil possible to head-rubbing was not afforded us
until years after our first investigations of science. The doctor that depends
on manipulation (and he cannot employ it honestly without such dependence),
works from a matter basis, whence come all the evil deeds and inventions of
Satan. A cure wrought in science is the spiritual predominating over the
material; Truth mastering error; the very opposite of mesmerism and the
mal-practice aforesaid. In science mind must rise above matter to admit the
fuller effluence of Spirit, God, that heals the sick and casts out error, but
manipulation prevents this result. The multitudinous minds a physician has
access to, enables him, through this medium to do much good, or much evil,
throughout the community. This should be
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regarded when employing a manipulator of the head,
that moulds mind and controls it, though less publicly and suddenly, not less
surely than the mesmerist who comes more honestly before the foot-lights with
his performance. Through his mesmeric control over minds, the mal-practitioner
can hold his patients and practice, whether he heals the sick or not, and he
moulds some of them into a belief they are healed, but others he must keep
moulding, that is, continue to treat, or they will relapse. There are certain
self-evident facts; this is one of them. A student of science, understanding
its high requirements, cannot be unfamiliar with the fact that the teacher must
have reached it worthily who has grown to its discovery, for this cannot be
without pursuing faithfully the straight and narrow path that leads to Truth.
Therefore, to know this and acknowledge it, is honesty and understanding on the
part of a student, and not to know it, or acknowledge it, ignorance or
dishonesty, and every true student will bear testimony to this statement. Paul
said, "Live peaceably with all men inasmuch as in you lies." This is wholesome
counsel, and a most desirable thing; but could he Eve peaceably with all men,
when " that which is perfect " had come to his understanding, and that which is
imperfect was to be done away? Not the learning of a Roman student spared him
when he girded on the armor of Truth and rushed to battle with the age. When be
"fought the good fight" and kept the faith, he passed from the forum into toil
and dishonor, and from a dungeon to a scaffold and a crown.
If virtue forgives vice, it cannot love it; if
charity
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overlooks a multitude of sins, it hath no fellowship
with sin; and if honesty endures patiently and long the abuses of dishonesty,
it hath the prudence at length to get out of its hands. These are separate
qualities of character, that circumstance or duty compelling to meet for a
time, must part company through a law of being, and often with a tremendous
explosion.
The exhibitor of mesmerism startles you with his
power, but you are satisfied to conclude it is ridiculous, and you are not its
subject; his experiments, however, are honorable, being open, and illustrative
of the influence he has through it over the thoughts and actions of others. But
the dishonest mesmerist of which we speak, is the mal-practitioner, who claims
to take a place in science, but sinks to a secret assassin in society. So
important are the rules of mental scientific healing, that even repeated they
do good, but we gather not grapes of thorns, the tone of the individual's mind
inculcating them, overshadows them, and if his mind be not in accordance with
them, it imparts its own hue to the patient; then who shall say which effect is
strongest, the good he says, or the evil behind it that he imparts. If the
mal-practitioner says mentally to the patient, as he rubs his head, "be
healed!" and she recovers, or is improved morally, influenced in that
direction, you say this is a moral and physical gain, and behold the proof that
he practices very wisely. But suppose he says to her mentally, as he rubs her
head, something wrong to do, or believe, and designates this wrong, directing
her thought and action in that channel, and she unconsciously obeys him,
feeling this hidden spring to action as readily as the other. What, then, are
your
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conclusions of this practice? that you should be
subject to evil because you are sometimes subject to good? Never trust human
nature in the dark, if this nature is so dark it covers its footprints.
Manipulating the head, we discovered, establishes
between patient and practitioner a mental communication not in the least
understood by the patients or the people. Through this medium the doctor holds
more direct influence over their minds than the united power of education and
public sentiment. Mesmeric power is stronger for evil, than good, in
contradistinction to the enlargement of the intellectual, moral, and spiritual
being that science imparts to individuals, elevating the capacity to do good,
above others.
In proportion to the mal-practitioner's power to
govern the minds of his patients from selfish motives, is his ability in
science diminished. Whoso doeth evil that good might come, incurs the sentence,
"his damnation is just."
Witnessing this abuse of metaphysics, a friend
anxiously said to us, "You discovered metaphysical healing, and have also
discovered this abuse of it, and the evil done through mesmerism; now why do
you not forestall this wrong by controlling the minds of individuals or the
community to disbelieve its falsehoods?" To this we replied, "We have neither
divine authority, nor the power to control minds for any other than their own
benefit, and we are giving the results of our moral, spiritual, and
metaphysical researches to the world as fast as possible, but the footsteps of
falsehood and error are swift, those of honesty and Truth slow, and strong. The
community must understand the sci-
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ence of being to appreciate it, and they must detect
the wicked mal-practice to appreciate that; therefore the true verdict is not
yet given, and Truth can wait, for it is used to waiting. Will should be
impotent except in --good will to man,-- and this involves open action and
upright conduct; science is not a blind Samson, shorn of his strength."
The silent argument used in his own behalf, as be
manipulates the head, the mal-practitioner would blush to make audibly. Suppose
he has a juror for a patient, and establishes the mesmeric connection between
them, he can influence more than law or evidence, the verdict of that honest
juror. If a bargain is to ratify, or a purpose to accomplish for himself, or
his reputation at stake, be looks out for an opportunity to manipulate the bead
of some party concerned, and controls their actions or conclusions to suit the
occasion and meet his desires. Friendship is not too sacred for his
depredations; the friends of many years he separates, covering all recognition
of his villainy and raising himself in the esteem of those very individuals to
whom he has done irreparable injury.
Our rebuke to a false student elicited his revenge,
and through this we discovered the mal-practice we expose. We have seen
manipulating the head form a habit more pernicious than opium-eating, in which
the treatment must be continued, or the patient go back to a worse condition
than the first.
It is more difficult to heal the sick, subject to
this mal-practice, than under treatment of drugs; and yet the patients are
strangely attached to their doctor. We have started patients at once out of
disease on the
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road to recovery, on whom this mal-practitioner has
produced a relapse.
Scientific treatment fills the mind with Truth that
heals the sick, but the mal-practitioner impregnates it with error that
produces new disease; rubbing the head, he keeps his cases constantly on hand,
because of the struggle between the little Truth he brings to bear on the case,
and the error he introduces. To have barely sufficient :right to make the wrong
plausible, is more fatal to science than the unmasked error. No enthusiasm or
praise is as zealous or fullsome as this mal-practitioner can elicit, while
nothing is more relentless and unyielding than the prejudice he can arouse; but
mesmerism governs them both, and enables the doctor to gain his point in sin,
but not in science. Surely "the fool hath said in his heart, no God."
Manipulating the head, even to a thinness that would reveal the brains, can
never heal the sick in science. This mental mal-practice is a shameless waste
of time and opportunity, an abuse of ignorance or good nature inconsistent with
science, the economy of Soul and the harmony of man. This secret trespasser on
human rights manipulates the bead to carry out, on a small scale, a sort of
popery that takes away voluntary action instead of encouraging the science of
self-control, and sets himself up for a doctor who is a base quack. Far
intermeddling with what should be the independent functions of society, the
mal-practitioner gets his fee, but the involuntary agents of his schemes get
bad pay for their services.
Conservatism or dishonesty, either in the statement
or demonstration of science, is clearly impossible; where Principle is
concerned there is no secret; explanation
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and proof are required, and no concessions made to
persons or opinions. The relation of Truth to man, improving him physically and
morally, we have stated as we discovered it, and submit our statement to proof.
Having first convinced ourself through demonstration of the Principle of our
discovery and its ability to heal the sick and bring out the harmony of being,
we deem it worthy the name of science. Healing disease on this basis, we
learned beyond a doubt, that mind governs the body and is more potent than
matter to heal the sick.
To admit personal sense a source of pleasure is to
deny it is a source of pain also, and vice versa, for "the same
fountain sendeth not forth sweet and bitter waters."
Personal sense embracing both sin and happiness,
sickness and health, Life and death, according to the teachings of Jesus,
contradicts itself, and therefore destroys its own existence. Jesus cast out
error and healed the sick through his God-being, well-knowing that harmony
cannot produce discord: hence he denied personal sense, and admitted but one
Intelligence, and this, not the author of evil. To suppose evil and good,
discord and harmony proceed from the same fountain, is contrary to revelation.
The common acceptation of Truth is that whatever produces sin, is error. Then
wherefore admit that materia medica, physiology, anatomy, etc., are science
when they take the opposite ground that insists on personal sense governing
man, whence cometh all discord.
God is not the author of sin; Soul is not the source
of sickness, sin and death; rather does it destroy these to make man immortal.
The body defined as personal
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sense, is mortal; and that which is mortal is error.
That sin proceeds from personal sense, we know, and this proves the fountain
evil, and the streams evil also, therefore Wisdom never produced either; hence,
God is not the author of personal sense. We say food sustains the Life of man;
and again, that a heavy meal kills him. Here the old theory that opposed
Christ, Truth, is reproduced in affirming the same fountain sendeth forth sweet
and bitter waters. If the All-wise hath a law demanding food to preserve the
Life of man, He hath no law by which food can destroy him. We must take the
opposite ground of personal sense in regard to sin, Sickness and death, to
fully destroy them; a physical demand is not to be admitted, but destroyed,
only the demands of Soul are to be heard; the body cannot speak for itself,
being unintelligent.
