Chapter 2: 'Science and Health' by Mary Baker Glover

Chapter II - Imposition and Demonstration

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bodies called "spirits" are experiencing the old sensa-

tions, and desires material, and mesmerizing earthly

mortals; that shadow is tangible to touch, and imparts

electricity, etc. Every one of these conclusions are

ridiculous; God is not named in them all, and for the

best of reasons, viz., that matter is supposed to take

care of itself, and mesmerism, and person take the place

of idea and Principle, or man and God. Who that has

witnessed mesmerism would say it was science, the

Truth of being, or that this was electricity? God con-

trols man, and is the only Intelligence, attraction, or

Spirit. Any other control, attraction or Spirit supposed

to be exercised over man is a belief and error that

ought to be known by its fruits. The caterpillar, trans-

formed into an insect of beauty, is no longer a worm;

and to push the conclusion that a butterfly returns again

to affinitize with, or to control the worm, is to take mes-

merism to befool reason! Change controlled by Princi-

ple is science, but some belief may hide its science; pro-

gress is the evermore of Wisdom, but nothing save

science reveals progress.

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Whatsoever utters falsehood is error, therefore, the im-

possibility for mediumship to be science, and governed by

Truth. Our only resignation to a new 'ism or some new

disease, is the hope that another stir made in the waters

of belief will help to show their muddy foundation.

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The electric telegraph is a symbol of mind speaking

to mind, that in progress of time will not require wires,

for Spirit destroys matter, electricity, etc.; but spiritual-

ism would preserve these to destroy harmony. Truth

pervades all space, needing no material method of trans-

mitting its messages; we only know it blesses man, but

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"cannot tell whence it cometh"; the sick are healed

by it, the sorrowing comforted, and the sinner re-

formed; these are the manifestations of Soul, not sense,

of science, and not mesmerism. Soul sends no des-

patches on matter; but to-day the electric wire car-

ries to Europe a submarine whisper foreshadowing the

science that is to come; little by little the action of

thought is losing its matter element, becoming spirit-

ualized, expanding outside of fetters, and science is

pushing onward the centuries. The operations of In-

telligence teach us God made man upright, but belief

has sought out many inventions; Life, Truth, and

Love act through no erring medium.

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Immortal man communes not with the mortal, and

cannot be made manifest through matter; these are dis-

tinct and opposite conditions; one is the idea of God,

of Spirit outside of matter, and the other a belief of

"spirits" and substance in matter; before we commune

with Spirit that is immortal, the belief of death must be

destroyed. What would be said of an English scholar

unacquainted with the classics, before he had entered this

department of learning, to claim he understood Greek?

You would say he was either an imposter or laboring

under some hallucination. What then of believing we

are wearing out Life and hastening towards death, com-

muning with immortality! If indeed this communica-

tion was possible between the mortal and immortal,

the media would never die, or pass the change called

death. And if the departed communicate still with

mortality, then are they sinning, suffering, and dying

still, in which case, wherefore look to them for proofs

of immortality and accept them as oracles? Commu-