Science and Health
with Key to The Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter IV - Christian Science Versus Spiritualism

 

Vision of the dying
76:1
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
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
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
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
77:1
suddenly here or hereafter. The pious Polycarp said:
"I cannot turn at once from good to evil." Neither do
other mortals accomplish the change from error to truth
at a single bound.
Second death
77:5
Existence continues to be a belief of corporeal sense
until the Science of being is reached. Error brings its
own self-destruction both here and hereafter,
for mortal mind creates its own physical con-
ditions. Death will occur on the next plane of existence
as on this, until the spiritual understanding of Life is
reached. Then, and not until then, will it be demon-
strated that "the second death hath no power."
A dream vanishing
77:13
The period required for this dream of material life,
embracing its so-called pleasures and pains, to vanish
from consciousness, "knoweth no man . . .
neither the Son, but the Father." This period
will be of longer or shorter duration according to the
tenacity of error. Of what advantage, then, would it be
to us, or to the departed, to prolong the material state and
so prolong the illusion either of a soul inert or of a sinning,
suffering sense, – a so-called mind fettered to matter.
Progress and purgatory
77:22
Even if communications from spirits to mortal con-
sciousness were possible, such communications would
grow beautifully less with every advanced stage
of existence. The departed would gradually
rise above ignorance and materiality, and Spiritualists
would outgrow their beliefs in material spiritualism.
Spiritism consigns the so-called dead to a state resembling
that of blighted buds, – to a wretched purgatory, where
the chances of the departed for improvement narrow
into nothing and they return to their old standpoints of
matter.
Unnatural deflections
78:1
The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak,
the ferocious beast, – like the discords of disease, sin,
and death, – are unnatural. They are the fal-
sities of sense, the changing deflections of mor-
tal mind; they are not the eternal realities of Mind.
Absurd oracles
78:6
How unreasonable is the belief that we are wearing
out life and hastening to death, and that at the same
time we are communing with immortality!
If the departed are in rapport with mor-
tality, or matter, they are not spiritual, but must still
be mortal, sinning, suffering, and dying. Then why
look to them – even were communication possible – for
proofs of immortality, and accept them as oracles? Com-
munications gathered from ignorance are pernicious in
tendency.
78:16
Spiritualism with its material accompaniments would
destroy the supremacy of Spirit. If Spirit pervades all
space, it needs no material method for the transmission
of messages. Spirit needs no wires nor electricity in order
to be omnipresent.
Spirit intangible
78:21
Spirit is not materially tangible. How then can it
communicate with man through electric, material effects?
How can the majesty and omnipotence of
Spirit be lost? God is not in the medley
where matter cares for matter, where spiritism makes
many gods, and hypnotism and electricity are claimed
to be the agents of God's government.
78:28
Spirit blesses man, but man cannot "tell whence
it cometh." By it the sick are healed, the sorrowing are
comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the
effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling
in eternal Science.
Thought regarding death
79:1
The act of describing disease – its symptoms, locality,
and fatality – is not scientific. Warning people against
death is an error that tends to frighten into
death those who are ignorant of Life as God.
Thousands of instances could be cited of health restored
by changing the patient's thoughts regarding death.
Fallacious hypotheses
79:7
A scientific mental method is more sanitary than the
use of drugs, and such a mental method produces perma-
nent health. Science must go over the whole
ground, and dig up every seed of error's sow-
ing. Spiritualism relies upon human beliefs and hy-
potheses. Christian Science removes these beliefs and
hypotheses through the higher understanding of God, for
Christian Science, resting on divine Principle, not on ma-
terial personalities, in its revelation of immortality, intro-
duces the harmony of being.
79:17
Jesus cast out evil spirits, or false beliefs. The Apostle
Paul bade men have the Mind that was in the Christ.
Jesus did his own work by the one Spirit. He said: "My
Father worketh hitherto, and I work." He never de-
scribed disease, so far as can be learned from the Gospels,
but he healed disease.
Mistaken methods
79:23
The unscientific practitioner says: "You are ill. Your
brain is overtaxed, and you must rest. Your body is
weak, and it must be strengthened. You have
nervous prostration, and must be treated for it."
Science objects to all this, contending for the rights of in-
telligence and asserting that Mind controls body and brain.
Divine strength
79:29
Mind-science teaches that mortals need "not be weary
in well doing." It dissipates fatigue in doing
good. Giving does not impoverish us in the
service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us.