Is it mind or body that declares undigested food
irritates the nervous tissues producing a terrible sense of pain, faintness,
oppression, etc., and that your remedy is to expel the food, or digest it? This
is mental testimony, and there is none other, 'tis a law of belief, mis-named a
law of matter; the body cannot define cause and effect.
A case of extreme suffering from food, came under
our observation. The lady had said, but a few moments before we came to her
assistance, "I shall die unless the food is expelled," and in ten minutes
thereafter was rid of her sufferings, and when questioned in regard to her
feelings, replied, "I have no pain now, and would like to eat again." By
contending mentally against a physical position you can change it and destroy
it through mind, even as you have produced it thus. The
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sick argue for their own suffering, by admitting its
reality; they are ignorant of this fact, however, or that their mental position
is what produces the physical, and their friends often strengthen this error
and quarrel with you for trying to help them out of it.
Mind, and not matter, embraces 0 suffering; we prove
this when removing the suffering on this basis, or through mind. Our Principle
heals. the sick, therefore it produces a better physical effect than the
opposite views that make sickness; then why not adopt it, or judge of it by our
Master's rule, the "fruits." If you understood the science of being, your body
would be harmonious and immortal. The balance adjusted by science falls on the
side of happiness and Life.
Delirium tremens embraces error of two sorts; the
plea of personal sense for strong drink, and the belief that it diseases the
brain. Both these mental positions are mastered with metaphysical science;
first, because there is no pleasure in intoxication, or produced by matter, and
secondly, that matter, or the brain, is not inflamed. The belief of pain is
more easily eradicated than an appetite, or belief of pleasure, owing to the
strong desire the patient has to be rid of one, and his reluctance to
pad with the other; both of which we the self-inflicted positions of mind, and
not matter. Disputing the grounds of personal sense, that alcoholic drinks
intoxicate the brain, giving pleasure or pain to matter, and rising above this
error, Soul, versus sense, gets the case and relieves the patient. But the
severer task is to destroy the belief of the inebriate with regard to the
so-called pleasure of sense in drunkenness, while this is all that will reform
him. Destroy the belief that
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pleasure is derived from intoxicating drink, and the
habit yields at once, but until this is done, it intermits and lingers, proving
intoxication a mental, and not a physical error. Here are two points we desire
you to note; first, the moral advantage this healing has over other methods,
and the falsity of the arguments of personal sense, assuming drunkenness
enjoyment. This admission, however, is not more false than to conclude a liquid
distilled from matter is capable of destroying body and brain.
The belief that pain and pleasure, good and evil,
God and devil, fraternize, is a hoary mistake meeting us at every point.
Pleasure or pain in matter is a self-evident falsehood. Lifting yourself,
somewhat, to the understanding of the Life that is Wisdom, Love, and Truth, you
will break the spell of personal sense. The Truth of being, coming to their
consciousness, opens the prison doom to the sick and affects the body as
nothing else can. One mind, partly rid of the errors of personal sense, touches
another with the science of being that reproduces harmony, causing what we term
a chemical change in the body that goes on to form a new basis of being; even
as when an acid and alkali meet that form a neutral salt. But remember, the
opposites that destroy each other are without spiritual affinity. To admit the
positions of personal sense, would never destroy them. To reform the drunkard,
or heal the sick, or turn the sinner from his way, we must argue against their
positions; nothing else destroys them.
That mind controls matter, is the fundamental
strength of morality, for it gives man control over sin, sickness, and death,
whereas the old systems take it
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away. To understand that brains never killed a mart
would prevent his ever having disease of the brain; but this result is not
gained, simply repeating this fact to the sick, or to one's self; it must be a
mental conviction reached through science and admitted only because it is
understood. If a doubt exists in regard to a patient's recovery, there should
be none about the method of promoting it; no fears entertained that
Intelligence is not sufficient to govern the body and make it harmonious. The
fact seems to us self-evident, that the body cannot destroy the body, or
consign it to dust, and so put out the image of Soul. Besides, there is no
justice in law that punishes a man for doing good, for honest labor, or deeds
of kindness. Through the eternal law of right, we are exempt from all sentences
not passed on sin.
When the sick are made to realize the lie of
personal sense the body is healed. Faith generally lies in the direction of
material means; therefore the suffering or sick are apt to overlook the fact,
that science heals them, and impute their recovery to some extraneous
circumstance. The action of mind on the body is not more perceptible to
personal sense than the origin of the wind, or the chambers of the hail. Turn
to the eighth chapter of John, and you find the following reply to the
testimony of personal sense. "Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts
of your father ye will do; he was a murderer from the beginning" (referring to
Cain, the first offspring of Adam, error), "and abode not in the Truth; when he
speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of
it."
If there be any mystery in healing the sick on
this
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platform laid down by Jesus, it is the mystery of
Godliness, ambiguous only to the sinner, or to personal sense. Time alone is
required to bring out the practical proof of our statements; and because they
are riot understood to-day, it is no sign the time for their appearing has not
arrived. Truth comes when it is needed, and not because of a personal
demand.
Anew birth is the work of ages instead of a moment,
Until the belief of Life, Intelligence, and substance in matter is destroyed,
man has not "passed from death unto Life." A change of being's basis from sense
to Soul requires time and understanding; it is nothing short of man's
perfection, and what Jesus said was requisite to see the kingdom of heaven. The
reign of harmony that science will establish, will explain the great difference
between the moral effects of the present mode of healing and that of science,
and the different receptions they have met from the world of sense and sin.
First comes the apprehension in science, of Life
that is Son), wholly independent of the body or sense. Next, its demonstration
is commenced in living more of God, and having sounder bodies and purer minds,
until we go up through higher understanding even as Elijah, to the Life that is
God and knows no death. But we are little in danger of such goodness and its
demonstration in this century. Loosing worldly approval indicates not only true
Christianity, but? the approach of this scientific stage of being; therefore we
should welcome it as our dearest hope and highest aim. The only link to Life is
through science; Life is never gained through death. The chemical changes that
Truth introduces into the body through mind, is what destroys
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error and brings to light immortality. The works of
our Master convinced Nicodemus their origin was God, the Principle of
harmonious man. So when he inquired of him how he healed, this was the reply,
"Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven;"
except he understands Life outside of personal sense he will never gain the
harmony of being. But this was not the Pharisee's Christianity, nor the Rabbi's
choice; to them sense was more desirable than Soul; matter had more claims than
Spirit, and man, than God. Said the Master, "Because I tell you the Truth, ye
believe me not, but he that is of God heareth God's words," i. e., the truly
spiritual will understand the things that belong to Spirit, but the more
material find this very difficult.
When Jesus introduced Christianity that cut off
right hands land plucked out right eyes, demanding the control of our bodies
and a nobler existence, they said, "He is a Samaritan and hath a devil," i. e.,
we know his origin, and for him to claim, "I and the Father are one,"
indicating he is God, is imposition. Pride said, then as now, Truth must come
from the rulers, be clad in soft raiment, and nothing else should be found
Truth. But Wisdom foreseeing this error, said, "Out of the mouth of babes hast
thou perfected praise," and except you become as a little child, you cannot
enter into harmony; i. e., unless we yield our educated opinions and beliefs,
and reject the positions of personal sense, we shall neither discern our true
being, nor understand the omnipotence of Spirit.
Standing at the bed of death, we need these words
and their meaning to re-assure us and raise up the dying.
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"He that believeth in me shall never see death." The
little trust we have in Spirit, and the strong faith we hold in matter, will
meet us at this point with the inquiry. "Adam, where art thou," cherishing the
belief of Life in matter, or holding firmly on to Life that is Spirit ? and the
answer we honestly give will show us where we stand. The last enemy to be
overcome is death; therefore much is to be understood before we gain this great
point in science. Laying aside the beliefs that so easily beset us, we should
not regard a condition of matter able to destroy man, mind or body, for both
are immortal. A wasted form lies before you; the doctor calls his disease
consumption, but the scientist finding no identity in discord, regards the
disease a belief, and cures it thus; for understanding in part the Life that is
Soul, he will destroy this belief of sense with the science of being. Never
consent to the death of man, but rise to the supremacy of Spirit over matter,
and denying the claims of personal sense, prove what it is to be a Christian
whose Life is "hid with Christ in God;" therefore wholly spiritual. What if the
lungs are ulcerated or decayed, mind has done this; action is produced by mind
and not matter; Change, therefore, your belief in the case, combat the error
and belief of Life in matter, with the Truth that Life is Soul and not sense,
and you will form the lungs anew, and they will resume their healthy functions.
We know this to he true, and state it because we have proved it. Disease is a
belief, its origin mental instead of physical, and it matters not what the body
indicates, in reality all is mind, there is no matter, and mortal things are
beliefs, and not the science of man in which he is immortal.
