  It is admitted that mortals think wickedly and act wickedly: it is beginning to be seen by thinkers, that mortals think also after a sickly fashion. In common parlance, one person feels sick, another feels wicked. A [15] third person knows that if he would remove this feeling in either case, in the one he must change his patient's consciousness of dis-ease and suffering to a consciousness of ease and loss of suffering; while in the other he must change the patient's sense of sinning at ease to a sense of [20] discomfort in sin and peace in goodness. This is Christian Science: that mortal mind makes sick, and immortal Mind makes well; that mortal mind makes sinners, while immortal Mind makes saints; that a state of health is but a state of consciousness made mani- [25] fest on the body, and vice versa; that while one person feels wickedly and acts wickedly, another knows that if he can change this evil sense and consciousness to a good sense, or conscious goodness, the fruits of goodness will follow, and he has reformed the sinner. [30] Now, demonstrate this rule, which obtains in every [1] line of mental healing, and you will find that a good rule works one way, and a false rule the opposite way. Let us suppose that there is a sick person whom an- other would heal mentally. The healer begins by mental [5] argument. He mentally says, “You are well, and you know it;” and he supports this silent mental force by audible explanation, attestation, and precedent. His mental and oral arguments aim to refute the sick man's thoughts, words, and actions, in certain directions, and [10] turn them into channels of Truth. He persists in this course until the patient's mind yields, and the harmonious thought has the full control over this mind on the point at issue. The end is attained, and the patient says and feels, “I am well, and I know it.” [15] This mental practitioner has changed his patient's consciousness from sickness to health. The patient's mental state is now the diametrical opposite of what it was when the mental practitioner undertook to transform it, and he is improved morally and physically. [20] That this mental method has power and bears fruit, is patent both to the conscientious Christian Scientist and the observer. Both should understand with equal clear- ness, that if this mental process and power be reversed, and people believe that a man is sick and knows it, and [25] speak of him as being sick, put it into the minds of others that he is sick, publish it in the newspapers that he is failing, and persist in this action of mind over mind, it follows that he will believe that he is sick,—and Jesus said it would be according to the woman's belief; but if [30] with the certainty of Science he knows that an error of belief has not the power of Truth, and cannot, does not, produce the slightest effect, it has no power over [1] him. Thus a mental malpractitioner may lose his power to harm by a false mental argument; for it gives one opportunity to handle the error, and when mastering it one gains in the rules of metaphysics, and [5] thereby learns more of its divine Principle. Error pro- duces physical sufferings, and these sufferings show the fundamental Principle of Christian Science; namely, that error and sickness are one, and Truth is their remedy. [10] The evil-doer can do little at removing the effect of sin on himself, unless he believes that sin has produced the effect and knows he is a sinner: or, knowing that he is a sinner, if he denies it, the good effect is lost. Either of these states of mind will stultify the power to heal men- [15] tally. This accounts for many helpless mental practi- tioners and mysterious diseases. Again: If error is the cause of disease, Truth being the cure, denial of this fact in one instance and acknowledgment of it in another saps one's under- [20] standing of the Science of Mind-healing, Such denial |
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