Cultivation of the perceptive faculty is a primary requirement for one who would demonstrate Christian Science effectively. One's ability to appraise correctly everything of which he is conscious should be brought out more and more incisively. By such ability one knows that this or that state of thought is righteous and real, and that an opposite so-called state of thought is unrighteous and illusory. By it he recognizes the good thought whose manifestation he sees, and by it the evil thought whose manifestation human sense claims to see. Thus he is enabled to employ specific truth to nullify specific error.

The foregoing is a large requirement to material sense, indeed an impossible one; but to spiritual sense it presents neither difficulty nor mystery. For the perceptive faculty is closely allied to spiritual sense, according to Mary Baker Eddy, the great Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and the forever Leader of its adherents. In her sermon entitled "Christian Healing" she writes (p. 14), "You must first mentally educate and develop the spiritual sense or perceptive faculty by which one learns the metaphysical treatment of disease."

The perceptive faculty to which Mrs. Eddy thus refers is infinitely more penetrating than intellectual analysis. It supplements human reason and is therefore not limited to it. It is that spiritual capacity to be conscious of God and of spiritual reality which none but the pure in heart can know.

By emphasizing the primary importance of cultivating spiritual sense Mrs. Eddy was true, as always, to the divine method of Christian Science. Since spiritual sense is the sense of divine Spirit, or God, the successful cultivation of spiritual sense, or the perceptive faculty, is synonymous with the enthronement of divine Mind, God, as the Mind of man. All true perception is in this Mind. That is the starting point from which all reality, that is, all conscious being, is seen, felt, and understood on the factual basis on which it rests.

Jesus knew that perception is a faculty of pure Mind. He referred to the thought of pure Mind in terms that hint of childlikeness, because such thought is untainted by alien or material beliefs and therefore knows reality without a flaw. Alluding thus to the clarity of spiritual perception as contrasted with the blindness of intellectual presumption, the master Christian uttered this prayer of gratitude (Matt. 11:25): "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."

Far from being an abstract statement, this prayer of Christ Jesus has large meaning for every individual in the so-called practical affairs of his daily life. It is an acknowledgment that men and women who align thought with God, divine Mind, perceive only the goodness of God and know not bondage to evil. In arresting words Mrs. Eddy relates the power of this perception in human experience (Christian Healing, p. 14): "Metaphysical or divine Science reveals the Principle and method of perfection,—how to attain a mind in harmony with God, in sympathy with all that is right and opposed to all that is wrong, and a body governed by this mind."

On this basis of dwelling in the consciousness of all that is true and having no consciousness of what is untrue, the perceptive faculty, so valuable in Christian Science, is employed to define reality. To human sense the procedure may appear to be the distinguishing of the eternal from the temporal, followed by acknowledgment of the eternal and rejection of the temporal. Actually it is utilization of divine Mind, to which the temporal does not appear.

Every effort to attain this grand result is commendable. Thought devoted to the analysis of evil is essential, if the analysis is carried to the point where evil is seen for what it is, namely, nothing. But thought which sees evil as nothing can only be spiritual, the thought which constitutes the consciousness of man. Unspiritual thought, so called, can never see the nothingness of evil, for unspiritual thought is itself the claim of evil reality. Unspiritual thought is incapable of being actually employed. Employment of spiritual sense is utilization of the perceptive faculty. Its perception is single. It sees only spiritual reality.

Thus the accusation against a so-called mortal that he is sick is met by the perceptive faculty, or spiritual sense, which cannot see a sick man, but demonstrates the nothingness of the accusation by seeing only the well man God made. In like manner, the accusation against a mortal that he is defeated, insulted, exposed to injury and death, is penetrated and dispelled by the perceptive faculty. For that faculty cannot see a mortal, but always sees with uninterrupted clarity the man composed of qualities that bear witness to the presence of the divine Mind, from which they spring.

Often in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy speaks of reading thought. She makes it clear that immortal Mind-reading and mortal mind-reading need definition. And she elucidates the former as accomplished by spiritual understanding, which reveals divine purpose and enables him who employs it to know divine Principle, God, and all that flows from God. Reading of mortal mind is done on the basis of immortal Mind's knowledge of the reality of its own ideas, which knowledge displaces as unreal the opposite so-called notions of mortal mind. Such reading of mortal mind destroys specific falsehood, but never attributes reality to it.

The perceptive faculty which discerns the exclusive presence of spiritual good nevertheless appreciates the mission of the Saviour. Mortal sense, in its illusion of sinful existence, believes it needs to be saved. Immortal sense, the endowment of the spiritual idea of divine Mind, knows that no Saviour is needed, for the spiritual idea is already perfect. This true idea appearing in human consciousness dispels as illusion all mortal sense which feels that it needs a Saviour.

This is the Christ, the power of God, which saves by revealing the perfect man, who needs no salvation, and relegating to unreality the false claim to presence of any person or anything in need of being rescued. The perceptive faculty is the healing agent. It is spiritual sense, which is the only consciousness and which is conscious only of good.

There is no mortal mind; there is only divine Mind, God. Understanding of this is primary. It results in the perception that there is no mortal man, but only immortal man, the child of God. This perception comprehends the glories of reality, which so-called material sense can never know. The Apostle Paul sums it up in eloquent words (I Cor. 2:9): "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

George Channing