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That pain or pleasure, Life or death, belongs to the
body, is but a belief. Immortal Soul is the producer of all things, and never
made out of itself, mortality, or a suffering body. Speak to disease as one
having authority over it, having Soul, and not sense, on your side, and you
will master this belief; and immortality, which is the Truth of man, will
assert its claims over mortality, and the sick recover. God, Spirit, is your
stronghold in this extremity, and you feel how vain a thing is death pitted
against the immortality of Soul and body. Life is the law of Soul; and personal
sense, or matter, has no law. Holding on to the Truth of being is your only
hope whereby to destroy its error. The science of being raises the dead; fear
ye not, therefore, death; you may raise up the dying if minds around you are
not strongly opposing this Truth, so little understood to-day; and sometime
over this wave of the troubled sea, your God-being, that destroys all error,
sin and death, will walk fearlessly; showing how real is Life, and how unreal,
death. But there were some people so bigoted or material they even hindered the
Master doing many mighty works because of their unbelief.
When healing the sick make your mental plea, or
better, take your spiritual position that heals, silently at first, until you
begin to win the case, and Truth is getting the better of error, then your
patient is fit to listen, and you can say to him, "Thou art whole," without his
scorn. Explain to him, audibly, sometimes, the power mind has over the body,
and give him a foundation in the understanding to lean upon, that he may brace
himself against old opinions. The battle lies
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wholly between minds, and not bodies, to break down
the beliefs of personal sense or pain in matter, and stop its supposed
utterances, so that the voice of Soul, the immortality of man, is heard. The
belief of Life and sensation in matter is the source of all suffering and sin.
The science of being reveals Life, conscious Soul and not sense, Spirit and not
matter, and this leaves man safe in Soul, where there is no recognition of
sickness, sin, or death. To raise the dead, restore the sick, or reform the
sinner, we should understand science in its first statement, namely, that
nothing is real but God, and His idea; aught beside is illusion, error and
belief, that disappear. Recognizing the nothingness of sickness, sin, and
death, is all that will ever bring out the harmony of man, or enable him to
conquer them. With this scientific starting-point we shall master disease and
temptation, or blush to be conquered by what is unreal. Understanding discord
unreal, and harmony the only reality, emboldens us to fight the good fight.
Never admit error real as Truth, for if you do you
will have more difficulty to get right than you need have. To turn a sinner
from his error or belief, is more difficult than to turn the sick from theirs;
for the latter, weary of suffering from it, yearn to relinquish it, and when
the sinner reaches this point he is reformed. If science destroys not sickness,
sin, and death, they are immortal. The only remedy for sin, sickness, or death,
is obedience to the law of Life, and if Christ, Truth, be insufficient to cure
sickness and destroy death, man is mortal. If we learn in part, even, the
science of Life, it begins at once to destroy mental and physical discord.
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The demonstrations and explanations of Jesus
embraced all the theology or materia medica necessary to heal the sick or make
Christians, and because he never recommended materia medica, hygiene,
physiology, etc., we infer these methods are anti-Christian. If, as the
Scripture saith, and science confirms, Jesus did the will of God, we are not
doing his will who follow not his example, but resort to methods all our
own.
"Herbs for the healing of the nations" typified the
"balm in Gilead" and a physician there, even Soul the healer, and science the
balm, which was Spirit triumphing over matter. Truth neither destroys Truth,
nor creates error to be destroyed. Life never destroys Life, nor creates death
to destroy it. Truth, or Life, is not the author of sin or death, and there is
neither power nor Intelligence in matter. Sickness and death are the opposites
of harmony and Life, and no law can support what Christ, Truth, destroys. The
only law in existence, or that we should acknowledge, is God, the Principle of
man, controlling man and matter. Spirit is not personality, nor persons that
have passed away; and nature is God, hence it is Spirit and not matter.
Intelligence governs man and the universe, but never instituted material law to
govern them, and Spirit never produced matter. The Bible contains all our
recipes for healing, and this is one of them:
"Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art
in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge,
and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison; verily
I say unto you, thou shalt not come out thence till thou hast paid the
uttermost farthing."
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This was one of our Master's rules for casting out
error and healing the sick. It referred, however, not to legal proceedings, or
processes material, but to a mental tribunal and judgment. The adversary was
not man, but error; and the directions, how to proceed with sin or sickness
that would impose through belief a penalty for transgressing law that is not
law, insomuch as justice is the moral signification of law, and injustice
implies its absence. Shall a teacher pay the penalty of sickness for performing
well and faithfully her tasks? or a great mind, because of the good it has
done, fall soonest a prey to disease? must man suffer at the hands of God, for
steadfastly doing right? Shall the mother droop, or suffer, because of
maternity, if such is the design of her being? Because of fatigue, exposure to
cold, or some supposed infringement of the so-called laws of health, we
ignorantly admit there is danger of being sick, and this mental position
decides the physical one; therefore, "agree with thine adversary quickly;" say
to this belief, " Get behind me, satan, for thou savorest not the things that
are of God, but those that are of man;" it is not a broken moral law to which
your penalty is attached, but a condition of matter, a demand from something
wholly unintelligent and incapable of justice. God has no law of injustice,
wrong proceeds from belief, and not Truth.
To conclude quickly on the treatment of error, was
the rule our Master left for casting it out. He never recommended laws of
health to our knowledge. On a law that is not God's, we have a moral right to
pass judgment, and to commute its sentence; every instance of matter, or the
body, governing man, is justly
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condemned, and morally impossible insomuch as it
manifests a want of Wisdom that renders it null and void. The only hope in
sickness or sin, is to agree quickly with thine adversary; that is, if tempted,
or if disease appears, to banish the temptation, or the disease, at once from
the mind, and suffer it not to plead in its own behalf lest you fall a prey to
your belief in the case. On this mental basis, when the first symptoms of
disease appear, knowing they gain their ground in mind before they can in body,
"agree quickly with thine adversary," i. e., dismiss the 6rst mental admission
that you are sick; dispute sense with science, and, if you can annul the false
process of law, alias your belief in the case, you will not be cast into prison
or confinement. The sick must never plead guilty; in other words, admit they
are sick, for then are they subject to sentence and imprisonment, according to
the law of belief. Take the ground of science in the first instance, never
admit sensation in matter, or that the body can be pained, or has any claims of
its own, or power to make man suffer; adhere to this scientific position and
battle the old belief with it until you destroy it, and you will get well.
To agree quickly with thine adversary in the first
instance of sickness, is to take antagonistic grounds to it, and prove your
superiority over it. Not to admit disease, is to conquer it ; and if you
understood the science of being, you would admit no reality to aught but God
and his idea. When you say, "I am sick," you plead guilty, that is, you admit
matter has sensation and will be delivered to the judge, in other words, into
the hands of this belief that will deliver
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thee to the officer (disease), the ruler of mortal
man that casts him into prison and fetters his entire being. But disease has no
Intelligence of its own, or law, whereby to do this. You sentence yourself
unwittingly, therefore, "agree with thine adversary quickly;" meet every
circumstance as its master, and watch your belief, instead of your body; think
less of laws material, that you may appreciate better the spiritual law of
being, yea, the dominion of man over matter. Meet every adverse circumstance
with science, instead of the beliefs of sense, and you will master it.
Error is a coward before Truth, and death is but
another phase of the dream of Life in matter, wherein we meet at every point
the consciousness of continued existence, with the same beliefs to conquer, and
the same errors of sense to master through science. We must understand our way
out of difficulties, or we never in reality are out, and the harmony and
immortality of man are never understood until every error of sense is
destroyed. To apprehend the economy and capacity of man's being, metaphysics
must take the place of physics, and mind, instead of matter, be consulted in
sickness. Fear, and its effects on the body are involuntary. Fear of disease
and love of sin are the foundations of man's enslavement; but for these he
could triumph over his body. Mind acts on the subject before disease becomes
apparent on the body; but the individual has no recognition of his belief
producing disease until it is developed physically. We look to personal sense
for the evidence of disease, but there is no personal sense, unless matter is
intelligent and holds the issues of Life. Because mind acts unconsciously
to
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sense, the sick say how can mind have caused
disease, "I never thought of the disease until it appeared on my body." But
mind is first, and causation; nothing commences in matter; the plant springs
from the eternal Intelligence --before we call it matter; but our mortal
blindness and its sharp consequences, prove our need to understand the action
of mind and its effects; we should study mind more and matter less, if we would
avail ourselves of Soul in its control over sense. We can destroy sickness, the
same as sin, by learning its origin and nature in mind, instead of body, and
finding the belief that occasions it.
You can prevent or cure scrofula, hereditary
disease, etc., in just the ratio you expel from mind a belief in the
transmission of disease, and destroy its mental images; this will forestall the
disease before it takes tangible shape in mind, that forms its corresponding
image on the body. The science of being destroys the errors of sense with the
Truth of man, and this is " casting out devils and healing the sick."
Unconscious matter cannot dictate terms to conscious mind, causing either pain
or pleasure; and matter is unconscious. The belief that our body forms
conditions of its own, independent of mind, is the error of mortal man that
makes him mortal.
