Article May 13, 1916 Issue

Christian Science recognizes that mortals suffer from sin...

Thorwald Siegfried

Centralia (Wash.) Chronicle-Examiner

Christian Science recognizes that mortals suffer from sin, disease, and death; the large part which it has played in overcoming this baneful triad in the lives of thousands of people is proof that it is not indifferent to the happiness or misery of human existence. Nor does it attempt to progress by hypnotically affirming that to be true which the senses say is not true, intending to mesmerize the patient into believing something which he wishes to be the fact without regard to its truth. On the contrary, the process just outlined, be it known as hypnotism, mesmerism, mental suggestion, New Thought, or occultism, is the exact opposite of Christian Science and has nothing in common with it, however estimable and well intentioned the adherents of these false systems may be.

Your surprise at the statement that disease is nothing, is not so great as it should be at the claim that disease is something. It has never been isolated, measured, weighed, or otherwise sensibly perceived, except as attached to some form of matter. Now it is true that matter has no intelligence, and the mind which believes that matter is a lawgiver is known in Christian Science as "mortal mind," to distinguish it from the divine Mind, or Spirit, God. In ordinary human experience, uninstructed by Truth, matter and its diseased consequences seem very real. They continue to seem real until Christian Science affirms and proves their temporary, mortal, and illusive nature. It does this by showing that this seeming material existence is only an illusive counterfeit of the real, spiritual life of man; that man was originally made in the perfect, spiritual likeness of God, infinite good; and that the real man is now perfect, unfallen, healthy, and sinless. It is needless to say that this perfect and real man is not to be confused with a corporeal, sensuous, mortal concept of man.

Of course in taking such a stand Christian Science contradicts the senses. The senses indeed have always been considered in need of occasional correction, but it remained for Mrs. Eddy to point out that the senses are invariably in error. On page 129 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she says, "If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can discover it by reversing the material fable, be the fable pro or con,—be it in accord with your preconceptions or utterly contrary to them." Consult the senses and the sun seems to move around the earth, though the reverse is true; ask the senses about God and they must say that He is nowhere, when in truth God is everywhere, is omnipresent, and there is no other presence or power.

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