Chapter XII - Christian Science Practice
Life independent of matter
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reality of matter, and he is liable to admit also the reality
reality of matter, and he is liable to admit also the reality
of all discordant conditions, and this hinders his de-
stroying them. Thus he is unfitted for the successful
treatment of disease.
Man's entity
369:5
In proportion as matter loses to human sense all en-
In proportion as matter loses to human sense all en-
tity as man, in that proportion does man become its
master. He enters into a diviner sense of the
facts, and comprehends the theology of Jesus
as demonstrated in healing the sick, raising the dead,
and walking over the wave. All these deeds manifested
Jesus' control over the belief that matter is substance,
that it can be the arbiter of life or the constructor of any
form of existence.
The Christ treatment
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We never read that Luke or Paul made a reality of
We never read that Luke or Paul made a reality of
disease in order to discover some means of healing it.
Jesus never asked if disease were acute or
chronic, and he never recommended atten-
tion to laws of health, never gave drugs, never prayed
to know if God were willing that a man should live. He
understood man, whose life is God, to be immortal, and
knew that man has not two lives, one to be destroyed and
the other to be made indestructible.
Matter not medicine
369:23
The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the prevent-
The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the prevent-
ive and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian
Science, as would be readily seen, if psychology,
or the Science of Spirit, God, was understood.
Unscientific methods are finding their dead level. Lim-
ited to matter by their own law, what have they of the
advantages of Mind and immortality?
No healing in sin
369:30
No man is physically healed in wilful error or by it,
No man is physically healed in wilful error or by it,
any more than he is morally saved in or by sin. It is
error even to murmur or to be angry over sin. To be
370:1
every whit whole, man must be better spiritually as well
every whit whole, man must be better spiritually as well
as physically. To be immortal, we must forsake the
mortal sense of things, turn from the lie of false
belief to Truth, and gather the facts of being
from the divine Mind. The body improves under the
same regimen which spiritualizes the thought; and if
health is not made manifest under this regimen, this
proves that fear is governing the body. This is the law
of cause and effect, or like producing like.
Like curing like
370:10
Homoeopathy furnishes the evidence to the senses, that
Homoeopathy furnishes the evidence to the senses, that
symptoms, which might be produced by a certain drug,
are removed by using the same drug which
might cause the symptoms. This confirms
my theory that faith in the drug is the sole factor in the
cure. The effect, which mortal mind produces through
one belief, it removes through an opposite belief, but it
uses the same medicine in both cases.
The moral and spiritual facts of health, whispered
into thought, produce very direct and marked effects on
the body. A physical diagnosis of disease – since mor-
tal mind must be the cause of disease – tends to induce
disease.
Transient potency of drugs
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According to both medical testimony and individual
According to both medical testimony and individual
experience, a drug may eventually lose its supposed power
and do no more for the patient. Hygienic
treatment also loses its efficacy. Quackery
likewise fails at length to inspire the credulity
of the sick, and then they cease to improve. These les-
sons are useful. They should naturally and genuinely
change our basis from sensation to Christian Science,
from error to Truth, from matter to Spirit.
Diagnosis of matter
370:32
Physicians examine the pulse, tongue, lungs, to dis-
Physicians examine the pulse, tongue, lungs, to dis-