You say the body feels, but the fact that pain is
not felt without mind, and can be removed through it, proves mind the origin
and cause of suffering. All the diseases on earth, (and there are none in
heaven), never interfered for a moment with man's Life and its harmonious
phenomena. Man is the same after, as before a bone is broken, or a head chopped
off. Casualties
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has no reality to Soul; it exists only as belief,
and is apparent only to personal sense. Accidents are unknown to God. It the
science of Soul was reached, immortality would be gained, and there would be no
chance for suffering. Soul and body are inseparable and eternal; if one is
indestructible, so is the other. Understanding this, exempts man from disease
and death, that anatomy and physiology regard positive claims on Life. Denying
the Truth of being, measurably prevents its benefits on the body, by hindering
its action in mind. It is not faith, but understanding, we need in science,
and, "whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before the
Father." This beautiful text refers not to a person, but the Principle of man
that embraces the Truth of being, that casts out error and heals the sick.
Reason discounts on revelation when it denies God the things that are His, and
contradicts the omnipotence of Soul over sense; but whose reasons aright on
this point, and hesitates not to declare his- views, i. e., ,to confess me
before men," becomes harmonious. When reason accords with the declaration of
Scripture that man has dominion over earth, we shall recognize this, and turn
in triumph from the seemingly impossible, to "all things are possible," and
demonstrate this.
"He that denieth me before men," refers to a denial,
or an open acknowledgment of our honest convictions that effectually hinders or
aids man's progress. Because the science of being is not yet understood, and
the age is not yet awake to this subject, if we but half desire to understand
it, and conceal this desire, we shall be unable to demonstrate it. A hypocrite
or liar
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has no part in the science of Life; whosoever
overlooks moral honesty for worldly policy, has not gained an insight into
science sufficient to heal through it. If be has learned its rules, he has not
understood them, and must have gained them of one whose experiences have gone
up higher.
For a broken bone, or dislocated joint, 'tis better
to call a surgeon, until mankind are farther advanced in the treatment of
mental science. To attend to the mechanical part, a surgeon is needed to-day,
but let the scientist see that inflammation, or long confinement, do not ensue.
The time cometh when science will be our only surgeon, but, "suffering these
things to be so now," let a bone be set, after the manner of men, then let
science facilitate the knitting process, and re-construct the body without pain
or inflammation as much as possible in these days of ignorance.
The time approaches when mind alone will adjust
joints, and broken bones, (if such things were possible then), but in the
present infancy of this Truth so new to the world, let us act consistent with
its small foothold on the mind. We greatly mistake the nature of being to
conclude that which is real, is inharmonious or mortal. Sickness is not real,
from the very fact it is discord and mortality, and these, errors and beliefs,
things of sense that constitute the dream of Life in matter, but have no
reality to God, the Soul of man. Meet discord and death with the opposite Truth
of being, and it wakens, in part, from the dream of Life, to the realization of
Life whereby we learn all discord is illusion. We say sickness is something to
be feared; but this belief regarding it is what does the harm. Disease
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must be admitted in mind before it appears as
matter; for body manifests only what mind embraces, whether it be fever,
consumption, or theft. The doctor tells his patients their symptoms are
feverish, and they vibrate between this opinion and its belief, until the
physician says the fever is established; then the sick are confirmed, and go
into confinement and serve out this mental sentence executing the body, more
surely than the sentences of our courts.
Because science contradicts personal sense and
sickness, you have no more moral right to dispute the proof that science is
right, than of a rule of mathematics; and yet you will, for such is the case
with all new discoveries. Cures wrought in science, are naturally misconstrued
by sense, imputed to something besides the Principle producing them; hence,
they must be understood to be appreciated. We may understand, perfectly well,
how we heal the Pick, but because others do not, hey may interpret our cure on
some other basis; and this not only works against the recovery of the sick,
because it is antagonistic to Truth, but prevents their perception of it.
Jesus, wiser than his persecutors, said, "If I by
Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom did your fathers cast them out?" knowing
they acknowledged the prophets, but not the carpenter; this question was
difficult to answer because the prophets healed as he did, and he introduced
the comparison on account of this. Those calling the demonstration of the
science of being demoniac over eighteen centuries ago, might to-day tone down
the judgment to imposition. Jesus, reasoning clearly on this subject, although
misapprehended by
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the materialistic age, introduced the following
comparison to explain his healing. "How can one enter into a strong man's house
and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man, and then he will
spoil his goods." In other words, how can I cast out devils without bearding
error, attacking the beliefs that produce all this discord through ignorance of
Soul and body, and then are you sometimes "offended because of me."
Jesus employed neither technicalities, the logic of
the schools, nor formulas of medicine to heal; be knew, if others did not,
Soul's superiority over matter, to heal the body, and that harmony is reached,
only as we understand its real basis, Spirit, and not matter, Soul, not sense;
and acknowledge the supremacy of Intelligence. Personal sense is the strong man
that the Truth of being binds, before destroying error. It being impossible to
heal on the Principle of science, and admit the grounds taken by personal
sense; therefore, bind this strong man bold sense in subjection to Soul, and
pain, as much under control of mind as a temptation to sin; then can you
despoil his goods, i. e., prevent sin and suffering.
When the mental control we hold over our bodies for
good or evil, touching sickness, sin, and death, has been preached
one-hundredth part as long as man's salvation through faith, we shall have men
and women approaching to the image and likeness of God. Until personal sense is
doubted, it will never be controlled. The ages may go on, admitting personal
sense and its control over man, and fighting it with drugs, laws of health,
etc., when, instead of pleasure, it utters itself
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in pain, but this will only sustain disease in mind,
and then it will show itself in matter. Man will not be found harmonious until
the belief of personal sense yields to the science of Soul.
Deplorable cases of passion mastering man, should
arouse one to the responsibility of governing his body. A person whom we
snatched from this oblivion of Soul, said to us, "I should have died, but for
the Principle you teach showing me the nothingness and falsity of sense;
medicine, and treatises on my case, only abandoned me to more hopeless
sufferings, and slavery; adherence to hygiene was of no avail, and I was cured
only when I learned my way in science."
At present we must accept the statements of science
relative to personal sense, on the inductive method, admitting the whole,
because a part, involving the entire Principle is proved. Pains of the body, or
matter, are unreal, but not more so than its pleasures; both cheat man into a
belief of their reality, but only as the mountain mirage that seemeth what it
is not, or the terrible incubus from which he finds it difficult to awake.
Admitting the entire grounds of the science of being, it quickly follows our
poor demonstration looks us in the face; but to this we reply, enough has been
understood and proved, to reveal it science, and to prove, measurably, the
blessing it brings. When speaking of this subject to others, instead of
admitting the proofs we have already given of its Truth, we are often met with
demands for more proof; therefore, we recommend you to read carefully what we
have written, understand for yourselves, and establish your own evidence
through demonstration; at the same time the
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necessity, exists for a teacher of this science, the
same as for music or mathematics, that must be explained to be understood, and
understood to be demonstrated.
Pioneering what is new, or of great value to the
world, is like a traveller on the desert of Arabia in company with one who
becoming alarmed, his beat and sufferings increase and his courage fails; but
the explorer, despite the hardships, and convinced he will come out right,
accepts the situation more calmly, and encourages his friend, assuring him the
only danger is his fear, then points anew the path; at length they reach an
oasis, where, resting and slaking their thirst, they are ready with new vigor
to push on. But here the more helpless traveller turns to his guide, saying,
are you not sometimes alarmed on this desert route? "Yes," is the ready
response; but, replied the other, you told me my danger consisted in my fear,
therefore you have no more practical Wisdom than myself; forgetting his guide
carried the baggage, met the intricacies of the way, and was attacked by
brigands, plundered, and hindered in his course, his fellow-traveller following
not, until the danger was over. Bearing others' burdens, if you undertake more
than you can well carry, and are tried or over-wrought, they name it a hopeless
task, and desert you; few arms are extended to your support, until you can help
yourself and others, and have no need of aid.
We learn in science, food neither helps nor harms
man; admitting its power in one direction, we must in another. But here it were
unwise to disparage the Principle, or proof of this statement, because you
continue to eat, not having mastered the belief that Life
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depends on eating. This were like denying the
Principle of harmony, because man is not yet harmonious, or saying Soul is not
immortal, because Personal sense takes no cognizance of this fact. Man's Life
is Soul, that eats not to live, and immortal man is the idea of Soul instead of
sense. We have no evidence of food sustaining Life, except false evidence, even
the belief of Life in matter, and this belief an error. A telegram announcing
incorrectly the death of a friend, produces the same sorrow the reality would
give; but you say your anguish is occasioned by your loss, until another
message arrives, informing you it is a mistake, and your friend lives. Now did
you not experience the same sufferings the reality would have brought, and did
you not say it was the death of your friend that caused these sufferings; but
afterwards learn your mistake, realizing you suffered from a belief, and not a
reality. Thus it is with all sufferings; belief and not Truth occasions them.
