Editorial April 13, 1946 Issue

Freeing Oneself from Hell

Paul Stark Seeley

When confronted with physical or mental distress, mortals usually attribute these troubles to causes or circumstances outside themselves, and they seek relief from other individuals or from methods outside themselves.

Most of us seem to find a sort of Cainish glee in claiming an alibi for our woes, blaming them on almost anyone or anything, but not on ourselves. Yet the gist of the matter is—however much we may try to dodge the fact—that because we accept a false sense of self, to which every one of our troubles is indigenous, they are always self-inflicted. Conversely, we can rid ourselves of every one of our troubles as we accept the true and harmonious sense of man which, in the degree that we understand it displaces the false sense of self with all its troubles. Shadows cannot adhere to sunbeams. Trouble cannot affix itself to God's man.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 588), Mary Baker Eddy defines "hell," in part, as "self-imposed agony." Some persons still think of hell as a physical location which they have no part in making. They regard it as an extremely tropical environment evolved by a personal devil, but open to those not favored by God.

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