80:1
We have strength in proportion to our apprehension of
the truth, and our strength is not lessened by giving
utterance to truth. A cup of coffee or tea is not the equal
of truth, whether for the inspiration of a sermon or for
the support of bodily endurance.
A denial of immortality
80:6
A communication purporting to come from the late
Theodore Parker reads as follows: "There never was,
and there never will be, an immortal spirit."
Yet the very periodical containing this sen-
tence repeats weekly the assertion that spirit-communica-
tions are our only proofs of immortality.
Mysticism unscientific
80:12
I entertain no doubt of the humanity and philanthropy
of many Spiritualists, but I cannot coincide with their
views. It is mysticism which gives spiritual-
ism its force. Science dispels mystery and
explains extraordinary phenomena; but Science never
removes phenomena from the domain of reason into the
realm of mysticism.
Physical falsities
80:19
It should not seem mysterious that mind, without the
aid of hands, can move a table, when we already know
that it is mind-power which moves both table
and hand. Even planchette – the French toy
which years ago pleased so many people – attested the con-
trol of mortal mind over its substratum, called matter.
80:25
It is mortal mind which convulses its substratum, matter.
These movements arise from the volition of human belief,
but they are neither scientific nor rational. Mortal mind
produces table-tipping as certainly as table-setting, and
believes that this wonder emanates from spirits and elec-
tricity. This belief rests on the common conviction that
mind and matter cooperate both visibly and invisibly,
hence that matter is intelligent.
Poor post-mortem evidence
81:1
There is not so much evidence to prove intercommuni-
cation between the so-called dead and the living, as there
is to show the sick that matter suffers and has
sensation; yet this latter evidence is destroyed by
Mind-science. If Spiritualists understood the
Science of being, their belief in mediumship would vanish.
No proof of immortality
81:7
At the very best and on its own theories, spiritualism
can only prove that certain individuals have a continued
existence after death and maintain their affili-
ation with mortal flesh; but this fact affords
no certainty of everlasting life. A man's assertion that
he is immortal no more proves him to be so, than the op-
posite assertion, that he is mortal, would prove immor-
tality a lie. Nor is the case improved when alleged spirits
teach immortality. Life, Love, Truth, is the only proof
of immortality.
Mind's manifestations immortal
81:17
Man in the likeness of God as revealed in Science can-
not help being immortal. Though the grass seemeth to
wither and the flower to fade, they reappear.
Erase the figures which express number, silence
the tones of music, give to the worms the body
called man, and yet the producing, governing, divine
Principle lives on, – in the case of man as truly as in
the case of numbers and of music, – despite the so-called
laws of matter, which define man as mortal. Though
the inharmony resulting from material sense hides the
harmony of Science, inharmony cannot destroy the divine
Principle of Science. In Science, man's immortality de-
pends upon that of God, good, and follows as a necessary
consequence of the immortality of good.
Reading thoughts
81:31
That somebody, somewhere, must have known the
deceased person, supposed to be the communicator, is
82:1
evident, and it is as easy to read distant thoughts as near.
We think of an absent friend as easily as we do of one
present. It is no more difficult to read the
absent mind than it is to read the present.
Chaucer wrote centuries ago, yet we still read his thought
in his verse. What is classic study, but discernment of
the minds of Homer and Virgil, of whose personal exist-
ence we may be in doubt?
Impossible intercommunion
82:9
If spiritual life has been won by the departed, they
cannot return to material existence, because different
states of consciousness are involved, and one
person cannot exist in two different states of
consciousness at the same time. In sleep we
do not communicate with the dreamer by our side despite
his physical proximity, because both of us are either un-
conscious or are wandering in our dreams through differ-
ent mazes of consciousness.
82:18
In like manner it would follow, even if our departed
friends were near us and were in as conscious a state of
existence as before the change we call death, that their
state of consciousness must be different from ours. We
are not in their state, nor are they in the mental realm
in which we dwell. Communion between them and
ourselves would be prevented by this difference. The
mental states are so unlike, that intercommunion is as
impossible as it would be between a mole and a human
being. Different dreams and different awakenings be-
token a differing consciousness. When wandering in
Australia, do we look for help to the Esquimaux in their
snow huts?
82:31
In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a
greater development of power, it is wise earnestly to
83:1
consider whether it is the human mind or the divine
Mind which is influencing one. What the prophets of
Jehovah did, the worshippers of Baal failed to do; yet
artifice and delusion claimed that they could equal the
work of wisdom.