Had a scientist attempted to calm the grief of your supposed bereavement before
the second news arrived, whereby you learned the sufferings were produced, by
error and not Truth, would you have thanked your comforter, though she gave you
relief, until this fact was made plain to your understanding. The body or
matter never yet informed man of disease; a belief carries the telegram to the
body, and the body manifests only the sufferings of mind. Never a formation of
Truth was diseased, or needed to be destroyed; error is all that suffers, sins
or dies. The body manifests only what mind embraces. The mortal body is mortal
error, even a belief of Life in matter; Truth holds man immortal, and no
portion of him lost;
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Science and Scripture declare this, " He that
believeth in me shall never see death "; we are exempt from error or belief,
and immortal only as we understand God. Giving heed to inharmony is personal
sense that in its ignorance of God silences the voice of Soul; in other words
is "total depravity." Soul and personal sense are antagonists, one disputes
every position of the other -- which evidence do you accept? Reason instructs
us immortality is the friend of man. Hear the opposite testimonies of personal
sense and Soul.
Sense; I am intelligent matter, a body of sickness,
sin and death that constitutes a mortal intelligence. The lungs, with alarming
resonance, repeat this warning; the fevered throbbing of arteries tells how
fast the sands of life are running; the failing pulse, that the places once
knowing man shall know him no more forever; the inevitable law of Life is
death; that aught is beyond this who knoweth. The evidence changes -- mortal
man is in health, at ease in his possessions, and sense says, eat, drink, and
be merry; what a happy life is this. I am unjust, and no person knoweth it,
take vengeance on ray fellow beings, chest, lie, and propagate this species; am
brutish, but this is obedience to the nature God hath given me. What a nice
thing is sin, what a joy, sense; my kingdom is of this world, and I am at
peace. But a touch, an accident, one wheel in the mechanism stopped, all is
lost, for I am mortal!
Soul; I am the Spirit of man that giveth
understanding, beauty and Omnipotence, full of unutterable perfections, height
upon height of holiness, the wonder of being, imperishable glory, for I am God,
grasping, and gathering in all bliss, for I am Love, giving immortality
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to man, for I am Truth, without beginning and
without end, for I am Life, supreme over all, for I am Intelligence, and the
Substance of all, because I Am.
Does an M. D. examine the body, feel the pulse, and
look at the tongue, to ascertain the condition of Soul, the Life of man, or the
condition of his body, alias matter, and according to signs material give his
opinion of Life, God, and the prospect for his continuing? If man was before
God, and matter superior to mind, such methods were consistent, but not
otherwise. Mind, instead of body is the fount of all suffering; but we forget
this in sickness, when the mental condition is not regarded and wholly unknown
to patient or physician, while its physical effect alone is taken up. Opinions
and theories have so misguided judgment on these points, the Truth of being is
lost sight of, and illusion taken for fact. However much the schools insist
that discord rules harmony, and laws of matter govern the Life of man; science
reveals Life otherwise, and gives an opportunity for this proof. Laws of God
were never known to kill man, for this would destroy immortality. Man is the
image and likeness, therefore the reflex shadow of God, and if one is mortal,
why not the other? If man is lost his Principle is lost, and God is not left.
Doctors fasten disease on the body, mapping it out in mind; when the mental
picture is complete the patient will be sick. A belief of disease is liable to
be made manifest at any time on the body.
If disease is Intelligence that produces results of
itself, or the body can make its own conditions, despite the mental protest, we
will admit the superiority of disease over man, and its power to make him sick,
or
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kill him, but not otherwise. Mind produces all
effects on the body; personal sense has neither pleasure nor pain except to
belief, which is all there is to it. A mental image of disease, fully formed,
is already painted on the body, whereas another picture of mind we transfer to
canvas; 'tis the patient's fear that draws the picture, and the artist, mind,
executes it fully on the body, but the patient is ignorant of his fear, or what
mind's images are, until they are drawn on the body. If no mental image of
disease was formed, there could be no manifestation of disease. The belief that
disease is a power or Intelligence superior to man, is ever ready to reproduce
some image of disease before the mind, and this image causes the fear, and the
fear quickens or retards action, producing inflammation or whatever the nature
or type of disease that prevails in the general thought, and comes to you
entirely unbidden, and with no particular association to call it up. Again,
disease comes through association, even as thoughts appear. For instance, your
mental condition is a fixed belief, that, exposed to severe cold or dampness,
you take cold; hence, the circumstance being this, you suffer the effects of a
belief through association. If fevers are abroad, you say, I am liable to have
them; and this mental condition, through association, produces the result.
Disease comes after the manner that one thought
calls up another. If her child is exposed to conditions deemed dangerous, the
mother says, my child will be sick, and her belief reaches her offspring to
this very end; but she calls it the circumstances. You say, I have eaten too
much, and shall find it difficult to di-
409
gest such a quantity of food; or, I have consumptive
parents, hence am predisposed to this disease, and the result follows, in
natural sequence. The conditions of your belief are re-produced on your body.
The remote cause of all disease, is a belief in it, and a fear of it; the
present, or exciting one, the circumstance you say will produce it.
Exposed to contagion, having consumptive parents,
being over-wrought, mentally or physically, eating too much, fasting too long,
etc., you say, are dangerous to health, and you are a law to your body in the
case, for the body could not suffer from these without mind, and a mind, that
did not embrace these beliefs, would not suffer; the seeds of disease,
germinated by circumstances, are sown in mind, not matter. Even as thoughts on
other subjects are re-produced by association, so are diseases; and your belief
regarding disease, and net the circumstance, is what affects your body.
Parents, nurses, and doctors, not perceiving these
vital points in science, throw their mental weight in the wrong scale, and
injure those they would bless. Pursuing an opposite course, and ruling out all
mental admissions of disease, they would save the sickness they now occasion.
We should recollect suffering is no less a mental condition, than enjoying.
When an accident happens, you think, or exclaim, "he is hurt;" but to prevent
the result you fear, you should oppose your own, and the frightened one's
admission he is harmed. Contending you are not hurt, your body obedient to
mental control, will yield to this fact.
When destroying scientifically the sufferings of
children, oftentimes the mother will revive in their mem-
410
ory what you are blotting out, and describe how
badly her child was hurt; or how much disease she has, etc., little knowing the
effect of this is like fire to a burn. We should inquire only into our fears
and beliefs regarding sickness, and disregard all else.
Matter cannot give testimony, therefore we should
not believe personal sense; mind alone reports physical conditions and produces
them. The sick argue against themselves by saying, "I am sick"; the physical
affirmative should be met with a mental negative; all discord is error,
insomuch as harmony is the only Truth of being; we must take a mental position,
the very opposite of the physical one, to control the body to a change of
action. We inform the muscles how to move, and they act in obedience to the
mind, or there would be no action; so does the entire system. The sick are
frightened, whether they do, or do not understand this, and the body, like a
frightened man, runs too fast or too slow, partially palsied, or inflamed with
fear, the action is naturally increased or diminished.
To advance in the understanding of Truth, we must
live up to our present perceptions of it; and improving the present, we need
take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow will take thought for us, and
afford more light as we advance toward the light. When you know already,
dishonesty is error, discipline yourself to meet consequences rather than do
wrong or hide a wrong. Truth is nearly worthless to him who seldom uses it.
When physical action is inflammatory, mind is the
cause; some fear has taken possession of you, although this fear is not
recognized by the sick, yet the physical
411
effects show us it exists, and the results are the
same as if it existed consciously. Disease, originating in mind before it can
be manifested on the body, is arrested, or ruled out of the latter, by
destroying the belief that occasioned it. Fear causes the face to grow suddenly
red, or pallid, proving the circulation of the blood is controlled by this
mental condition; the body becomes weak, or suddenly strong, through fear,
showing that weakness or strength is the result of mind, instead of matter. A
mother, informed of the imprisonment of her son, instantly falls dead; here
organic action has stopped from no other than a mental cause, and yet we are so
buried in the rubbish of supposed Life in matter, we cannot, or do not, let
this falling apple point to the Principle it reveals. Fear changes the entire
secretions of the system; not only controls the functions of the brain, but the
internal vicera, and the entire mechanism of the obedient body. Remove the fear
of disease, and disease will disappear; for the body is restored through a
change of mind; fear exists when the mind is wholly unconscious of it, and
produces disease involuntarily. We never knew the patient that (lid not recover
when the fear of his disease was utterly destroyed. The stronger never yields
to the weaker, except through fear, or voluntary choice ; and mind is mightier
than matter, and controls the body, whether we do, or do not, admit this.
The ills we fear are the only ones that conquer us.
The body becomes inharmonious through mind alone; no law, outside of mind,
governs the body. The law of God is the only absolute or inevitable, and this
law never produces sickness, sin, or death, as its conse-
412
quences. There is no pain without mind; matter
cannot suffer or produce suffering. Disease is a fear expressed physically, not
by the lips, but the functions of the body. Mitigate the fear, and you relieve
the affected organ; destroy it, and the body regains its healthy functions.
However impossible this may appear to our educated views on this subject, it
is, nevertheless, a fact in science that we have tested sufficiently to declare
it, as unhesitatingly as any other demonstrable Truth. That man is unconscious
of his fear, neither changes its effects on the body nor the mental fact;
ignorance of the cause, or approach of disease, not in the least militates
against its mental origin. More or less fear accompanies all ignorance; who
that understands the power of mind over body, its impelling force, and how
controlled, and this very ignorance, like walking in darkness on the edge of P.
precipice, is an ever-present involuntary fear.
