Editorial September 2, 1961 Issue

Pure Consciousness

Helen Wood Bauman

Part of a definition of "consciousness" is, "A mind; a single mental life." Christian Science describes man as an individual consciousness, but not as an independent mind. For man is the idea of divine Mind and emanates from Mind as its multifarious, conscious reflection. Mary Baker Eddy says in "Unity of Good" (p. 24): "All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God,—an infinite, and not a finite consciousness. This consciousness is reflected in individual consciousness, or man, whose source is infinite Mind."

From an absolutely pure Mind, there can emerge only an absolutely pure emanation. Hence man is as pure as his source, as incapable of pollution as is Mind. The man here referred to is the one described in the first chapter of Genesis, the man made in God's likeness—not the sinful counterfeit of man described in the second chapter.

Scientific Christianity corrects the generally accepted belief that a mortal is man, and it brings to light God's spiritual man as he exists in Science, in ultimate reality. Furthermore, Christian Science shows that a mortal is not a body in which a finite mind resides, but that the material body is in the carnal, or mortal, mind— its subjective delusion. In other words, the physique is a mortal thought, as is every bodily condition and every material object that appears to the corporeal senses.

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