Cause and Cure of Disease

George Shaw Cook

A psychiatrist connected with a well-known medical school was recently quoted by a New York newspaper as having pointed to hate and fear as contributory causes of a certain type of respiratory disease frequently regarded by doctors of medicine as difficult to cure. On pages 404 and 405 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which was first published in 1875, its author, Mary Baker Eddy, says: "Hatred, envy, dishonesty, fear, and so forth, make a man sick, and neither material medicine nor Mind can help him permanently, even in body, unless it makes him better mentally, and so delivers him from his destroyers. The basic error is mortal mind."

For more than sixty years students of Christian Science, working from the standpoint that disease has a mental cause, have dealt with mental conditions and not with matter, in the treatment of sickness. While it is often the case that so-called functional and organic diseases have their origin in asserted laws of mortal mind, such as those pertaining to heredity, climate, food, hygiene, and so forth, sickness is more often attributable to such mental states as those mentioned above, especially to fear.

So convinced was Mrs. Eddy that fear is the chief cause of disease that she gives Christian Scientists the following advice on pages 411 and 412 of Science and Health: "Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of patients. Silently reassure them as to their exemption from disease and danger. Watch the result of this simple rule of Christian Science, and you will find that it alleviates the symptoms of every disease. If you succeed in wholly removing the fear, your patient is healed." Christian Science enables one to see and to prove that fear, whether it to be of persons, things, circumstances, or conditions, is in reality baseless. When viewed from the standpoint of the infinite all-inclusiveness of divine Love, fear is seen to be without actuality. As the Apostle John said, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear." Since fear has no abiding place in infinite Love, it has no existence at all, for it is obvious that there can be nothing outside of infinity.

In the light of these divine facts it is plain that fear is needless and causeless. Therefore, the fear which seems to beset mortals—fear of loss, fear of lack, fear of disease, decrepitude, and death—is without cause, substance, law, or power. The law of God, Love, for men, as declared by Christ Jesus, is, "Be not afraid." Man in God's likeness is as fearless as God or Mind itself. In the kingdom of Love there is no place for fear, and Jesus, the great Exemplar of God's government, said to his disciples, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

At times diseased conditions appear to be stubborn or persistent, and sometimes it would seem that these conditions are perpetuated, in belief, by stubbornness of thought by an unyielding rigidity of mortal thinking. The prophet Samuel said: "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry." Lack of obedience to divine Principle is often found to be a cause of human suffering, and even malignant disease may, at times, appear to result from rebellion against the rule of universal Love. Indeed, a dictionary definition of "malignant" is, "Rebellious against God or against a government." And that which rebels against God is likened by the prophet to "the sin of witchcraft." However, it must not be supposed that all cases of so-called malignant disease are caused by stubborn, self-willed, or rebellious thinking, or that other diseases and afflictions are not thus caused. Very often diseases seem to be the effect of so-called natural causes, but whatever their seeming cause, they should be, can be, and most happily are being healed through demonstration of the power of God, infinite good, in Christian Science.

Our beloved Leader says (Science and Health, p. 405), "Christian Science commands man to master the propensities,—to hold hatred in abeyance with kindness, to conquer lust with chastity, revenge with charity, and to overcome deceit with honesty." We, as her followers, should strive more and more earnestly to obey these commands of Christian Science. As we find ourselves more intelligently and willingly obedient to divine Principle, Love, through increased understanding of its omnipresence and omnipotence, we shall find ourselves measurably more immune from the ravages of disease, and vastly better equipped to help those who are in need of healing. Thus we shall finally be able to prove in every instance that disease, whatever its apparent origin, is unreal because utterly unlike God, infinite good, divine Principle—the only cause or creator.

George Shaw Cook

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February 18, 1939

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