RUDIMENTAL DIVINE SCIENCE By MARY BAKER EDDY Published by The Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy 1891, 1908 THIS LITTLE BOOK IS TENDERLY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO ALL LOYAL STUDENTS, WORKING AND WAITING FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING MARY BAKER EDDY CONTENTS DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PERSONALITY OF GOD HEALING SICKNESS AND SIN INDIVIDUALITY OF GOD MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL SCIENCE NON-EXISTENCE OF MATTER MATERIALITY INTANGIBLE BASIS OF MIND-HEALING MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL MAN DEMONSTRATION IN HEALING MEANS AND METHODS ONLY ONE SCHOOL _How would you define Christian Science?_ As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating thedivine Principle and rule of universal harmony. _What is the Principle of Christian Science?_ It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal Mind, the Soul of manand the universe. It is our Father which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love, --these are the deific Principle. _Do you mean by this that God is a person?_ The word _person_ affords a large margin for misapprehension, as well asdefinition. In French the equivalent word is _personne_. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is _persona_. The Latin verb _personare_ iscompounded of the prefix _per_ (through) and _sonare_ (to sound). In law, Blackstone applies the word _personal_ to _bodily presence_, indistinction from one's appearance (in court, for example) by deputy orproxy. Other definitions of _person_, as given by Webster, are "a living soul; aself-conscious being; a moral agent; especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman, or child; an individual of the human race. " Headds, that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one of thethree subjects, or agents, constituting the Godhead. In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely individual, andnot a _person_, as that word is used by the best authorities, if ourlexicographers are right in defining _person_ as especially a finite_human being_; but God is personal, if by _person_ is meantinfinite Spirit. We do not conceive rightly of God, if we think of Him as less thaninfinite. The human person is finite; and therefore I prefer to retainthe proper sense of Deity by using the phrase _an individual_ God, ratherthan _a personal_ God; for there is and can be but one infinite individualSpirit, whom mortals have named God. Science defines the individuality of God as supreme good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense of Deity, takes away the trammelsassigned to God by finite thought, and introduces us to higher definitions. _Is healing the sick the whole of Science?_ Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. Itis only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range ofinfinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is thehealing of sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the cureof disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they do not love to besick. Hence their comparative acquiescence in your endeavors to healthem of bodily ills, and their obstinate resistance to all efforts tosave them from sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which redeemthem, and become their Saviour, through the flesh, from the flesh, --thematerial world and evil. This Life, Truth, and Love--this trinity of good--was individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the man Jesus. His history isemphatic in our hearts, and it lives more because of his spiritualthan his physical healing. His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models of the masters in music and painting are to artists. Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate morally from thatdivine digest of Science called the Sermon on the Mount, than they willmanipulate invalids, prescribe drugs, or deny God. Jesus' healing wasspiritual in its nature, method, and design. He wrought the cure ofdisease through the divine Mind, which gives all true volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental error made manifest physically, andestablishes the opposite manifestation of Truth upon the body in harmonyand health. _By the individuality of God, do you mean that God has a finite form?_ No. I mean the infinite and divine Principle of all being, theever-present I AM, filling all space, including in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God. Life, Truth, and Love are this trinityin unity, and their universe is spiritual, peopled with perfect beings, harmonious and eternal, of which our material universe and men are thecounterfeits. _Is God the Principle of all science, or only of Divine orChristian Science?_ Science is Mind manifested. It is not material; neither is it ofhuman origin. All true Science represents a moral and spiritual force, which holdsthe earth in its orbit. This force is Spirit, that can "bind the sweetinfluences of the Pleiades, " and "loose the bands of Orion. " There is no material science, if by that term you mean materialintelligence. God is infinite Mind, hence there is no other Mind. Good is Mind, but evil is not Mind. Good is not in evil, but inGod only. Spirit is not in matter, but in Spirit only. Law is notin matter, but in Mind only. _Is there no matter?