Article January 5, 1918 Issue

"Chemicalization"

GEOFFREY WILKINSON

It is by no means an uncommon experience with Christian Scientists to feel that although they are pursuing the study of Christian Science they are seemingly becoming more and more full of faults and less and less agreeable in disposition than they were before. Sometimes this appearance will manifest itself to none but themselves, and sometimes it will be apparent to others. It may therefore be helpful to consider what this experience means, how much it amounts to, and how it is to be dealt with.

It is safe to say that until the individual comes in touch with Christian Science, which goes to the very bottom of mental action, the carnal, or, as Mrs. Eddy has termed it, the mortal mind, goes on its way more or less undisturbed. No system except Christian Science regards it as other than real, that is to say, God-created, or at any rate God-permitted; and though orthodox theology strives to eliminate its more admittedly vicious phases, it regards its less aggressive tendencies as not only real but right. Suddenly, into this placid mill pond of self-satisfaction the rock of Christian Science is hurled, with its declaration that God is infinite Mind, therefore there is but one Mind, and that Mind by its very infinity, spirituality, and goodness not only contains no element of matter or evil but has no consciousness of any such things; hence that matter and evil have neither intelligence nor power nor reality, while the mind that seems conscious of them is itself a falsity. This, it will be seen, is in strict accord with the teaching of the Founder of Christianity, when he said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing," and with his statement regarding the devil, or personified evil, that he "abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him;" though the world has refused to take these sayings absolutely.

In some cases the human mind, discouraged by the apparent failure of belief in an existence apart from God, is ready enough to abandon its previous belief in itself; in other cases it makes a stubborn fight for its own claim to existence, for although it is glad to be deprived of its more uncomfortable features, such as sickness, sorrow, and fear, it is by no means so ready for the root and branch destruction demanded by Christian Science. It is in such cases that one observes the phenomenon described by Mrs. Eddy as chemicalization. "What I term chemicalization," she writes on page 401 of Science and Health, "is the upheaval produced when immortal Truth is destroying erroneous mortal belief. Mental chemicalization brings sin and sickness to the surface, forcing impurities to pass away, as is the case with a fermenting fluid."

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