Chapter XII - Christian Science Practice
Sin to be overcome
392:1
and you master fear and sin through divine Mind; hence
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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;