Article January 9, 1932 Issue

Cause, So Called, of Disease

OLIVER W. WOODARD

THE question is often asked, What is the cause of my disease? Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, answers this question in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" when she says (p. 411) : "The procuring cause and foundation of all sickness is fear, ignorance, or sin. Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed. Disease is an image of thought externalized." From these statements, together with Paul's statement in his letter to the Romans, "To be carnally minded is death," it is learned that the requirements for deliverance from the seeming cause or manifestation of any disease is the elimination from our consciousness of fear and all evil thinking, since the body reflects the thinking which governs it.

It will be noted that Paul's statement is followed by the declaration, "To be spiritually minded is life and peace." It may be seen from this that one must reach to the very depths of his nature and destroy each thought that is unlike God, good, if he is to eliminate the seeming causes of disease from his experience. Since disease has no divine Principle, no foundation in the truth of being, we should humbly begin this correction of wrong thinking without delay, if we would be well and happy.

The first step necessary to accomplish this correction of thought is honest, right desire. Integrity of thought with regard to our fellow man as well as to ourselves, is essential. This being the case, there is need for each one of us to obey the injunction (Science and Health, p. 571), "Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil." There are two ways in which one must know himself. He must be able to recognize his faults, in order to abandon them as unreal; and he must also know in an ascending scale that he is, in reality, an individual expression of divine Mind and of nothing else. This knowing of true selfhood will enable him gradually to overcome all carnal thoughts, some of which are fear, envy, hatred, resentment, irritation, condemnation, and to express in their stead the Godlike or spiritual qualities of man's true thinking and nature, such as love, truthfulness, joy, happiness, peace, gentleness, and the like.

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