Chapter VIII - Healing the Sick
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hygiene, or materia medica, until missionaries give
hygiene, or materia medica, until missionaries give
them of this "tree of knowledge," suffer not as we do
from the so-called laws that we say must be obeyed or
they kill us, and they enjoy better health than those
obeying them. What, then, shall we say of law "more
honored in the breach than the observance? "Slavery
must yield to innate right, and destroyed in mind, it
will die out of forms of government; ignorance of our
inalienable rights makes us slaves. If we recognized
all being, God, we would perceive our dominion over
sickness, sin and death; for governments oppressive
and unjust Wisdom layeth its hand upon to destroy,
and they fail forever before the might of understanding.
The watchword of freedom from the bondage of sick-
ness and sin is not taken up; it has no inspiration for
mankind.
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This is owing to the fatal belief that error is as real
This is owing to the fatal belief that error is as real
as Truth; that evil has equal power and claims with
good, and discord is as normal and real as harmony;
such admissions work badly. That matter is solid Sub-
stance, and Spirit essence inside of matter; that Spirit
is Life, but dwells in decay and death; that Spirit is
God, but cannot make man without partnership with
matter; that man is not man until he is matter; are
false admissions and contradictory statements that seem
too absurd to be permitted a place in reason. If man
is matter, he is not mind, and dust is as intelligent as
Deity. If Intelligence or Spirit is in matter, the infi-
nite is in the finite, and Spirit is less than matter, for
we cannot place the greater within the less. If man
existed not forever, and before material structure, he
does not exist after his body is disintegrated. If we
438:1
live after death we lived before birth. Life has no
live after death we lived before birth. Life has no
beginning, therefore no end; all that is material must
disappear before man is found immortal. How strange,
then, to conclude man would have had no individual
being unless he had been individualized through matter,
an impossible beginning of Intelligence.
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The body never affected the Life of man for a moment;
The body never affected the Life of man for a moment;
eating never made him live, nor abstaining from food
caused him to die. Do you believe this? No! Do you
understand it? No! and this is the only reason that
you doubt it; the cadaverous dyspeptic learning this,
has a sweet face without a sour stomach, and is nearer
the kingdom of heaven than you. We are attracted or
repelled mentally without knowing the thoughts that
lead to this. We weep because others weep, and laugh
because they laugh, and have small-pox on this ground,
for disease is not hereditary or contagious only through
mind. The more spiritual we are, the more conscious
to us is an error of belief. Surrounded by minds filled
with thoughts of disease, constantly dwelling upon
their bodies, and with some complaint always ready,
the spiritual suffer greatly in this mental atmosphere;
such involuntary agents of pain to themselves and
others, must be reformed. When mental contagion is
understood, these people will be avoided as we now avoid
small-pox. To stop the manufacture of disease and give
us a better mental atmosphere, is worthy the present age
of progress. We would sooner risk our health, inhaling
the miasma of a rice swamp, than be obliged to listen
constantly to complaints of sickness, or through sympa-
thy or society be kept in the mental atmosphere of the
sick; some natures may stand it, but ours has a struggle.