Human beings have always believed many odd things. Through false concepts certain mental pictures have been developed and accepted by them as natural effects of material causation. Even though oftentimes individuals, through a process of reasoning, conclude that such beliefs are fallacious, there is a human tendency to hold to the mental negatives from which images are quickly presented, often resulting in bewilderment and discomfiture.

For example, when the names of certain diseases are mentioned, mental pictures may flash, often producing waves of fear; when mention is made of the names of persons whose mode of living is regarded as undesirable, mental pictures may be projected with attendant animosity. Similarly, when descriptions of pestilence, disaster, and the like are heard, the human mind concurrently classifies the mental images, often disturbing the sense of peace.

So, the carnal or mortal mind renders one heavy laden with much that is untrue, unhelpful, unnecessary—totally unlike the fruits of spiritual thinking and living. And thus much confusion is found in the thinking of one who has not purged his consciousness with spiritual truth.

But Christian Science proves that the voice of Truth is forever uttering itself, ready to transform one's thinking; displacing worn-out beliefs with spiritual facts; exchanging the false human sense of things for true spiritual consciousness, where health and harmony are found. Fetters of human beliefs multiply in the thoughts of the materially-minded person, but such shackles fall away when he turns his thoughts sincerely towards the eternal verities of being.

Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you." As one realize this great fact in the way pointed out by Christian Science, any belief in the reality of discordant conditions is found to have no support, and so is dispelled through spiritual understanding. So that when heaven, the kingdom of God, referred to by Paul as "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," reigns within, one finds his consciousness changed from a material to a spiritual basis of thought and action.

For the man who has found and proved God, good, to be the all-pervading power, contrary beliefs are dispelled. Such a one can never again believe the devil or evil to be real. When the provable truth concerning any situation is apprehended, the opposite deception of the carnal mind is set at naught; fables of all kinds disappear from our consciousness. To grasp the great fact of man's existence as subject only to the immutable law of God, means to silence the claims of evil and to prove that evil has no place, no presence, no power.

How unnecessary it is for men to carry on their daily activities with a load of false beliefs imposed by superstition, ignorance, and other falsities of the carnal mind! Paul said, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." Childish beliefs in fairies and the like are discarded through matured reasoning. So are other equally erroneous beliefs dispelled from the thoughts of men by Christianly scientific reasoning and demonstration.

When a person enters the lower grades of our institutions of learning, he begins to experience certain changes of thought. This continues until, after going through the prescribed course of higher learning, he becomes thoroughly familiar with a given subject. His possession of the facts dispels the ignorant beliefs he formerly entertained. With such knowledge, with provable understanding of his subject, under no circumstances could he, or would he, return to his former views.

Mrs. Eddy has written (Science and Health, p. 248): "We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model?" She continues farther on, "To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way."

Christian Science points the way from the imperfection of material models to the joy and harmony of spiritual ideals. These ideals are not theoretical, but, on the contrary, they unfold more and more in a most practical way, as we seek divine guidance and offer unceasing prayer for light and wisdom.

There is no power to force us to think what we do not want to think. As we search the heart, we find what we are entertaining, what we are admitting as mental guides, into our consciousness. Thereupon we detect the falsities produced by man-made beliefs, and turn from such burdensome and negative thinking to the refreshment of ever-available spiritual ideas. With a genuine desire to know realities, positive ideas that help and heal, we entertain angels, "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality" (ibid., p. 581), which dispel all illusions. Thus we free ourselves from the bondage of the carnal or mortal mind, and are ready for progress, onward and upward, to greater heights of demonstration and permanent peace.