Chapter VIII - Healing the Sick
431:1
that convinces us of this fact, and until this proof is
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 done 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
make it liable to appear on the body; such conversa-
tions or ruminations should be as repugnant as obscene
thoughts or words.
431:11
Mind engenders all disease, in which case your only
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.
431:22
The mortal body is but a phenomenon of mortal belief.
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.
431:30
The study of materia medica, physiology, etc., should
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.
432:1
Mental power, governed by science instead of personal
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, be-
stowed upon the moral elevation of man, or the meta-
physical 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, should receive a useful hint from Christianity,
and another from the Irish emigrant, who is in health,
although in filth; showing that the physical must cor-
respond with the mental. When dirt gives no uneasi-
ness, 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; but what we need is the clean body and clean
mind, and the body rendered pure by mind and not
matter, for the latter can never do it permanently.
One saith, "I take good care of my body," and repeats
his decalogue with all the zeal of a devotee; but the
scientist knows he has taken best care of his body who
leaves it most out of his thoughts; hence the demand,
absent from the body and present with God.
432:31
John Quincy Adams, and hundreds of others were
John Quincy Adams, and hundreds of others were
instances of health and physiology; so the tobacconist