83:6
Science only can explain the incredible good and evil
elements now coming to the surface. Mortals must find
refuge in Truth in order to escape the error of these latter
days. Nothing is more antagonistic to Christian Science
than a blind belief without understanding, for such a
belief hides Truth and builds on error.
Natural wonders
83:12
Miracles are impossible in Science, and here Science
takes issue with popular religions. The scientific mani-
festation of power is from the divine nature
and is not supernatural, since Science is an
explication of nature. The belief that the universe, in-
cluding man, is governed in general by material laws, but
that occasionally Spirit sets aside these laws, – this be-
lief belittles omnipotent wisdom, and gives to matter the
precedence over Spirit.
Conflicting standpoints
83:21
It is contrary to Christian Science to suppose that life
is either material or organically spiritual. Between
Christian Science and all forms of superstition
a great gulf is fixed, as impassable as that be-
tween Dives and Lazarus. There is mortal mind-reading
and immortal Mind-reading. The latter is a revelation
of divine purpose through spiritual understanding, by
which man gains the divine Principle and explanation of
all things. Mortal mind-reading and immortal Mind‑
reading are distinctly opposite standpoints, from which
cause and effect are interpreted. The act of reading
mortal mind investigates and touches only human beliefs.
84:1
Science is immortal and coordinate neither with the
premises nor with the conclusions of mortal beliefs.
Scientific foreseeing
84:3
The ancient prophets gained their foresight from a
spiritual, incorporeal standpoint, not by foreshadowing
evil and mistaking fact for fiction, – predict-
ing the future from a groundwork of corpo-
reality and human belief. When sufficiently advanced
in Science to be in harmony with the truth of being, men
become seers and prophets involuntarily, controlled not
by demons, spirits, or demigods, but by the one Spirit.
It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and
of thought which is in rapport with this Mind, to know
the past, the present, and the future.
84:14
Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to
commune more largely with the divine Mind, to foresee
and foretell events which concern the universal welfare,
to be divinely inspired, – yea, to reach the range of fetter-
less Mind.
The Mind unbounded
84:19
To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by
corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for
sound or sight nor upon muscles and bones
for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind‑
science by which we discern man's nature and existence.
This true conception of being destroys the belief of spirit-
ualism at its very inception, for without the concession of
material personalities called spirits, spiritualism has no
basis upon which to build.
Scientific foreknowing
84:28
All we correctly know of Spirit comes from God, divine
Principle, and is learned through Christ and Christian
Science. If this Science has been thoroughly
learned and properly digested, we can know
the truth more accurately than the astronomer can read
85:1
the stars or calculate an eclipse. This Mind-reading
is the opposite of clairvoyance. It is the illumination of
the spiritual understanding which demonstrates the ca-
pacity of Soul, not of material sense. This Soul-sense
comes to the human mind when the latter yields to the
divine Mind.
Value of intuition
85:7
Such intuitions reveal whatever constitutes and per-
petuates harmony, enabling one to do good, but not
evil. You will reach the perfect Science of
healing when you are able to read the human
mind after this manner and discern the error you would
destroy. The Samaritan woman said: "Come, see a
man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this
the Christ?"
85:15
It is recorded that Jesus, as he once journeyed with his
students, "knew their thoughts," – read them scientifi-
cally. In like manner he discerned disease and healed
the sick. After the same method, events of great mo-
ment were foretold by the Hebrew prophets. Our
Master rebuked the lack of this power when he said:
"O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky;
but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"
Hypocrisy condemned
85:23
Both Jew and Gentile may have had acute corporeal
senses, but mortals need spiritual sense. Jesus knew the
generation to be wicked and adulterous, seek-
ing the material more than the spiritual. His
thrusts at materialism were sharp, but needed. He never
spared hypocrisy the sternest condemnation. He said:
"These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other
undone." The great Teacher knew both cause and
effect, knew that truth communicates itself but never
imparts error.
Mental contact
86:1
Jesus once asked, "Who touched me?" Supposing
this inquiry to be occasioned by physical contact alone,
his disciples answered, "The multitude throng
thee." Jesus knew, as others did not, that
it was not matter, but mortal mind, whose touch called
for aid. Repeating his inquiry, he was answered by the
faith of a sick woman. His quick apprehension of this
mental call illustrated his spirituality. The disciples'
misconception of it uncovered their materiality. Jesus
possessed more spiritual susceptibility than the disciples.
Opposites come from contrary directions, and produce
unlike results.
