Article January 25, 1947 Issue

Silencing Aggressive Mental Suggestions

VINCENT HOLLAND-PRYOR

It is not generally understood that the beliefs called sin, sickness, disease, and death are all without exception forms of aggressive mental suggestion, errors of belief in a mortal, material existence. However, in "the scientific statement of being," found on page 468 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy reveals the basic fact that man is spiritual. She concludes the statement with these words: "Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."

As we gain an understanding of man's true nature, we are able to distinguish the false material concept of man from the true, and are empowered to refute and silence whatever is not in accordance with the spiritual fact of being. Just as the eternal fact is that man is spiritual, so the persistent false belief is that man is material. This is the falsity that must be overcome, because on the falsity that there is life and intelligence in matter is built the whole superstructure called sin, disease, and death.

If we believe that man is material, then it follows that anything may happen to us which is associated with so-called material existence. We may seem to sin to be sick, to succumb to contagion, to have an accident, to make mistakes, to suffer, and finally to die. If, on the other hand, we know that we are in reality spiritual, we are in proportion to the clarity of this realization, free from these false beliefs or aggressive mental suggestions.

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