Chapter 12: 'Science and Health with Key to The Scriptures' by Mary Baker Eddy

Chapter XII - Christian Science Practice

377:1
If your patient believes in taking cold, mentally con-

vince him that matter cannot take cold, and that thought

governs this liability. If grief causes suffering, convince

the sufferer that affliction is often the source of joy, and

that he should rejoice always in ever-present Love.

Climate harmless

377:6
Invalids flee to tropical climates in order to save their

lives, but they come back no better than when they went

away. Then is the time to cure them through

Christian Science, and prove that they can

be healthy in all climates, when their fear of climate is

exterminated.

Mind governs body

377:12
Through different states of mind, the body becomes

suddenly weak or abnormally strong, showing mortal

mind to be the producer of strength or weak-

ness. A sudden joy or grief has caused what

is termed instantaneous death. Because a belief origi-

nates unseen, the mental state should be continually

watched that it may not produce blindly its bad effects.

The author never knew a patient who did not recover

when the belief of the disease had gone. Remove the

leading error or governing fear of this lower so-called mind,

and you remove the cause of all disease as well as the mor-

bid or excited action of any organ. You also remove in

this way what are termed organic diseases as readily as

functional difficulties.

377:26
The cause of all so-called disease is mental, a mortal

fear, a mistaken belief or conviction of the necessity and

power of ill-health; also a fear that Mind is helpless to

defend the life of man and incompetent to control it. With-

out this ignorant human belief, any circumstance is of it-

self powerless to produce suffering. It is latent belief in

disease, as well as the fear of disease, which associates sick-

378:1
ness with certain circumstances and causes the two to

appear conjoined, even as poetry and music are repro-

duced in union by human memory. Disease has no in-

telligence. Unwittingly you sentence yourself to suffer.

The understanding of this will enable you to commute this

self-sentence, and meet every circumstance with truth.

Disease is less than mind, and Mind can control it.

Latent power

378:8
Without the so-called human mind, there can be no

inflammatory nor torpid action of the system. Remove

the error, and you destroy its effects. By

looking a tiger fearlessly in the eye, Sir Charles

Napier sent it cowering back into the jungle. An ani-

mal may infuriate another by looking it in the eye, and

both will fight for nothing. A man's gaze, fastened

fearlessly on a ferocious beast, often causes the beast to

retreat in terror. This latter occurrence represents the

power of Truth over error, – the might of intelligence

exercised over mortal beliefs to destroy them; whereas

hypnotism and hygienic drilling and drugging, adopted

to cure matter, is represented by two material erroneous

bases.

Disease powerless

378:22
Disease is not an intelligence to dispute the empire of

Mind or to dethrone Mind and take the government into

its own hands. Sickness is not a God-given,

nor a self-constituted material power, which

copes astutely with Mind and finally conquers it. God

never endowed matter with power to disable Life or to

chill harmony with a long and cold night of discord.

Such a power, without the divine permission, is incon-

ceivable; and if such a power could be divinely directed,

it would manifest less wisdom than we usually find dis-

played in human governments.

Jurisdiction of Mind

379:1
If disease can attack and control the body without

the consent of mortals, sin can do the same, for both

are errors, announced as partners in the be-

ginning. The Christian Scientist finds only

effects, where the ordinary physician looks for causes.

The real jurisdiction of the world is in Mind, controlling

every effect and recognizing all causation as vested in

divine Mind.

Power of imagination

379:9
A felon, on whom certain English students experi-

mented, fancied himself bleeding to death, and died be-

cause of that belief, when only a stream of

warm water was trickling over his arm. Had

he known his sense of bleeding was an illusion, he would

have risen above the false belief. Let the despairing in-

valid, inspecting the hue of her blood on a cambric hand-

kerchief, think of the experiment of those Oxford boys,

who caused the death of a man, when not a drop of his

blood was shed. Then let her learn the opposite state-

ment of life as taught in Christian Science, and she will

understand that she is not dying on account of the state of

her blood, but is suffering from her belief that blood is

destroying her life. The so-called vital current does not

affect the invalid's health, but her belief produces the

very results she dreads.

