Chapter IV - Christian Science Versus Spiritualism
Unscientific investiture
75:1
This simple truth lays bare the mistaken assumption
This simple truth lays bare the mistaken assumption
that man dies as matter but comes to life as spirit. The
so-called dead, in order to reappear to those
still in the existence cognized by the physical
senses, would need to be tangible and material, – to have
a material investiture, – or the material senses could take
no cognizance of the so-called dead.
75:8
Spiritualism would transfer men from the spiritual sense
Spiritualism would transfer men from the spiritual sense
of existence back into its material sense. This gross mate-
rialism is scientifically impossible, since to infinite Spirit
there can be no matter.
Raising the dead
75:12
Jesus said of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth;
Jesus said of Lazarus: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth;
but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Jesus
restored Lazarus by the understanding that
Lazarus had never died, not by an admis-
sion that his body had died and then lived again. Had
Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his
body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of
belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have
resuscitated it.
75:21
When you can waken yourself or others out of the belief
When you can waken yourself or others out of the belief
that all must die, you can then exercise Jesus' spiritual
power to reproduce the presence of those who have thought
they died, – but not otherwise.
Vision of the dying
75:25
There is one possible moment, when those living on the
There is one possible moment, when those living on the
earth and those called dead, can commune together, and
that is the moment previous to the transition,
– the moment when the link between their op-
posite beliefs is being sundered. In the vestibule through
which we pass from one dream to another dream, or
when we awake from earth's sleep to the grand verities
of Life, the departing may hear the glad welcome of those
76:1
who have gone before. The ones departing may whisper
who have gone before. The ones departing may whisper
this vision, name the face that smiles on them and the
hand which beckons them, as one at Niagara, with eyes
open only to that wonder, forgets all else and breathes
aloud his rapture.
Real Life is God
76:6
When being is understood, Life will be recognized as
When being is understood, Life will be recognized as
neither material nor finite, but as infinite, – as God,
universal good; and the belief that life, or
mind, was ever in a finite form, or good in
evil, will be destroyed. Then it will be understood that
Spirit never entered matter and was therefore never
raised from matter. When advanced to spiritual being
and the understanding of God, man can no longer com-
mune with matter; neither can he return to it, any more
than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will man seem
to be corporeal, but he will be an individual conscious-
ness, characterized by the divine Spirit as idea, not matter.
76:18
Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are unreal. When
Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are unreal. When
divine Science is universally understood, they will have
no power over man, for man is immortal and lives by
divine authority.
Immaterial pleasure
76:22
The sinless joy, – the perfect harmony and immortality
The sinless joy, – the perfect harmony and immortality
of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness
without a single bodily pleasure or pain, –
constitutes the only veritable, indestructible
man, whose being is spiritual. This state of existence
is scientific and intact, – a perfection discernible only
by those who have the final understanding of Christ in
divine Science. Death can never hasten this state of
existence, for death must be overcome, not submitted to,
before immortality appears.
76:32
The recognition of Spirit and of infinity comes not
The recognition of Spirit and of infinity comes not