Editorial November 16, 1963 Issue

An Exchange of Consciousness

Helen Wood Bauman

Humanity would always like to be rid of its sufferings and sometimes of its sins. But not often is it willing to be rid of the material consciousness in which these evils occur. Christian Science impels a different attitude in those who accept it, for this scientific Christianity reveals spiritual consciousness to be the only real consciousness; and this leads Scientists to make serious efforts to reject material consciousness on the basis that it is spurious and the source of all humanity's troubles and limitations.

The suffering, finite, self-deluded sense of life, which ends in death, loses its intensity and disappears in the measure that material consciousness is exchanged for individual spiritual consciousness, which is cognizant only of the good and immortal. To bring about this exchange, one needs to understand that pure consciousness, the individual reflection of divine Mind, is one's real self, one's identity, and that it persists forever in Mind. It is never dependent upon flesh or mindless matter for existence but entirely upon God, or good.

Mary Baker Eddy explains in "Unity of Good" (p. 21): "Individual consciousness in man is inseparable from good. There is no sensible matter, no sense in matter; but there is a spiritual sense, a sense of Spirit, and this is the only consciousness belonging to true individuality, or a divine sense of being." The real man has no more consciousness of evil than has God, and this can be proved when it is understood.

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