It is generally believed that what we experience determines what we think, but Christian Science teaches that our thinking determines our experience. For instance, wicked thoughts result in wicked acts; fearful thoughts often make one vulnerable to harm; lustful thoughts express themselves in sensual lives; hateful thoughts are apt to cause one to react violently to situations. Because of the thought-and-act relationship, a correction of thought brings about an improvement in action, and this has its effect upon our experience.

Thought has a greater effect upon the body than is generally recognized, although more attention is being directed to this subject all the time. When we think of our bodies as useful servants, we assume a normal control over them, as is brought out by this statement of Mary Baker Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 208): "A material body only expresses a material and mortal mind. A mortal man possesses this body, and he makes it harmonious or discordant according to the images of thought impressed upon it."

Our consciousness is much like a field in which crops are grown. The better the cultivation, the better the crops. But farmers are well aware of the care that must be taken in the selection of seed. The familiar and oft-repeated parable of the tares and wheat in the Bible has application to our thinking and alerts us to the need of holding guard over the thoughts we accept (see Matt. 13: 24—30).

The owner of the field sowed good seed, but tares that he did not plant came up with the wheat. Where did they come from? "An enemy hath done this," the owner explained. Verse 25 reads, "While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way." A moral to this parable is this: if the enemy had been detected, the tares would not have been planted.

Christian Scientists are learning that mortal mind would impose upon human consciousness the thoughts which often appear in their experience as distressing conditions of the body; and they are proving their ability to keep out these unhealthy thoughts and so to thwart the enemy. They are greatly helped by this directive of Mrs. Eddy in the last paragraph in the chapter "Christian Science Practice" (Science and Health, p. 442): "Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake."

Consider for a moment the superstitious warning, "Don't get your feet wet, or you'll catch cold." This is ignorant malpractice, which, unless recognized as such and handled, may have harmful results. A Christian Scientist who is alert immediately detects the spuriousness of such a suggestion and refuses to allow himself to be governed by it. He knows that he is governed by understanding, not by superstition. He realizes that if he experiences discomfort as a result of such a harmless condition as getting his feet wet, it is because, through lack of alertness, he has allowed aggressive mental suggestion to control his thought.

There is a season of the year —called the hay fever season— which some individuals dread. The discomfort which results from the belief that they are allergic to fertilizing elements of certain flowering plants is not necessarily due to physical contact. It is due rather to the aggressive suggestion which assigns supersensitivity to certain persons and ascribes to pollen the ability to produce such an unnatural condition.

In Science and Health we read (p. 184), "Belief produces the results of belief, and the penalties it affixes last so long as the belief and are inseparable from it." Then, as we continue, we read, "The remedy consists in probing the trouble to the bottom, in finding and casting out by denial the error of belief which produces a mortal disorder, never honoring erroneous belief with the title of law nor yielding obedience to it."

Many who have been victimized by such erroneous suggestions have found complete freedom by overcoming the false belief with Truth rather than seeking immunity in some drug or serum or in endeavoring to remove themselves to more favorable or healthful areas.

Christ Jesus asked (Matt. 12: 29), "How can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man?" Mental malpractice is rendered impotent through the prayerful action that assigns all power and authority to God, divine Mind, and recognizes that His government is supreme on earth as in heaven. One's experience becomes harmonious as truth is admitted into consciousness and error is destroyed.

Jesus is our foremost example. His understanding of man's unity with God enabled him not only to remain untouched by mental malpractice but also to cast out devils of false belief, errors of mortal thought, that were the obsessions of others and to exercise the power of spiritual understanding that is indicated in his statement (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Ralph E. Wagers