_ All is Mind. According to the Scriptures and Christian Science, all isGod, and there is naught beside Him. "God is Spirit;" and we can onlylearn and love Him through His spirit, which brings out the fruits ofSpirit and extinguishes forever the works of darkness by His marvellouslight. The five material senses testify to the existence of matter. Thespiritual senses afford no such evidence, but deny the testimony ofthe material senses. Which testimony is correct? The Bible says:"Let God be true, and every man a liar. " If, as the Scriptures imply, God is All-in-all, then all must be Mind, since God is Mind. Thereforein divine Science there is no material mortal man, for man is spiritualand eternal, he being made in the image of Spirit, or God. There is no material sense. Matter is inert, inanimate, andsensationless, --considered apart from Mind. Lives there a man whohas ever found Soul in the body or in matter, who has ever seenspiritual substance with the eye, who has found sight in matter, hearing in the material ear, or intelligence in non-intelligence?If there is any such thing as matter, it must be either mind whichis called matter, or matter without Mind. Matter without Mind is a moral impossibility. Mind in matter is pantheism. Soul is the only real consciousness which cognizes being. The body doesnot see, hear, smell, or taste. Human belief says that it does; but destroythis belief of seeing with the eye, and we could not see materially; andso it is with each of the physical senses. Accepting the verdict of these material senses, we should believe manand the universe to be the football of chance and sinking into oblivion. Destroy the five senses as organized matter, and you must either becomenon-existent, or exist in Mind only; and this latter conclusion is thesimple solution of the problem of being, and leads to the equal inferencethat there is no matter. _The sweet sounds and glories of earth and sky, assuming manifold formsand colors, --are they not tangible and material?_ As Mind they are real, but not as matter. All beauty and goodness arein and of Mind, emanating from God; but when we change the nature ofbeauty and goodness from Mind to matter, the beauty is marred, througha false conception, and, to the material senses, evil takes the placeof good. Has not the truth in Christian Science met a response from Prof. S. P. Langley, the young American astronomer? He says that "coloris in _us_, " not "in the rose;" and he adds that this is not "anymetaphysical subtlety, " but a fact "almost universally accepted, within the _last few years_, by physicists. " _Is not the basis of Mind-healing a destruction of the evidence of thematerial senses, and restoration of the true evidence of spiritual sense?_ It is, so far as you perceive and understand this predicate and postulateof Mind-healing; but the Science of Mind-healing is best understood inpractical demonstration. The proof of what you apprehend, in the simplestdefinite and absolute form of healing, can alone answer this question ofhow much you understand of Christian Science Mind-healing. Not that allhealing is Science, by any means; but that the simplest case, healed inScience, is as demonstrably scientific, in a small degree, as the mostdifficult case so treated. The infinite and subtler conceptions and consistencies of Christian Scienceare set forth in my work Science and Health. _Is man material or spiritual?_ In Science, man is the manifest reflection of God, perfect and immortalMind. He is the likeness of God; and His likeness would be lost if invertedor perverted. According to the evidence of the so-called physical senses, man ismaterial, fallen, sick, depraved, mortal. Science and spiritual sensecontradict this, and they afford the only true evidence of the beingof God and man, the material evidence being wholly false. Jesus said of personal evil, that "the truth abode not in him, " becausethere is no material sense. Matter, as matter, has neither sensation norpersonal intelligence. As a pretension to be Mind, matter is a lie, and"the father of lies;" Mind is not in matter, and Spirit cannot originateits opposite, named matter. According to divine Science, Spirit no more changes its species, byevolving matter from Spirit, than natural science, so-called, or materiallaws, bring about alteration of species by transforming minerals intovegetables or plants into animals, --thus confusing and confounding thethree great kingdoms. No rock brings forth an apple; no pine-tree producesa mammal or provides breast-milk for babes. To sense, the lion of to-day is the lion of six thousand years ago; butin Science, Spirit sends forth its own harmless likeness. _How should I undertake to demonstrate Christian Science in healingthe sick?_ As I have given you only an epitome of the Principle, so I can give youhere nothing but an outline of the practice. Be honest, be true to thyself, and true to others; then it follows thou wilt be strong in God, the eternalgood. Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other healer. In all moral revolutions, from a lower to a higher condition of thoughtand action, Truth is in the minority and error has the majority. It isnot otherwise in the field of Mind-healing. The man who calls himself aChristian Scientist, yet is false to God and man, is also utteringfalsehood about good. This falsity shuts against him the Truth and thePrinciple of Science, but opens a way whereby, through will-power, sensemay say the unchristian practitioner can heal; but Science shows that hemakes morally worse the invalid whom he is supposed to cure. By this I mean that mortal mind should not be falsely impregnated. If bysuch lower means the health is seemingly restored, the restoration is notlasting, and the patient is liable to a relapse, --"The last state of thatman is worse than the first. " The teacher of Mind-healing who is not a Christian, in the highest sense, is constantly sowing the seeds of discord and disease. Even the truth hespeaks is more or less blended with error; and this error will springup in the mind of his pupil. The pupil's imperfect knowledge will leadto weakness in practice, and he will be a poor practitioner, if not amalpractitioner. The basis of malpractice is in erring human will, and this will is anoutcome of what I call _mortal mind_, --a false and temporal senseof Truth, Life, and Love. To heal, in Christian Science, is to