Fevers the effect of fear

379:25
Fevers are errors of various types. The quickened

pulse, coated tongue, febrile heat, dry skin, pain in the

head and limbs, are pictures drawn on the

body by a mortal mind. The images, held in

this disturbed mind, frighten conscious thought. Unless

the fever-picture, drawn by millions of mortals and im-

aged on the body through the belief that mind is in matter

and discord is as real as harmony, is destroyed through

380:1
Science, it may rest at length on some receptive thought,

and become a fever case, which ends in a belief called

death, which belief must be finally conquered by eternal

Life. Truth is always the victor. Sickness and sin fall

by their own weight. Truth is the rock of ages, the head-

stone of the corner, "but on whomsoever it shall fall, it

will grind him to powder."

Misdirected contention

380:8
Contending for the evidence or indulging the demands

of sin, disease, or death, we virtually contend against

the control of Mind over body, and deny the

power of Mind to heal. This false method

is as though the defendant should argue for the plaintiff

in favor of a decision which the defendant knows will

be turned against himself.

Benefits of metaphysics

380:15
The physical effects of fear illustrate its illusion. Gaz-

ing at a chained lion, crouched for a spring, should not

terrify a man. The body is affected only with

the belief of disease produced by a so-called

mind ignorant of the truth which chains disease. Noth-

ing but the power of Truth can prevent the fear of

error, and prove man's dominion over error.

A higher discovery

380:22
Many years ago the author made a spiritual discov-

ery, the scientific evidence of which has accumulated to

prove that the divine Mind produces in man

health, harmony, and immortality. Gradu-

ally this evidence will gather momentum and clearness,

until it reaches its culmination of scientific statement and

proof. Nothing is more disheartening than to believe

that there is a power opposite to God, or good, and that

God endows this opposing power with strength to be used

against Himself, against Life, health, harmony.

Ignorance of our rights

380:32
Every law of matter or the body, supposed to govern

381:1
man, is rendered null and void by the law of Life, God.

Ignorant of our God-given rights, we submit to unjust

decrees, and the bias of education enforces

this slavery. Be no more willing to suffer the

illusion that you are sick or that some disease is develop-

ing in the system, than you are to yield to a sinful temp-

tation on the ground that sin has its necessities.

No laws of matter

381:8
When infringing some supposed law, you say that

there is danger. This fear is the danger and induces the

physical effects. We cannot in reality suffer

from breaking anything except a moral or

spiritual law. The so-called laws of mortal belief are

destroyed by the understanding that Soul is immortal,

and that mortal mind cannot legislate the times, periods,

and types of disease, with which mortals die. God is the

lawmaker, but He is not the author of barbarous codes.

In infinite Life and Love there is no sickness, sin, nor

death, and the Scriptures declare that we live, move, and

have our being in the infinite God.

God-given dominion

381:20
Think less of the enactments of mortal mind, and you

will sooner grasp man's God-given dominion. You must

understand your way out of human theories

relating to health, or you will never believe

that you are quite free from some ailment. The har-

mony and immortality of man will never be reached

without the understanding that Mind is not in matter.

Let us banish sickness as an outlaw, and abide by the

rule of perpetual harmony, – God's law. It is man's

moral right to annul an unjust sentence, a sentence never

inflicted by divine authority.

Begin rightly

381:31
Christ Jesus overruled the error which would impose

penalties for transgressions of the physical laws of

382:1
health; he annulled supposed laws of matter, opposed

to the harmonies of Spirit, lacking divine au-

thority and having only human approval for

their sanction.

Hygiene excessive

382:5
If half the attention given to hygiene were given to the

study of Christian Science and to the spiritualization of

thought, this alone would usher in the millen-

inium. Constant bathing and rubbing to alter

the secretions or to remove unhealthy exhalations from

the cuticle receive a useful rebuke from Jesus' precept,

"Take no thought . . . for the body." We must beware

of making clean merely the outside of the platter.

