Chapter IV - Christian Science Versus Spiritualism
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Spiritualism calls one person, living in this world, ma-
Spiritualism calls one person, living in this world, ma-
terial, but another, who has died to-day a sinner and sup-
posedly will return to earth to-morrow, it terms a spirit.
The fact is that neither the one nor the other is infinite
Spirit, for Spirit is God, and man is His likeness.
One government
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The belief that one man, as spirit, can control an-
The belief that one man, as spirit, can control an-
other man, as matter, upsets both the individuality and
the Science of man, for man is image. God
controls man, and God is the only Spirit. Any
other control or attraction of so-called spirit is a mortal
belief, which ought to be known by its fruit, – the repe-
tition of evil.
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If Spirit, or God, communed with mortals or controlled
If Spirit, or God, communed with mortals or controlled
them through electricity or any other form of matter, the
divine order and the Science of omnipotent, omnipresent
Spirit would be destroyed.
Incorrect theories
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The belief that material bodies return to dust, hereafter
The belief that material bodies return to dust, hereafter
to rise up as spiritual bodies with material sensations and
desires, is incorrect. Equally incorrect is the
belief that spirit is confined in a finite, ma-
terial body, from which it is freed by death, and that, when
it is freed from the material body, spirit retains the sensa-
tions belonging to that body.
No me-diumship
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It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part
It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part
of the reality of intelligent existence, or that Spirit and
matter, intelligence and non-intelligence, can
commune together. This error Science will
destroy. The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece of
the spiritual, nor can the finite become the channel of
the infinite. There is no communication between so‑
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called material existence and spiritual life which is not
called material existence and spiritual life which is not
subject to death.
Opposing conditions
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To be on communicable terms with Spirit, persons must
To be on communicable terms with Spirit, persons must
be free from organic bodies; and their return to a mate-
rial condition, after having once left it, would
be as impossible as would be the restoration
to its original condition of the acorn, already absorbed
into a sprout which has risen above the soil. The seed
which has germinated has a new form and state of exist-
ence. When here or hereafter the belief of life in matter
is extinct, the error which has held the belief dissolves
with the belief, and never returns to the old condition.
No correspondence nor communion can exist between
persons in such opposite dreams as the belief of having
died and left a material body and the belief of still living
in an organic, material body.
Bridgeless division
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The caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful insect,
The caterpillar, transformed into a beautiful insect,
is no longer a worm, nor does the insect return to
fraternize with or control the worm. Such
a backward transformation is impossible in
Science. Darkness and light, infancy and manhood,
sickness and health, are opposites, – different beliefs,
which never blend. Who will say that infancy can utter
the ideas of manhood, that darkness can represent light,
that we are in Europe when we are in the opposite hemi-
sphere? There is no bridge across the gulf which divides
two such opposite conditions as the spiritual, or incor-
poreal, and the physical, or corporeal.
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In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step,
In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step,
never a return to positions outgrown. The so-called dead
and living cannot commune together, for they are in
separate states of existence, or consciousness.