We say, my body suffers, and mind has nothing to do
with it; this is simply impossible. The martyr, burning at the stake, conquers
his body with mind, and silences personal sense with Soul. So the opposite
extreme of stolidity meets his punishment with less torture than a mind touched
to finer issues. Death has occurred from imaginary phlebotomy; individuals have
died of contagions, hydrophobia, etc., believing they had been exposed to them,
when such was not the ewe. Many instances of the mind's control over body,
producing death, prove this control absolute, instead of partial. Physicians
are ready to admit mind affects the body somewhat; but this is but a small part
of the fact; science reveals all action produced and controlled by
413
mind, and a single instance of this proved, as when
people die from mental causes, justifies this statement.
If mind is the only actor, bow do we explain
mechanism, apparently acting of itself, or through what we term matter power.
Simply that mind has constructed this mechanism and carries it on. A mill at
work, or the action of water on a wheel, is secondary, and not the primary
cause; mind caused the mill and constructed the machinery. The eternal mind
first "divided the waters," and controlled the wave. Mind is the primitive, and
the derivative would not continue without mind to put it in operation;
perpetual motion in matter is a failure ; but perpetual motion of mind is
science. Intelligence is the motive power, or procurer of all action. Take away
mind and the body is without action; therefore it is but logical to conclude
mind produces its action; but when we go farther, and cure diseased action
through mind, that medicine could not remove, we gain this undeniable
evidence.
Mind, like a telegraph office, holds the message
conveyed to the body, and to prevent any bad results we must be careful the
telegram is from science instead of sense. Deprived of this despatch, the body
returns no answer of inflammation or disease, from the fact matter has no
Intelligence of its own. The body is not an independent sovereignty, or
reigning autocrat over man; any supposed government matter holds over
Intelligence, is wholly mythical. The belief our body is substance, is not more
true than that it is Life and Intelligence. What a material world we address;
but Truth must be spoken; if not at all times, at some time, and we seem
destined to take the enemy's first
414
fire, for speaking it this time. We have faith this
book will do its work, though not fully understood, in the nineteenth century.
The revelator read its history in the little book, "Sweet in the mouth, and
bitter in the belly." Though but a hint in time, it is a tale for eternity.
Materiality must and will go out, though it be slowly; the spiritual era
advances when physical effects will no longer be attributed to physical causes,
but discerned in their final spiritual cause.
When fear causes the blood to bound through veins
and arteries, or languidly to move the palsied mechanism, destroy the fear, and
the system regains its equilibrium; anodynes, counter-irritants, or depletion
can never reduce inflammation like the Truth of being. Faith, or belief, is a
poor equivalent for science; we must understand man metaphysically, before we
can control him aright, physically. Ignorance, coupled with a smattering of
metaphysical learning, is a shocking bore; the Truth of being reduced to a
petty cross-fire on every poor cripple and invalid, sending into him the cold
bullet, "nothing ails you," had better be unsaid until it be understood. If a
boil appears suddenly, that you say is painful, does it ache? The boil does not
ache, for matter has no sensation; it is mind that feels, and that boil
bespeaks your belief of heat, pain, swelling, and inflammation, but you call it
the boil. Heat is a product of fear; warmth is the normal condition of Truth,
cold or heat is not; body bereft of mind is cold at first, and afterwards
nothing. Fear produces the heat, and another phase of belief tries to expel it
through yet another form of belief, called a boil, that now appears on the
body, mind holding at
415
the same time the conclusion that boils are painful,
but prolong Life, alias Intelligence. An error of premises produces error in
conclusion, mental error occasions all the discords of body.
Heat would pass off as painless from the body as gas
expelled from boiling water, but for our opposite beliefs. Chills are the
effects of beat; ulcers, boils, etc., are heat coming to the surface; but mind,
and not matter, creates this beat and forms all the identity disease has. The
invalid may conclude a humor in the blood causes boils, and when this humor is
brought to the surface the system is relieved; but mind, and not matter, has
formed this conclusion and its results. You will have these forms of disease so
long as you regard them channels for disease, or inevitable results of matter,
Cherish any particular belief of disease and you are in danger of reproducing
it on the body. Reverse the case and destroy your belief in this modus operandi
of matter, and your fear of disease will not engender the beat to be thrown
off; and what you thought before was scrofula, bile, and physical causes, you
will learn was fear and mind acting on the body.
Disease, destroyed in its origin, viz., mind, never
reappears again, and is cured effectually; but matter can never destroy it. A
mental position taken doubtingly, is a very weak one; you must understand these
points in science, or you are never thoroughly persuaded in your own mind of
the power of belief and its sad effect on the body; neither can you discern the
Principle bringing out the capabilities and harmony of being, that enables you
to hold what you understand. In the positive belief and fear of disease
yourself, it
416
were vain to attempt, mentally, to remove another's
fear or disturbed condition; as soon attempt to destroy beat with fire. To
succeed in the science of Life, you must be found in it, having not on a
belief, but the garment of Truth, and this will give you self-possession, and
ability to bring out the full amount of the Life that is Christ healing the
sick. Eschewing the belief you are Intelligent matter, you gain the
capabilities of Spirit and the freedom of the sons of God.
Men of business have said this science was of great
advantage from a secular point of view. It not only enhanced their physical and
mental endurance, but control of man and perception of character. They have
told us they could meet better the exigencies of business, by meeting mind on
its own grounds, perceiving thoughts and their relation to men's acts. The
science of Life not only brings out latent possibilities and capacities, but
extends the atmosphere, or aroma of mind, giving man vent in broader and higher
being. An odor, confined by a stopper, is not so benevolent as when the stopper
is removed and it scents the room. Remove the belief of Intelligence beneath a
skull bone, of Soul in body, and matter the master of man, and there quickly
follows more of a man or woman, because they understand themselves and others
better. Getting outside the evidence of personal sense to judge of men and
things, is a vast gain to manhood and Godhood. We are suffocated by beliefs and
'isms, whereas a living Soul is liberty and Life; understanding can grasp even
the infinite idea. We are conscious of intelligent Spirit; then away with the
dream of intelligent matter, or that Intelligence dwells in
non-intelligence.
417
Soul and body are different, but concordant,
and one cannot be lost and the other left. To apprehend completeness and
perfection, we must reach them, and bring out our model thus. Thinking of sin,
sickness and death is not the method to conquer them, and form your model of
Life; destroy them in mind and they are gone forever; get rid of the fear of
sickness, or the love of sin, and you are rid of these errors in physical
manifestation. Action should proceed from Principle, not idea, from Soul, and
not personal sense, and mind instead of matter; when this is so, we shall
govern our bodies and bring out harmony. Principle controls its idea
harmoniously, governed alone as it is by the supreme Intelligence, but for
this, 'ology or 'ism would make a sick globe. The belief that Spirit dwells in
matter, and that matter has Intelligence, causes all discord; man is not sick;
for mind is not sick, and matter cannot be; a belief is the tempter and tried,
the sin and sinner, disease and its cause, death and the dying. Shock this
belief by some expression, or impression, of Truth, start it from its fixed
centre, and it will relieve the body at once. A tooth ceases to pain you before
the forceps, a greater fear having silenced, for a moment, the lesser, showing
the effects of mind on the body, and that "our greater evils medicine the
less."
A bigots circumference of mind is very small;
personality and matter he believes in, but talk to him beyond these, of
Principle and idea, and you get no response. Ignorance is the greatest foe to
metaphysical science.
Never converse on sickness, watch its symptoms,
recommend matter remedies, or seek to learn its cause
418
in matter; and you will find it easier for mind to
destroy, and to enjoy health yourself, and help others to do go. The basis of
all disease, is error or belief ; destroy the belief and the sick will recover.
To be cheerful in sickness is well, to be hopeful is better, but to understand
the nothingness of disease destroys it utterly. An invalid is a deplorable
instance of mesmerism, with which one belief controls another, and error
re-produces error. We admit one mind can control another mind, and thereby
control the body, but never calculate we do this daily with our own body. The
mesmerizer causes his subject pain without any physical cause, proving he
produces this sensation through the subject's belief, and not that it existed
in the body; then, to the belief of pain were he to add a belief of disease in
any part, and keep up this state of mind sufficiently long, the disease would
certainly appear there. The mesmerizer makes a limb rigid by making his subject
believe he cannot move it. Thus it is with the sick; they mesmerize their
bodies unconsciously, through their beliefs, to conditions of stiffened joints,
disease, and death, and the only difference is, the cause in one instance, is
understood to be mind, or belief, producing the results, and in the other case,
believed to be matter; hence mind is employed to remove one, and matter the
other condition, whereas both have their origin in mind, and are removed
through mind. The lame man mesmerizes his body through the belief an accident
or disease caused him lameness, and so long as this belief lasts, his lameness
continues.