base yourpractice on immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being; and thisrequires a preparation of the heart and an answer of the lips from theLord. The Science of healing is the Truth of healing. If one is untruthful, hismental state weighs against his healing power; and similar effects comefrom pride, envy, lust, and all fleshly vices. The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, without a directeffort, an audible or even a mental argument, has oftentimes healedinveterate diseases. The thoughts of the practitioner should be imbued with a clear convictionof the omnipotence and omnipresence of God; that He is All, and that therecan be none beside Him; that God is good, and the producer only of good;and hence, that whatever militates against health, harmony, or holiness, is an unjust usurper of the throne of the controller of all mankind. Notethis, that if you have power in error, you forfeit the power that Truthbestows, and its salutary influence on yourself and others. You must feel and know that God alone governs man; that His governmentis harmonious; that He is too pure to behold iniquity, and divides Hispower with nothing evil or material; that material laws are only humanbeliefs, which govern mortals wrongfully. These beliefs arise from thesubjective states of thought, producing the beliefs of a mortal materialuniverse, --so-called, and of material disease and mortality. Mortal illsare but errors of thought, --diseases of mortal mind, and not of matter;for matter cannot feel, see, or report pain or disease. Disease is a thing of thought manifested on the body; and fear is theprocurator of the thought which causes sickness and suffering. Removethis fear by the true sense that God is Love, --and that Love punishesnothing but sin, --and the patient can then look up to the loving God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children of men, who arepunished because of disobedience to His spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed, removes every erroneous physical and mental state. The beliefthat matter can master Mind, and make you ill, is an error which Truthwill destroy. You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways. It is only a lack ofunderstanding of the allness of God, which leads you to believe in theexistence of matter, or that matter can frame its own conditions, contraryto the law of Spirit. Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you to Christ; first to faithin Christ; next to belief in God as omnipotent; and finally to the_understanding_ of God and man in Christian Science, whereby youlearn that God is good, and in Science man is His likeness, the foreverreflection of goodness. Therefore good is one and All. This brings forward the next proposition in Christian Science, --namely, that there are no sickness, sin, and death in the divine Mind. Whatseem to be disease, vice, and mortality are illusions of the physicalsenses. These illusions are not real, but unreal. Health is theconsciousness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else. In a momentyou may awake from a night-dream; just so you can awake from the dreamof sickness; but the demonstration of the Science of Mind-healing byno means rests on the strength of human belief. This demonstration isbased on a true understanding of God and divine Science, which takesaway every human belief, and, through the illumination of spiritualunderstanding, reveals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whenceemanate health, harmony, and Life eternal. The lecturer, teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian Scientist, never introduces the subject of human anatomy; never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous operations of the human frame. He never talks aboutthe structure of the material body. He never lays his hands on the patient, nor manipulates the parts of the body supposed to be ailing. Above all, hekeeps unbroken the Ten Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on theMount. Wrong thoughts and methods strengthen the sense of disease, instead ofcure it; or else quiet the fear of the sick on false grounds, encouragingthem in the belief of error until they hold stronger than before the beliefthat they are first made sick by matter, and then restored through itsagency. This fosters infidelity, and is mental quackery, that denies thePrinciple of Mind-healing. If the sick are aided in this mistaken fashion, their ailments will return, and be more stubborn because the relief isunchristian and unscientific. Christian Science erases from the minds of invalids their mistaken beliefthat they live in or because of matter, or that a so-called materialorganism controls the health or existence of mankind, and induces restin God, divine Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for thewell-being of man. As power divine is the healer, why should mortalsconcern themselves with the chemistry of food? Jesus said: "Take nothought what ye shall eat. " The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds of the healthyfrom any sense of subordination to their bodies, and teach them that thedivine Mind, not material law, maintains human health and life. A Christian Scientist knows that, in Science, disease is unreal; thatMind is not in matter; that Life is God, good; hence Life is notfunctional, and is neither matter nor mortal mind; knows that pantheismand theosophy are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief, thisbasis of Christian Science, renders it impossible to demonstrate thePrinciple of this Science, even in the smallest degree. A mortal and material body is not the actual individuality of man madein the divine and spiritual image of God. The material body is not thelikeness of Spirit; hence it is not the truth of being, but the likenessof error--the human belief which saith there is more than one God, --thereis more than one Life and one Mind. In Deuteronomy (iv. 35) we read: "The Lord, He is God; there is noneelse beside Him. " In John (iv. 24) we may read: "God is Spirit. " Thesepropositions, understood in their Science, elucidate my meaning. When treating a patient, it is not Science to treat every organ in thebody. To aver that harmony is the real and discord is the unreal, andthen give special attention to what according to their own belief isdiseased, is scientific; and if the _healer realizes_ the truth, itwill free his patient. _What are the means and methods of trustworthy Christian Scientists?