Blissful ignorance

382:13
He, who is ignorant of what is termed hygienic law, is

more receptive of spiritual power and of faith in one

God, than is the devotee of supposed hygienic

law, who comes to teach the so-called igno-

rant one. Must we not then consider the so-called law

of matter a canon "more honored in the breach than

the observance"? A patient thoroughly booked in medi-

cal theories is more difficult to heal through Mind than

one who is not. This verifies the saying of our Master:

"Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a

little child, shall in no wise enter therein."

382:24
One whom I rescued from seeming spiritual oblivion,

in which the senses had engulfed him, wrote to me: "I

should have died, but for the glorious Principle you teach,

– supporting the power of Mind over the body and show-

ing me the nothingness of the so-called pleasures and pains

of sense. The treatises I had read and the medicines I

had taken only abandoned me to more hopeless suffering

and despair. Adherence to hygiene was useless. Mortal

mind needed to be set right. The ailment was not bodily,

383:1
but mental, and I was cured when I learned my way in

Christian Science."

A clean mind and body

383:3
We need a clean body and a clean mind, – a body

rendered pure by Mind as well as washed by water.

One says: "I take good care of my body."

To do this, the pure and exalting influence of

the divine Mind on the body is requisite, and the Christian

Scientist takes the best care of his body when he leaves

it most out of his thought, and, like the Apostle Paul, is

"willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be pres-

ent with the Lord."

383:12
A hint may be taken from the emigrant, whose filth

does not affect his happiness, because mind and body

rest on the same basis. To the mind equally gross, dirt

gives no uneasiness. It is the native element of such a

mind, which is symbolized, and not chafed, by its sur-

roundings; but impurity and uncleanliness, which do

not trouble the gross, could not be borne by the refined.

This shows that the mind must be clean to keep the body

in proper condition.

Beliefs illusive

383:21
The tobacco-user, eating or smoking poison for half a

century, sometimes tells you that the weed preserves

his health, but does this make it so? Does his

assertion prove the use of tobacco to be a salu-

brious habit, and man to be the better for it? Such in-

stances only prove the illusive physical effect of a false

belief, confirming the Scriptural conclusion concerning a

man, "As he thinketh in his heart, so is he."

383:29
The movement-cure – pinching and pounding the poor

body, to make it sensibly well when it ought to be in-

sensibly so – is another medical mistake, resulting from

the common notion that health depends on inert matter

384:1
instead of on Mind. Can matter, or what is termed

matter, either feel or act without mind?

Corporeal penalties

384:3
We should relieve our minds from the depressing thought

that we have transgressed a material law and must of

necessity pay the penalty. Let us reassure

ourselves with the law of Love. God never

punishes man for doing right, for honest labor, or for

deeds of kindness, though they expose him to fatigue,

cold, heat, contagion. If man seems to incur the penalty

through matter, this is but a belief of mortal mind, not

an enactment of wisdom, and man has only to enter his

protest against this belief in order to annul it. Through

this action of thought and its results upon the body, the

student will prove to himself, by small beginnings, the

grand verities of Christian Science.

Not matter, but Mind

384:16
If exposure to a draught of air while in a state of

perspiration is followed by chills, dry cough, influenza,

congestive symptoms in the lungs, or hints of

inflammatory rheumatism, your Mind-remedy

is safe and sure. If you are a Christian Scientist, such

symptoms are not apt to follow exposure; but if you

believe in laws of matter and their fatal effects when

transgressed, you are not fit to conduct your own case or

to destroy the bad effects of your belief. When the fear

subsides and the conviction abides that you have broken

no law, neither rheumatism, consumption, nor any other

disease will ever result from exposure to the weather. In

Science this is an established fact which all the evidence

before the senses can never overrule.

Benefit of philanthropy

384:30
Sickness, sin, and death must at length quail before

the divine rights of intelligence, and then the power

of Mind over the entire functions and organs of the

385:1
human system will be acknowledged. It is proverbial

that Florence Nightingale and other philanthropists en-

gaged in humane labors have been able to

undergo without sinking fatigues and expo-

sures which ordinary people could not endure. The ex-

planation lies in the support which they derived from

the divine law, rising above the human. The spiritual

demand, quelling the material, supplies energy and en-

durance surpassing all other aids, and forestalls the

penalty which our beliefs would attach to our best

deeds. Let us remember that the eternal law of right,

though it can never annul the law which makes sin its

own executioner, exempts man from all penalties but

those due for wrong-doing.

