Chapter VIII - Footsteps Of Truth
Starvation and dyspepsia
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I knew a person who when quite a child adopted the
I knew a person who when quite a child adopted the
Graham system to cure dyspepsia. For many years, he
ate only bread and vegetables, and drank noth-
ing but water. His dyspepsia increasing, he
decided that his diet should be more rigid, and
thereafter he partook of but one meal in twenty-four
hours, this meal consisting of only a thin slice of bread
without water. His physician also recommended that
he should not wet his parched throat until three hours
after eating. He passed many weary years in hunger
and weakness, almost in starvation, and finally made up
his mind to die, having exhausted the skill of the doctors,
who kindly informed him that death was indeed his only
alternative. At this point Christian Science saved him,
and he is now in perfect health without a vestige of the
old complaint.
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He learned that suffering and disease were the self‑
He learned that suffering and disease were the self‑
imposed beliefs of mortals, and not the facts of being;
that God never decreed disease, – never ordained a law
that fasting should be a means of health. Hence semi‑
starvation is not acceptable to wisdom, and it is equally
far from Science, in which being is sustained by God, Mind.
These truths, opening his eyes, relieved his stomach, and
he ate without suffering, "giving God thanks;" but he
never enjoyed his food as he had imagined he would
when, still the slave of matter, he thought of the flesh-
pots of Egypt, feeling childhood's hunger and undisci-
plined by self-denial and divine Science.
Mind and stomach
221:29
This new-born understanding, that neither food nor
This new-born understanding, that neither food nor
the stomach, without the consent of mortal
mind, can make one suffer, brings with it an-
other lesson, – that gluttony is a sensual illusion, and
222:1
that this phantasm of mortal mind disappears as we better
that this phantasm of mortal mind disappears as we better
apprehend our spiritual existence and ascend the ladder
of life.
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This person learned that food affects the body only
This person learned that food affects the body only
as mortal mind has its material methods of working, one
of which is to believe that proper food supplies nutriment
and strength to the human system. He learned also that
mortal mind makes a mortal body, whereas Truth re-
generates this fleshly mind and feeds thought with the
bread of Life.
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Food had less power to help or to hurt him after he
Food had less power to help or to hurt him after he
had availed himself of the fact that Mind governs man,
and he also had less faith in the so-called pleasures and
pains of matter. Taking less thought about what he
should eat or drink, consulting the stomach less about
the economy of living and God more, he recovered
strength and flesh rapidly. For many years he had
been kept alive, as was believed, only by the strictest ad-
herence to hygiene and drugs, and yet he continued ill
all the while. Now he dropped drugs and material
hygiene, and was well.
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He learned that a dyspeptic was very far from being
He learned that a dyspeptic was very far from being
the image and likeness of God, – far from having "do-
minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over the cattle," if eating a bit of animal flesh
could overpower him. He finally concluded that God
never made a dyspeptic, while fear, hygiene, physiology,
and physics had made him one, contrary to His commands.
Life only in Spirit
222:29
In seeking a cure for dyspepsia consult matter not at
In seeking a cure for dyspepsia consult matter not at
all, and eat what is set before you, "asking
no question for conscience sake." We must
destroy the false belief that life and intelligence are in