Images of thought
86:13
Mortals evolve images of thought. These may appear
to the ignorant to be apparitions; but they are myste-
rious only because it is unusual to see
thoughts, though we can always feel their
influence. Haunted houses, ghostly voices, unusual
noises, and apparitions brought out in dark seances
either involve feats by tricksters, or they are images and
sounds evolved involuntarily by mortal mind. Seeing
is no less a quality of physical sense than feeling. Then
why is it more difficult to see a thought than to feel one?
Education alone determines the difference. In reality
there is none.
Phenomena explained
86:25
Portraits, landscape-paintings, fac-similes of penman-
ship, peculiarities of expression, recollected sentences,
can all be taken from pictorial thought and
memory as readily as from objects cognizable
by the senses. Mortal mind sees what it believes as
certainly as it believes what it sees. It feels, hears, and
sees its own thoughts. Pictures are mentally formed
before the artist can convey them to canvas. So is it
87:1
with all material conceptions. Mind-readers perceive
these pictures of thought. They copy or reproduce
them, even when they are lost to the memory of the mind
in which they are discoverable.
Mental environment
87:5
It is needless for the thought or for the person hold-
ing the transferred picture to be individually and con-
sciously present. Though individuals have
passed away, their mental environment re-
mains to be discerned, described, and transmitted. Though
bodies are leagues apart and their associations forgotten,
their associations float in the general atmosphere of human
mind.
Second sight
87:13
The Scotch call such vision "second sight", when
really it is first sight instead of second, for it presents
primal facts to mortal mind. Science enables
one to read the human mind, but not as a
clairvoyant. It enables one to heal through Mind, but
not as a mesmerist.
Buried secrets
87:19
The mine knows naught of the emeralds within its
rocks; the sea is ignorant of the gems within its caverns,
of the corals, of its sharp reefs, of the tall ships
that float on its bosom, or of the bodies which
lie buried in its sands: yet these are all there. Do not
suppose that any mental concept is gone because you do
not think of it. The true concept is never lost. The
strong impressions produced on mortal mind by friend-
ship or by any intense feeling are lasting, and mind‑
readers can perceive and reproduce these impressions.
Recollected friends
87:29
Memory may reproduce voices long ago silent. We
have but to close the eyes, and forms rise
before us, which are thousands of miles away
or altogether gone from physical sight and sense, and
88:1
this not in dreamy sleep. In our day-dreams we can
recall that for which the poet Tennyson expressed the
heart's desire, –
88:4
the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still.
88:6
The mind may even be cognizant of a present flavor and
odor, when no viand touches the palate and no scent
salutes the nostrils.
Illusions not ideas
88:9
How are veritable ideas to be distinguished from il-
lusions? By learning the origin of each. Ideas are
emanations from the divine Mind. Thoughts,
proceeding from the brain or from matter, are
offshoots of mortal mind; they are mortal material be-
liefs. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Beliefs
proceed from the so-called material senses, which at one
time are supposed to be substance-matter and at another
are called spirits.
88:18
To love one's neighbor as one's self, is a divine idea;
but this idea can never be seen, felt, nor understood
through the physical senses. Excite the organ of ven-
eration or religious faith, and the individual manifests
profound adoration. Excite the opposite development,
and he blasphemes. These effects, however, do not pro-
ceed from Christianity, nor are they spiritual phenomena,
for both arise from mortal belief.
Trance speaking illusion
88:26
Eloquence re-echoes the strains of Truth and Love.
It is due to inspiration rather than to erudition. It shows
the possibilities derived from divine Mind,
though it is said to be a gift whose endowment
is obtained from books or received from the
impulsion of departed spirits. When eloquence proceeds
from the belief that a departed spirit is speaking, who
89:1
can tell what the unaided medium is incapable of know-
ing or uttering? This phenomenon only shows that the
beliefs of mortal mind are loosed. Forgetting her igno-
rance in the belief that another mind is speaking through
her, the devotee may become unwontedly eloquent. Hav-
ing more faith in others than in herself, and believing
that somebody else possesses her tongue and mind, she
talks freely.
89:9
Destroy her belief in outside aid, and her eloquence
disappears. The former limits of her belief return. She
says, "I am incapable of words that glow, for I am un-
educated." This familiar instance reaffirms the Scrip-
tural word concerning a man, "As he thinketh in his heart,
so is he." If one believes that he cannot be an orator with-
out study or a superinduced condition, the body responds
to this belief, and the tongue grows mute which before
was eloquent.
Scientific improvisation
89:18
Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational
processes. It possesses of itself all beauty and poetry,
and the power of expressing them. Spirit,
God, is heard when the senses are silent. We
are all capable of more than we do. The influence or
action of Soul confers a freedom, which explains the phe-
nomena of improvisation and the fervor of untutored lips.
