Chapter IV - Christian Science Versus Spiritualism
Unnatural deflections
78:1
The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak,
The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak,
the ferocious beast, – like the discords of disease, sin,
and death, – are unnatural. They are the fal-
sities of sense, the changing deflections of mor-
tal mind; they are not the eternal realities of Mind.
Absurd oracles
78:6
How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing
How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing
out life and hastening to death, and that at the same
time we are communing with immortality!
If the departed are in rapport with mor-
tality, or matter, they are not spiritual, but must still
be mortal, sinning, suffering, and dying. Then why
look to them – even were communication possible – for
proofs of immortality, and accept them as oracles? Com-
munications gathered from ignorance are pernicious in
tendency.
78:16
Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would
Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would
destroy the supremacy of Spirit. If Spirit pervades all
space, it needs no material method for the transmission
of messages. Spirit needs no wires nor electricity in order
to be omnipresent.
Spirit intangible
78:21
Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it
Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it
communicate with man through electric, material effects?
How can the majesty and omnipotence of
Spirit be lost? God is not in the medley
where matter cares for matter, where spiritism makes
many gods, and hypnotism and electricity are claimed
to be the agents of God's government.
78:28
Spirit blesses man, but man cannot "tell whence
Spirit blesses man, but man cannot "tell whence
it cometh." By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are
comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the
effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling
in eternal Science.