Christian Science makes a unique and healing contribution to questions relating to consciousness, showing what it is, how it works, and if it has a hidden lower layer, subconsciousness. Psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis, attracting much attention in this century, generally include the theory that unconscious mental processes are primary factors shaping the life and experience of each one of us far more than we realize.

Mrs. Eddy, too, recognized that—in mortal belief—there is an unconscious area of thought that could hide beliefs producing discord. She writes of some instances of bodily discord, "The belief that produces this result may be wholly unknown to the individual, because it is lying back in the unconscious thought, a latent cause producing the effect we see." ^{Christian Healing, p. 6;}

But Christian Science doesn't leave the situation in the realm of the seeming, of unconscious thought. It alerts us to this as a false claim that may need our specific denial when we are mentally treating disease in Christian Science. And we can make this denial from the basis of the oneness of divine Mind and consciousness. Through Mrs. Eddy's writings we gain the understanding of these spiritual facts and learn the way to demonstrate them in healing illnesses, no matter what forms they seem to assume.

Popular theories about the human mentality have generally been arrived at after observation of thought processes, behavior, and individual history—dreams, childhood relationships and events. Christian Science, or the Science of Mind, begins with God, utilizes spiritual sense to establish the facts of God, Mind, and man, and draws different yet practical conclusions that aid us in finding peace and self-understanding. Mrs. Eddy emphasizes, "The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind,—that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle." ^{Science and Health, p. 275;}

The bedrock on which this demonstrable Science builds is that infinite Mind is the only I or Ego. Mind is God and Mind is divine. The only consciousness there is or ever can be is divine consciousness. Any other kind of consciousness there may seem to be is not a kind of consciousness but a self-destroying lie—an attempt of mortal mind (itself causeless) to claim an effect. Consciousness is as unbounded as the divine Mind, of which it is the outcome. Since there is nowhere that infinite Mind is not, there is nowhere that divine consciousness is not. Mind and its knowing are coincident. Therefore there is no unconsciousness, no subconsciousness, no death, no ignorance, no hidden influence.

God, Mind, is the only determinant of man's life, leaving no room for sinister or devious thoughts and actions. There is no basement consciousness of mysterious shadows and impulsions underneath divine consciousness: Mind has no underneath or outside. Mind's knowing is the only action there is. Mind is the great—only—motivator; hence all true action is intelligent, beneficent, and meaningful. Man carries out the dictates of Mind, and these always lead to and from perfection. Man's individuality is spiritual, impersonal.

Self-knowledge gained from sense testimony about us is quite misleading. It concludes that man is a finite mortal, with a localized mind and a fallible personality. This view induces limitation and confusion. It's the source of all human suffering. But the self-knowledge we acquire through spiritual sense ultimates in better self-adjustment and a fuller and richer life. The man spiritual sense reveals is not mortal personality but spiritual individuality. The real man, the spiritual outcome of God, doesn't have either a quirky or a sound consciousness held in the brain, from where it affects the nervous system, behavior, and stability.

Christ Jesus' healing of the mentally ill never resulted from one mortal consciousness analyzing another according to human hypotheses. He didn't discuss the problem as a mortal conscious condition, engaging in a course of probing childhood resentments or frustrations.

Permanent healing did not arise from one finite consciousness treating another. But divine Mind, recognized as the only source of consciousness, healed the claim of disturbed personal consciousnesses. As Paul stated the truth Christ Jesus proved, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." ^{II Tim. 1:7.}

In truth, there are neither layers of consciousness nor millions of fragments of consciousness, despite the belief of mortal sense that there are. What's wrong is never really in a finite consciousness; the problem is our admission of a finite consciousness. Real consciousness manifests the order and calm, the steadiness and purposefulness, of the one Mind, God. Consciousness is shaped by Mind and so is never misshapen. It exists free of mortal complexes and phobias and illegitimate repressions and inhibitions. Man's true consciousness is in perfect unity with Mind, the Father-Mother God, and can never be the victim of parental misjudgments or mishandling or false education. True consciousness is not molded by mortals.

The divine Mind, God, always the residence of true consciousness, keeps consciousness perfect, free, and fearless. This is the great contribution of the psychology that is the Science of Mind, God.

Geoffrey J. Barratt