Sometimes faith in medicine, or the lapse of time
wears away fear to such an extent the belief changes
419
with regard to the disease, sufficiently to remove
the bodily ailment. Remove the belief that holds the limb rigid and it is
restored. But, says one, no man can mesmerize me. This may be true, and because
you mesmerize your body so positively, others are negative to you; but such an
individual would be difficult to cure with other's mesmerism, or materia
medica, unless he bad more faith in them than himself. Science would heal him
more readily through the understanding, for such minds are generally
self-reliant and assured, holding strong, if preoccupied grounds. There is no
law of matter that governs Intelligence; mind alone is supreme law. What we
term laws of nature, governing man, are nothing more or less than man's belief,
producing the results of mind on his body and not matter. Life is not evolved,
but evolves phenomena. Life is eternal, giving forth its representation as the
sun emits its rays. That Life is supported by food, drink, air, etc., that it
is organic, or in the least dependent on matter, or sustained by it, is a
myth.
Soul has a body when all matter is destroyed; the
mortal body is a thing of belief called man, an error from its origin to its
end; the Truth of being is immortal Soul and body. Expose the body mortal to
certain temperatures, and belief says it has colds and catarrhs; to severe
labor, and fatigue follows ; to prick a vein lets out Life, and this man is at
the mercy of a bodkin! putting aside mind, no such results follow to man. So
long as the belief remains that dampness or cold produces catarrhs, fevers,
rheumatism, or consumption, these effects will follow, and the air of tropical
climes will afford exemption from them; but change the belief
420
with regard to this, and the effects will change,
and you will find the body manifests only what mind says, on these, and all
other points. Matter is governed by mind.
Man, pursuing zealously the conditions of his
belief, (and this is all there is to mesmerism), if told how mind affects the
body, and, to illustrate, you quote the evidence of this in mesmerism, replies,
"no man can mesmerize me." And yet he calls his body this me, and that body is
just what his parents first, and secondly himself, has made it; and these
parents were not matter, but mind, as the body proves, that is no longer thy
parent, if mind has departed.
When we reach the science of Life, we shall learn
Truth casts out devils and heals the sick, also, that Jesus gave disease and
devil one signification. Those fear not they shall murder, whose perceptions
reach the average of goodness, and if our spiritual perceptions were up to the
standard of Christians, we should no more fear sickness, sin, or death. It is
not less wise to fear sickness than to fear we shall steal ; both are
admissions of moral weakness, and a loss of control over the body that we
should not permit. Let the slave to a wrong desire learn the science of Life,
and he never more will cherish this desire, but rise higher in the scale of
being. Allowing Soul to govern sense, is science, wherein we are a law of
Wisdom to our body, of Life and not death.
Let mankind study this science with half the avidity
they peruse volumes on disease, and try the different drugs and drills for
health, and they will advance not from one disease to another, nor to
decrepitude and death, but beyond sickness into harmony and Life.
421
When "in him we live, move, and have being," is it
impossible to conclude God is equal to camphor or a sweat? Life is proved
Spirit, and not matter; and the only possible objection to our eagerly
accepting this munificence of being is, that it requires a better demonstration
of Life. The centuries are slowly, but surely, tumbling down the old corner
stones, and building on better foundations. Not far distant, the hour looks
down on us when sickness, sin, and death will be admitted error, and the Truth
that destroys them sought instead of drugs.
Mind is the only alterative of the body; every
secretion and function of the human system depend on mind and are controlled by
it. The pallid invalid supposed to be dying from a bad state of blood, is
restored to strength and health by changing her belief on this subject; it
matters not whether she knows or does not know the working of mind and its bad
effect on her body, she will recover when mind is set right on the physical
question, and the blood will circulate naturally and healthily. The Oxford
students furnished this precedent, who caused a felon to die of the belief he
was bled to death; when not a drop of blood had flowed. This single case proved
the superiority of belief over matter and blood, to kill a man. The belief that
Life is contingent on matter, or that certain conditions of the blood and
organic structure are fatal to man, must be met and mastered, before Life is
understood, or found immortal. Mind causes all conditions of the body, and you
can change them effectually and permanently only through this medium. To heal
the sick with science, has this advantage over physiolo-
422
gy, drugs, mesmerism, etc.; it is the Truth of being
opposed to its error, by which man goes up higher in the scale of being; other
methods are error opposing error, that have a temporary advantage only. Belief
is on their side to be sure, for error coincides with error, strengthens it and
weighs against the science of Life; but this has no advantage in the scale of
Truth. The perception of man's possibilities enlarges his being, giving higher
aims and broader scope to manhood. If there were no other and higher motives
for acquainting ourself with God, the Principle of man, than to be rid of
sickness, this would seem sufficient.
A student once said, "this science has made me all I
am," and that was saying more, perhaps, than he was aware. There is infinite
room in the science of man, for here the limits of personality confine not
Intelligence.
Disease is one of the beliefs of personal sense that
Truth finally destroys. No scientific work can treat of disease as an identity,
or power. Any allusion to disease, or confession that you are sick, should be
avoided, as you would shun telling ghost stories to children in the dark. Shut
out from the light, a child suffers from thoughts of danger, and so does the
adult who comprehends not his own being; the child must be taken out of
darkness to get rid of his fear, and the suffering it occasions, and so must
the man. The universal belief that suffering is physical, and not a creation of
mind, produces suffering, owing to our ignorance of its origin. That Life is
not dependent on matter we prove when Life goes on and matter is destroyed.
Spiritually, I cannot perceive sickness, sin or death; and recognize these only
as beliefs of matter.
423
Sickness is error, its remedy Truth; and the science
of being reveals that our body is sensationless, and that Spirit sees, hears,
feels, acts, and enjoys, but cannot suffer; and this makes Soul and body
harmonious and immortal. To conclude our body is Life, Substance, or
Intelligence, and this body matter, that sees, hears, feels, sets, enjoys and
suffers, makes sickness, sin and death autocrats over Soul, and man a slave to
personal sense. To Soul there is neither matter, sickness, sin, or death; but
to personal sense these are realities, that even govern Spirit; what a mistake!
we know this is error, and error a belief, destitute of understanding; and
change the belief, the error changes, destroy it, and the error is gone. You
see through solid walls, hear without sound, Walk over water, and have your
body with yon in clairvoyance; but in the opposite belief of sense, your body
remains in statu quo, and your mind goes without a body. Let the mesmerizer
experience what we term the fears of personal sense, its pains or its
pleasures, and his subject has those same sensations, which proves they are
produced by mind and not matter, and are beliefs instead of the reality of
things. Sickness is not imagination ; it is more than this, it is a belief, a
conviction of mind instead of a fancy. One animal looking another in the eye
may cause a quarrel; but notice the superiority of Soul over sense, when the
eye of man fastened fearlessly on the beast, starts him away with terror. This
illustrates the effect of Spirit looking disease steadfastly in the face to
destroy it, compared with our physiological drills, drugs, and mesmerism, which
is the quarrel between beasts. When we submit to personal sense that we admit
is the author of sickness, sin
424
and death, we do not govern our bodies; we must turn
to spiritual sense for happiness and immortality. Thinking less of what we term
substance-matter, and more of substance in Spirit, we become a law to our
bodies of Life, and not death, of harmony instead of discord, and of Truth
instead of error.
I pity him more who is sick than him who is a
sinner, for we rely on God to help man in the latter, but not the former case.
If sense masters man in sickness, it may in sin, and Soul is out of office.
Because personal sense reports you poor, it may tempt you to steal; or exposed
to fatigue, or cold, say you must be sick; but should you believe it in one
case more than in the other? in both cases it misguides and deludes. The belief
that sickness is a necessity, or the master of man, disappears in science where
our normal control over the body reappears. Bathing, friction, dietetics, air,
exercise, electricity, etc., never yet made man harmonious; drugging or
pounding the poor body to make it sensibly feel well, that ought to be
insensibly well, is a sorry equivalent for the control of Spirit over matter.
Has brains, blood, heart, lungs, stomach, bones, nerves, drugs, whiskey or sin,
reduced thee to the slave of matter; remember these are not as strong as thou,
and rise to thy God-given dominion; man is not the tool of personal sense, the
Truth of being declares this. Sickness, as well as sin, is error, and can
matter err? Sickness is a jar, an abnormal action, inharmonious, and what is
the corrective of this ? matter cannot resuscitate, without mind, it cannot act
of itself. We say it can; that certain combinations, gasses, secretions, acute
or morbid conditions of matter produce inharmony, and bodily
425
sufferings also; but this is not so, if the body
causes pain it can also cure it, but matter neither caused nor cured disease;
not a gas accumulates, or a secretion takes place, or a combination occurs
without mind. We admit the voluntary action of mind controls muscles, bones and
nerves, but conclude, when these please to rebel against mind, as in case of
lameness or contraction, they will not obey, however much we desire it, and
mind has no more control over them; but this makes muscles and bones superior
to man in one instance, and in another his servant, which is unnatural and not
equal to the economy of human governments. If muscles are capable of action
without the mind, we might say they are capable of inaction also, on this same
premises, but not otherwise; and if they are able to inact of themselves at any
time, they are at all times, and man has no control over them, and one state is
as much their normal condition as the other; hence a stiffened joint or
paralyzed limb is as natural as its opposite. But if mind controls muscles in
one case, it does in all cases, When Shakespeare said, "Throw physic to the
dogs," I have some faith he added to the cast-aways, the belief of intelligent
matter. Sometimes in fevers, consumptions, etc., the patient seems full of
courage, and we say, "bow calm he is; how can he be suffering from fear; his
body is the victim of disease, but the mind is unmoved." Mind that in sickness
we deem tranquil, is frightened with its own images; fear heats the insensible
body and dashes the blood in mad currents; but Christ, Truth, stills this
tempest, with its "Peace be still." If disease can attack and control the body
without man's consent, so can sin; both are error
426
to be destroyed; dare you admit Spirit cannot govern
the body when error of any nature takes it in hand? Destroy the belief of fever
and the fear it occasions, and blood will circulate again mildly, and the body
be at peace. Personal sense takes no cognizance of what is going on in mind; it
is blind to the cause of effects; to comprehend our explanation of man you must
perceive its Principle in science, that demands understanding and
demonstration; whereas personal sense requires belief only.