Divine origination
89:25
Matter is neither intelligent nor creative. The tree is
not the author of itself. Sound is not the originator of
music, and man is not the father of man. Cain
very naturally concluded that if life was in the
body, and man gave it, man had the right to take it away.
This incident shows that the belief of life in matter was
"a murderer from the beginning."
89:32
If seed is necessary to produce wheat, and wheat to
90:1
produce flour, or if one animal can originate another,
how then can we account for their primal origin? How
were the loaves and fishes multiplied on the shores of
Galilee, – and that, too, without meal or monad from
which loaf or fish could come?
Mind is substance
90:6
The earth's orbit and the imaginary line called the
equator are not substance. The earth's motion and
position are sustained by Mind alone. Divest
yourself of the thought that there can be sub-
stance in matter, and the movements and transitions now
possible for mortal mind will be found to be equally
possible for the body. Then being will be recognized
as spiritual, and death will be obsolete, though now
some insist that death is the necessary prelude to
immortality.
Mortal delusions
90:16
In dreams we fly to Europe and meet a far-off friend.
The looker-on sees the body in bed, but the supposed
inhabitant of that body carries it through
the air and over the ocean. This shows the
possibilities of thought. Opium and hashish eaters men-
tally travel far and work wonders, yet their bodies stay
in one place. This shows what mortal mentality and
knowledge are.
Scientific finalities
90:24
The admission to one's self that man is God's own like-
ness sets man free to master the infinite idea. This con-
viction shuts the door on death, and opens it
wide towards immortality. The understanding
and recognition of Spirit must finally come, and we may
as well improve our time in solving the mysteries of being
through an apprehension of divine Principle. At present
we know not what man is, but we certainly shall know
this when man reflects God.
91:1
The Revelator tells us of "a new heaven and a
new earth." Have you ever pictured this heaven and
earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme
wisdom?
91:5
Let us rid ourselves of the belief that man is separated
from God, and obey only the divine Principle, Life and
Love. Here is the great point of departure for all true
spiritual growth.
Man's genuine being
91:9
It is difficult for the sinner to accept divine Science,
because Science exposes his nothingness; but the sooner
error is reduced to its native nothingness, the
sooner man's great reality will appear and his
genuine being will be understood. The destruction of
error is by no means the destruction of Truth or Life, but
is the acknowledgment of them.
91:16
Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect
but faintly the substance of Life or Mind. The denial of
material selfhood aids the discernment of man's spirit-
ual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous
knowledge gained from matter or through what are termed
the material senses.
Erroneous postulates
91:22
Certain erroneous postulates should be here considered
in order that the spiritual facts may be better
apprehended.
91:25
The first erroneous postulate of belief is, that substance,
life, and intelligence are something apart from God.
The second erroneous postulate is, that man is both
mental and material.
91:29
The third erroneous postulate is, that mind is both evil
and good; whereas the real Mind cannot be evil nor the
medium of evil, for Mind is God.
91:32
The fourth erroneous postulate is, that matter is in-
92:1
telligent, and that man has a material body which is part
of himself.
92:3
The fifth erroneous postulate is, that matter holds in
itself the issues of life and death, – that matter is not
only capable of experiencing pleasure and pain, but also
capable of imparting these sensations. From the illusion
implied in this last postulate arises the decomposition of
mortal bodies in what is termed death.
92:9
Mind is not an entity within the cranium with the power
of sinning now and forever.
Knowledge of good and evil
92:11
In old Scriptural pictures we see a serpent coiled around
the tree of knowledge and speaking to Adam and Eve.
This represents the serpent in the act of
commending to our first parents the knowl-
edge of good and evil, a knowledge gained from matter,
or evil, instead of from Spirit. The portrayal is still
graphically accurate, for the common conception of mor-
tal man – a burlesque of God's man – is an outgrowth
of human knowledge or sensuality, a mere offshoot of
material sense.
Opposing power
92:21
Uncover error, and it turns the lie upon you. Until
the fact concerning error – namely, its nothingness –
appears, the moral demand will not be met,
and the ability to make nothing of error will
be wanting. We should blush to call that real which is
only a mistake. The foundation of evil is laid on a belief
in something besides God. This belief tends to support
two opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth
alone. The mistake of thinking that error can be real,
when it is merely the absence of truth, leads to belief in
the superiority of error.
The age's privilege
92:32
Do you say the time has not yet come in which to
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