Honest toil has no penalty

385:15
Constant toil, deprivations, exposures, and all untow-

ard conditions, if without sin, can be experienced with-

out suffering. Whatever it is your duty to do,

you can do without harm to yourself. If you

sprain the muscles or wound the flesh, your

remedy is at hand. Mind decides whether or not the

flesh shall be discolored, painful, swollen, and inflamed.

Our sleep and food

385:22
You say that you have not slept well or have overeaten.

You are a law unto yourself. Saying this and believing

it, you will suffer in proportion to your belief

and fear. Your sufferings are not the penalty

for having broken a law of matter, for it is a law of mortal

mind which you have disobeyed. You say or think, be-

cause you have partaken of salt fish, that you must be

thirsty, and you are thirsty accordingly, while the oppo-

site belief would produce the opposite result.

Doubtful evidence

385:31
Any supposed information, coming from the body or

from inert matter as if either were intelligent, is an illu-

386:1
sion of mortal mind, – one of its dreams. Realize that

the evidence of the senses is not to be accepted

in the case of sickness, any more than it is in

the case of sin.

Climate and belief

386:5
Expose the body to certain temperatures, and belief

says that you may catch cold and have catarrh; but no

such result occurs without mind to demand

it and produce it. So long as mortals declare

that certain states of the atmosphere produce catarrh,

fever, rheumatism, or consumption, those effects will

follow, – not because of the climate, but on account of

the belief. The author has in too many instances healed

disease through the action of Truth on the minds of mor-

tals, and the corresponding effects of Truth on the body,

not to know that this is so.

Erroneous despatch

386:16
A blundering despatch, mistakenly announcing the

death of a friend, occasions the same grief that the friend's

real death would bring. You think that your

anguish is occasioned by your loss. Another

despatch, correcting the mistake, heals your grief, and

you learn that your suffering was merely the result of

your belief. Thus it is with all sorrow, sickness, and

death. You will learn at length that there is no cause

for grief, and divine wisdom will then be understood.

Error, not Truth, produces all the suffering on earth.

Mourning causeless

386:26
If a Christian Scientist had said, while you were labor-

ing under the influence of the belief of grief, "Your sor-

row is without cause," you would not have

understood him, although the correctness of

the assertion might afterwards be proved to you. So,

when our friends pass from our sight and we lament,

that lamentation is needless and causeless. We shall

387:1
perceive this to be true when we grow into the under-

standing of Life, and know that there is no death.

Mind heals brain-disease

387:3
Because mortal mind is kept active, must it pay the

penalty in a softened brain? Who dares to say that actual

Mind can be overworked? When we reach

our limits of mental endurance, we conclude

that intellectual labor has been carried sufficiently far;

but when we realize that immortal Mind is ever active,

and that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can

so-called material law trespass upon God-given powers

and resources, we are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by

the assurances of immortality, opposed to mortality.

Right never punishable

387:13
Our thinkers do not die early because they faithfully

perform the natural functions of being. If printers and

authors have the shortest span of earthly ex-

istence, it is not because they occupy the most

important posts and perform the most vital functions in

society. That man does not pay the severest penalty

who does the most good. By adhering to the realities of

eternal existence, – instead of reading disquisitions on

the inconsistent supposition that death comes in obedience

to the law of life, and that God punishes man for doing

good, – one cannot suffer as the result of any labor of

love, but grows stronger because of it. It is a law of so‑

called mortal mind, misnamed matter, which causes all

things discordant.

Christian history

387:27
The history of Christianity furnishes sublime proofs

of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed

on man by his heavenly Father, omnipotent

Mind, who gives man faith and understanding

whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation, but

from bodily suffering.

388:1
The Christian martyrs were prophets of Christian

Science. Through the uplifting and consecrating power

of divine Truth, they obtained a victory over the corpo-

real senses, a victory which Science alone can explain.

