The Useless and the Useful

Christian Science distinguishes between the useless and the useful by turning thought to spiritual causation. On this point we are reminded of a passage in James which reads (3:11), "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?"

But how many times animal magnetism, or evil mind, tricks us into believing that the sweet water is bitter and the bitter, sweet! We can correctly judge between the useless and the truly useful only in the degree of our spiritual perception. As material sense is subdued, the spiritual sense is awakened in human experience. The useless should be discarded as soon as it has served its purpose of pointing thought to the opposite spiritual fact. For example, Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 233), "The counter fact relative to any disease is required to cure it."

The first step in getting rid of anything that is useless is to recognize the condition of one's thought. The corporeal senses will stop at nothing in their effort to disguise the useless as the useful. They may argue that a mortal should die in order to put him out of his misery. These senses may even assert that death can be an act of God.

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No False Claim in Mind
November 27, 1965
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