Article April 18, 1953 Issue

PSYCHOLOGY, THE SCIENCE OF SPIRIT

RALPH CASTLE

IN the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 369), "The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the preventive and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science, as would be readily seen, if psychology, or the Science of Spirit, God, was understood." To grasp the full significance of this statement the reader needs to be mindful of Mrs. Eddy's explanation of, and distinction between, Soul capitalized when used as a synonym for God, and soul spelled with a small "s" when referring to material sense. (See Science and Health, p. 482.) In common usage psychology, originally defined as a study of the soul, possesses no spiritual meaning whatever and can only be associated with soul as portraying physical or material characteristics.

With comparatively few exceptions mankind's definition of soul has been, and still is, somewhat vague. There was a period when philosophers inclined toward a mystic interpretation and soul was designated as an immortal substance which distinguished men from brutes and enabled them to think and reason. The present tendency is to regard soul and its concomitants as related to the human mind. To quote a definition of "psychology" from a modern dictionary: "The science of the human mind or soul and its activities and capacities."

To discern the psychology of Spirit, God, Mrs. Eddy bearded the lion of materiality in its den of animality, reversed the material conception of soul, and discovered the spiritual fact that psychology in its true sense is indeed a study of Soul, but Soul capitalized and synonymous with God, Spirit. This scientific explanation completely repudiates the claim and definition that psychology is the science of the human mind and shows the fallacy of conclusions drawn from such an erroneous premise.

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