Stolidity, which is a resisting state of mortal mind, suffers

less, only because it knows less of material law.

388:7
The Apostle John testified to the divine basis of Chris-

tian Science, when dire inflictions failed to destroy his

body. Idolaters, believing in more than one mind, had

"gods many," and thought that they could kill the body

with matter, independently of mind.

Sustenance spiritual

388:12
Admit the common hypothesis that food is the nutri-

ment of life, and there follows the necessity for another

admission in the opposite direction, – that

food has power to destroy Life, God, through

a deficiency or an excess, a quality or a quantity. This

is a specimen of the ambiguous nature of all material

health-theories. They are self-contradictory and self-de-

structive, constituting a "kingdom divided against itself,"

which is "brought to desolation." If food was prepared

by Jesus for his disciples, it cannot destroy life.

God sustains man

388:22
The fact is, food does not affect the absolute Life of

man, and this becomes self-evident, when we learn that

God is our Life. Because sin and sickness are

not qualities of Soul, or Life, we have hope in

immortality; but it would be foolish to venture beyond

our present understanding, foolish to stop eating until

we gain perfection and a clear comprehension of the living

Spirit. In that perfect day of understanding, we shall

neither eat to live nor live to eat.

Diet and digestion

388:31
If mortals think that food disturbs the harmonious

functions of mind and body, either the food or this thought

389:1
must be dispensed with, for the penalty is coupled with

the belief. Which shall it be? If this decision be left

to Christian Science, it will be given in behalf

of the control of Mind over this belief and every

erroneous belief, or material condition. The less we

know or think about hygiene, the less we are predisposed

to sickness. Recollect that it is not the nerves, not mat-

ter, but mortal mind, which reports food as undigested.

Matter does not inform you of bodily derangements; it

is supposed to do so. This pseudo-mental testimony can

be destroyed only by the better results of Mind's oppo-

site evidence.

Scripture rebukes

389:13
Our dietetic theories first admit that food sustains the

life of man, and then discuss the certainty that food can

kill man. This false reasoning is rebuked in

Scripture by the metaphors about the fount

and stream, the tree and its fruit, and the kingdom di-

vided against itself. If God has, as prevalent theories

maintain, instituted laws that food shall support human

life, He cannot annul these regulations by an opposite

law that food shall be inimical to existence.

Ancient confusion

389:22
Materialists contradict their own statements. Their

belief in material laws and in penalties for their infrac-

tion is the ancient error that there is fraternity

between pain and pleasure, good and evil, God

and Satan. This belief totters to its falling before the

battle-axe of Science.

389:28
A case of convulsions, produced by indigestion, came

under my observation. In her belief the woman had

chronic liver-complaint, and was then suffering from a

complication of symptoms connected with this belief. I

cured her in a few minutes. One instant she spoke de-

390:1
spairingly of herself. The next minute she said, "My

food is all digested, and I should like something more

to eat."

Ultimate harmony

390:4
We cannot deny that Life is self-sustained, and we

should never deny the everlasting harmony of Soul, sim-

ply because, to the mortal senses, there is seem-

ing discord. It is our ignorance of God, the

divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and

the right understanding of Him restores harmony. Truth

will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures and

pains of sense for the joys of Soul.

Unnecessary prostration

390:12
When the first symptoms of disease appear, dispute the

testimony of the material senses with divine Science. Let

your higher sense of justice destroy the false

process of mortal opinions which you name

law, and then you will not be confined to a sick-room nor

laid upon a bed of suffering in payment of the last far-

thing, the last penalty demanded by error. "Agree with

thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with

him." Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon

the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that

it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more

the author of sickness than He is of sin. You have no

law of His to support the necessity either of sin or sick-

ness, but you have divine authority for denying that neces-

sity and healing the sick.

Treatment of disease

390:27
"Agree to disagree" with approaching symptoms of

chronic or acute disease, whether it is cancer, consump-

tion, or smallpox. Meet the incipient stages

of disease with as powerful mental opposi-

tion as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of

an inhuman law. Rise in the conscious strength of the

391:1
spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind,

alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit.