The metaphysical physician looks for effects where
the physical doctor thinks he finds causes. The former finds all causation
mind, the latter looks for cause only in matter; the former heals on the
scientific basis of being, whereby mind governs the body, the latter through
the belief that matter controls man. Metaphysical pathology rests on
psychology, or the science of Soul; but the signification of psychology is
perverted whenever construed mesmerism instead of science. The metaphysical
method of healing the sick labors under this disadvantage, that mortal belief
apprehends matter only, and not Spirit; and disparages the metaphysical, and
gives the physical precedence in all things, throwing all the weight of belief
in the scale of personal sense, and on the side of matter. Meeting the
affirmative to disease with a negative, neutralizes the positive belief and its
effects on the body, making discord become negative to harmony, and introducing
the science of being. A patient thoroughly booked in physiology, materia
medica, etc., is more difficult to heal with science, than one having never
bowed the knee so methodically to matter.
427
In case of insanity you argue, mentally and
verbally, against the belief that brains are diseased, the same as in other
cases of physical disorders, for all physical inharmonies proceed from mental
causes; insanity is but another form of mental error. We could afford to scorn
a bold denial of personal sense if proof was wanting; but when it is not, and
this reversed idea of man restores harmony to mind and body, as nothing else
can, we must admit it science. Did riot this Truth of being silence personal
sense and the so-called laws material, man were lost, and discord, sin and
death, immortal. Insanity is a very interesting case to treat metaphysically,
it being a clearer case, and affords better evidence of the effects of mind on
the body. The only good effect you can produce on body or brain is the result
of mind instead of matter, through the Truth of being that destroys error; but
you cannot introduce the science of being that restores health, through
manipulation; as soon teach man mathematics by rubbing his head. If the
physician is scientific he is morally and practically fit for healing, without
manipulation or medicine, and speaks as one having authority, possessing the
Truth that destroys error. Under some circumstances it is well to converse with
the patient audibly, explaining to him the science of his course; but under
others, it arrays him and his sect against you and thus retards his recovery.
Should a nurse or the friends of the sick think lightly of metaphysical
healing, or despair of the patient's recovery, you should inform them as much
as they cart comprehend, of its basis and results, requesting them, for the
sake of the sick, to leave the patient out of their thoughts as much as
pos-
428
sible, that the influence one mind holds over
another may be obviated. You have as much better opportunity to be heard
mentally, when speaking alone, as physically; we admit one cannot be heard when
others are speaking louder than himself, or talking on other subjects; and this
is why the physician needs to be alone with the patient, when mentally healing
him. A scientific practitioner never converses on other subjects when he is
treating the sick; yon cannot gain the spiritual sense of your patient if you
are addressing his personal senses, by manipulating him; besides you need to
learn your patient's mind, and to do this you must be silent and still;
manipulation, or conversation on other topics are injurious. The spirituality
that abstracts all attention from the body, never manipulates and is the only
positive position of scientific healing. The demonstrator of the science of
healing is to-day an Atlas with the world on his shoulders, and the only reason
he heals in one or a majority of cases is, not that law material or a single
opinion or prejudice is in his favor, but because it is the Truth of being
demonstrated by its fruits. Understanding the science of music, we have firm
reliance on our ability to practice it; so with the science of Life, the only
difference is, the latter demonstrates God controlling man, and the former, God
controlling music; but the latter meets with more opposition because it tends
to destroy all error, and is not understood at present.
The Scientist sees more clearly the cause of disease
in mind, than the anatomist can in body; the latter examines the body to learn
how matter is committing suicide, and the former reads mind to find what
beliefs
429
are destroying the body. The scientist is a law to
himself; he would not do wrong knowingly, and if he has not reached this
standpoint, he cannot give the more wonderful demonstrations of healing.
Whosoever justifies an evil-doer, and does not expose his iniquity, is a
partaker of his sin, and will have his reward. Whenever we have discovered a
dishonest student claiming to be scientific, we have first explained to him his
error, and next, rebuked him; and if neither explanation nor rebuke are heeded,
and he does not reform, he becomes our enemy. The greatest hindrance this
science can meet will arise from backsliding students, those claiming to
practice it who do not adhere to its moral obligations, who have not yet
realized until the fountain is purer, the stream will be turbid; mind must be
right or its action on others will be inharmonious.
A mental condition, or error of belief unknown to
both patient and physician, is not readily removed, and to gain a scientific
perception of it, or apprehend the mental condition of the sick, you must hold
the reins over your own body. Our Master knew the thoughts of others, solely
because of his goodness and spirituality; therefore, mind-reading, with him,
was very far from clairvoyance. To be able to discern the cause of sickness
after the scientific mode of our Master, depends on your spirituality,
obedience to your higher nature, after acquiring the rules of science that
guide you aright. If you are becoming spiritually minded, you will discern the
things that belong to Spirit; and in the ratio that you are not carnally
minded, and according as you surrender error, will your spiritual discernment
increase.
430
Mental healing may be done both right and wrong; the
wrong method is capable of evil, and is mesmerism, of which the lowest natures
are capable. The scientific method is without power to do evil; it is Soul, not
personal sense, or manipulation that destroys belief and fear and heals the
sick, in which mind-reading is not Only found important to your success, but
especially characterizing the demonstration. When once you understand disease
has no identity, you will perceive sickness is but a belief. You should
instruct the sick that Soul is Substance, and body its idea; that disease is
not in the idea of Soul or immortality, nor can it exist in shadow, the body of
Soul, therefore it has no existence.
The mental co-operation of the sick will promote
their recovery. To move mind from its central error, viz., that Intelligence
and Life are in the body, and matter is the master of man, is the great point
in metaphysical healing. Every invalid has an especial fear, in which some
disease and its approaching symptoms are more alarming than others; not because
the disease is more dangerous, but more feared; remove the fear, and the danger
is gone, for mind will master the disease. Physical phenomena epitomize the
mental, in which a fearful object troubles us until it is removed from our
observation. Disease is an image of mind, that must be removed from mental
sight, or the fear it occasions will increase, and this will increase the
inflammatory or morbid symptoms. A belief is the seed within itself that
propagates all physical, because all mental discord. We know this is difficult
to admit before it is understood, when the proof is ample; demonstration is
all
431
that convinces us of this fact, and until this proof
is made, you cannot be safe. Conversing on disease, reading, or thinking about
it, should be sedulously avoided. If doctors knew one half the harm clone by
medical books they would abandon works on disease, and never Speak again of
sickness to their patients. Thinking of disease and pointing out its character
makes it liable to appear on the body; such conversations or ruminations should
be repugnant as obscene thoughts or words.
Mind engenders all disease, in which case your only
hope lies in thinking and hearing less about it, or in understanding the
science that absolutely prevents it. When you employ a material remedy you must
have more faith in it than the disease, and believe you are getting cured with
more tenacity than you believe you are growing worse, that the balance of your
faith in recovery or the remedy, may restore you; this condition of mind,
neutralizing the effects of your fear, relieves the body. The whole is a mental
operation, and matter has nothing to do with it.
The mortal body is but a phenomenon of mortal
belief. Watch, then, mind more, and the body less. In case of sickness, or sin,
to destroy the one, or remedy the other, we should begin in mind instead of
matter; "pluck the beam out of our own eye, that we may see clearly to cast the
mote out of our brother's eye." Unless we are rid of blindness ourself, we are
the blind leading the blind, whereby both fall into the ditch.
The study of materia medica, physiology, etc.,
should give place to metaphysical research, whereby we gain an insight into the
power mind holds over matter.
432
Mental power, governed by science instead of
personal sense, by Truth instead of error, makes man eternal, and will destroy
sickness, sin and death; while the material methods for reaching the ultimate
harmony of man, have failed to accomplish this. The attention given medicine,
laws of health, and saving souls, bestowed upon the moral elevation of man, or
the metaphysical understanding of him, would usher in the millennium. Jesus
understood this, but the Rabbis did not; hence their scorn of the glorious
Nazarene and his demonstration above theirs. Soul takes care of the body in
science, where God is an ever-present help in times of trouble. Keeping the
body, or,, the outside of the platter, clean," is only done by keeping the mind
right. Bathing and brushing to remove exhalations from the cuticle, receive a
useful hint from Christianity, and another from the Irish emigrant, who is in
health, although in filth; showing that the physical must correspond with the
mental. When dirt gives no uneasiness, body and mind are equally gross, and the
result is not so chafing. Filthiness that harms not the filthy in mind, could
not be borne with impunity by the refined or pure; |