_ These people should not be expected, more than others, to give all theirtime to Christian Science work, receiving no wages in return, but left tobe fed, clothed, and sheltered by charity. Neither can they serve twomasters, giving only a portion of their time to God, and still be ChristianScientists. They must give Him all their services, and "owe no man. " To dothis, they must at present ask a suitable price for their services, andthen _conscientiously earn their wages_, strictly practising DivineScience, and healing the sick. The author never sought charitable support, but gave fully seven-eighthsof her time without remuneration, except the bliss of doing good. The onlypay taken for her labors was from classes, and often those were put offfor months, in order to do gratuitous work. She has never taught a Primaryclass without several, and sometimes seventeen, free students in it; andhas endeavored to take the full price of tuition only from those who wereable to pay. The student who pays must of necessity do better than hewho does not pay, and yet will expect and require others to pay him. Nodiscount on tuition was made on higher classes, because their first classesfurnished students with the means of paying for their tuition in the higherinstruction, and of doing charity work besides. If the Primary studentsare still impecunious, it is their own fault, and this ill-success ofitself leaves them unprepared to enter higher classes. People are being healed by means of my instructions, both in and outof class. Many students, who have passed through a regular course ofinstruction from me, have been invalids and were healed in the class;but experience has shown that this defrauds the scholar, though it healsthe sick. It is seldom that a student, if healed in a class, has left itunderstanding sufficiently the Science of healing to immediatelyenter upon its practice. Why? Because the glad surprise of suddenlyregained health is a shock to the mind; and this holds and satisfiesthe thought with exuberant joy. This renders the mind less inquisitive, plastic, and tractable; and deepsystematic thinking is impracticable until this impulse subsides. This was the principal reason for advising diseased people not to entera class. Few were taken besides invalids for students, until there wereenough practitioners to fill in the best possible manner the departmentof healing. Teaching and healing should have separate departments, andthese should be fortified on all sides with suitable and thoroughguardianship and grace. Only a very limited number of students can advantageously enter a class, grapple with this subject, and well assimilate what has been taught them. It is impossible to teach thorough Christian Science to promiscuous andlarge assemblies, or to persons who cannot be addressed individually, sothat the mind of the pupil may be dissected more critically than the bodyof a subject laid bare for anatomical examination. Public lectures cannotbe such lessons in Christian Science as are required to empty and to fillanew the individual mind. If publicity and material control are the motives for teaching, thenpublic lectures can take the place of private lessons; but the formercan never give a thorough knowledge of Christian Science, and a ChristianScientist will never undertake to fit students for practice by such means. Lectures in public are needed, but they must be subordinate to thoroughclass instruction in any branch of education. None with an imperfect sense of the spiritual signification of the Bible, and its scientific relation to Mind-healing, should attempt overmuch intheir translation of the Scriptures into the "new tongue;" but I see thatsome novices, in the truth of Science, and some impostors are committingthis error. _Is there more than one school of scientific healing?_ In reality there is, and can be, but one school of the Science ofMind-healing. Any departure from Science is an irreparable lossof Science. Whatever is said and written correctly on this Scienceoriginates from the Principle and practice laid down in Science andHealth, a work which I published in 1875. This was the first book, recorded in history, which elucidates a pathological Science purelymental. Minor shades of difference in Mind-healing have originated with certainopposing factions, springing up among unchristian students, who, fusingwith a class of aspirants which snatch at whatever is progressive, callit their first-fruits, or else _post mortem_ evidence. A slight divergence is fatal in Science. Like certain Jews whom St. Paulhad hoped to convert from mere motives of self-aggrandizement to the loveof Christ, these so-called schools are clogging the wheels of progress byblinding the people to the true character of Christian Science, --its moralpower, and its divine efficacy to heal. The true understanding of Christian Science Mind-healing never originatedin pride, rivalry, or the deification of self. The Discoverer of thisScience could tell you of timidity, of self-distrust, of friendlessness, toil, agonies, and victories under which she needed miraculous vision tosustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this Science. The ways of Christianity have not changed. Meekness, selflessness, andlove are the paths of His testimony and the footsteps of His flock.