Blot out the images of mortal thought and its beliefs in

sickness and sin. Then, when thou art delivered to the

judgment of Truth, Christ, the judge will say, "Thou

art whole!"

Righteous rebellion

391:7
Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient

or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against

them. Banish the belief that you can possi-

bly entertain a single intruding pain which can-

not be ruled out by the might of Mind, and in this way

you can prevent the development of pain in the body.

No law of God hinders this result. It is error to suffer

for aught but your own sins. Christ, or Truth, will de-

stroy all other supposed suffering, and real suffering for

your own sins will cease in proportion as the sin ceases.

Contradict error

391:17
Justice is the moral signification of law. Injustice de-

clares the absence of law. When the body is supposed

to say, "I am sick," never plead guilty. Since

matter cannot talk, it must be mortal mind

which speaks; therefore meet the intimation with a pro-

test. If you say, "I am sick," you plead guilty. Then

your adversary will deliver you to the judge (mortal

mind), and the judge will sentence you. Disease has

no intelligence to declare itself something and announce

its name. Mortal mind alone sentences itself. Therefore

make your own terms with sickness, and be just to yourself

and to others.

Sin to be overcome

391:29
Mentally contradict every complaint from the body,

and rise to the true consciousness of Life as

Love, – as all that is pure, and bearing the

fruits of Spirit. Fear is the fountain of sickness,

392:1
and you master fear and sin through divine Mind; hence

it is through divine Mind that you overcome disease.

Only while fear or sin remains can it bring forth death.

To cure a bodily ailment, every broken moral law should

be taken into account and the error be rebuked. Fear,

which is an element of all disease, must be cast out to

readjust the balance for God. Casting out evil and fear

enables truth to outweigh error. The only course is to

take antagonistic grounds against all that is opposed to

the health, holiness, and harmony of man, God's image.

Illusions about nerves

392:11
The physical affirmation of disease should always be

met with the mental negation. Whatever benefit is pro-

duced on the body, must be expressed men-

tally, and thought should be held fast to this

ideal. If you believe in inflamed and weak nerves, you

are liable to an attack from that source. You will call it

neuralgia, but we call it a belief. If you think that con-

sumption is hereditary in your family, you are liable to

the development of that thought in the form of what is

termed pulmonary disease, unless Science shows you

otherwise. If you decide that climate or atmosphere is

unhealthy, it will be so to you. Your decisions will mas-

ter you, whichever direction they take.

Guarding the door

392:24
Reverse the case. Stand porter at the door of thought.

Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in

bodily results, you will control yourself har-

moniously. When the condition is present

which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise,

heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office

as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears.

Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the

body cannot suffer from them. The issues of pain or

393:1
pleasure must come through mind, and like a watchman

forsaking his post, we admit the intruding belief, forget-

ting that through divine help we can forbid this entrance.

The strength of Spirit

393:4
The body seems to be self-acting, only because mortal

mind is ignorant of itself, of its own actions, and of their

results, – ignorant that the predisposing, re-

mote, and exciting cause of all bad effects is a

law of so-called mortal mind, not of matter. Mind is the

master of the corporeal senses, and can conquer sickness,

sin, and death. Exercise this God-given authority. Take

possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action.

Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike

good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing

can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on

man.

No pain in matter

393:16
Be firm in your understanding that the divine Mind

governs, and that in Science man reflects God's govern-

ment. Have no fear that matter can ache,

swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law

of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have

no pain nor inflammation. Your body would suffer no

more from tension or wounds than the trunk of a tree

which you gash or the electric wire which you stretch,

were it not for mortal mind.

393:25
When Jesus declares that "the light of the body is the

eye," he certainly means that light depends upon Mind,

not upon the complex humors, lenses, muscles, the iris

and pupil, constituting the visual organism.

No real disease

393:29
Man is never sick, for Mind is not sick and matter

cannot be. A false belief is both the tempter

and the tempted, the sin and the sinner, the

disease and its cause. It is well to be calm in sickness;

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