Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, understood the relationship between belief and disease. When explaining how different phenomena appear to the physical senses, she wrote, “When I learned how mind produces disease on the body, I learned how it produces the manifestations ignorantly imputed to spirits. I saw how the mind’s ideals were evolved and made tangible; and it matters not whether that ideal is a flower or a cancer, if the belief is strong enough to manifest it” (Christian Healing, p. 6).
We are not helpless! If images of disease present themselves to us, we can rapidly dismiss them. We can agree with health and disagree with disease. We can exercise our God-given dominion to stay spiritually minded and keep our thought in a good healthy place.
Don’t submit to harmful beliefs. Master them!
Thank you for this nugget Evan, I hadn’t come across that statement from Mrs Eddy before and it’s so compelling and helpful
If we truly have an all powerful God then good is our ONLY source of ideas..
There will not be a struggle between good and evil thoughts..
My part is to WATCH MY THOUGHTS..
Look only on the beautiful, good and true.. And that will be my experience..
That is a very hard to understand and confusing quote from MBE. A person not acquainted with CS will think we are very strange. If I had not been studying Christian Science for 50 years and I knew nothing about Christian Science, and I read that quote, I would stay away from Christian Science. “imputed to spirits….whether that ideal is a flower or a cancer,”
Dear Bill,
Things can seem very confusing sometimes, I know, especially with some of
the deep metaphysics Mrs. Eddy has so lovingly written to us. Effort is needed
to understand what she has written, demonstrated and proven in her many
writings, sometimes, but it is well worth it to pursue and try to comprehend.
We are all students in this endeavor.
Hi Bill, thanks for your comment. I don’t think there is anyone who reads the Bible or writings in Christian Science and hasn’t thought, “what does that mean?!”. I’m so grateful for all of the different Bible translations that give added meaning to verses, and sometimes wish Mrs. Eddy’s writings had that too. Mrs. Eddy says in S&H in Preface vii “The time for thinkers has come”. I sometimes wonder if that’s why she used more unfamiliar words, so we’d look them up and really think about what she wrote. 🙂 I’ve read that she chose words carefully, and if a word/phrase was in italics it was something to pay attention to. In Alex Fischer’s lecture, “How spiritual perception brings healing” at the end of the lecture, at 58:02, he talks about reading the Bible & Science & Health like you were searching for a typo… really ponder what you are reading, as it’s the inspiration that really moves thought/consciousness to that higher view.
*For those that may not know, you can highlight a word, then right click on it and it will give you an option to “look up” the word in the dictionary, thesaurus. It’s a wonderful tool!
Alex’s Fischer’s lecture:
https://www.youtube.com/@christiansciencelectures
Looking at Bill’s comment, and reading J’s comment, I laughed outloud, as I realized my interpretation was a funny response ” awww, but that’s work” or “that’s too hard to do”.
When you begin as an infant as I was led to do, and continue on into maturity, your work reveals Truth, combined with healing s, then understanding is revealed along the way. Thank God for Mary Baker Eddy’s tenacity and for her revelation of her Bible based discovery. We can all learn that what she revealed, God already knows.
Understanding is revealed along the way. And it’s revealed to each individual in a way that is appropriate for them to gain the understanding they need. Those moments of revealing may come through prayer, praising God, study, reading articles, watching lectures, singing hymns and inspiration gained from Evan’s wonderful, loving blogs! ALL such joyful activities! A wonderful weekend to all!
Thank you dear “J”, that’s it a l l what you say !!!
Thank you Evan! Divine everpresent Love is working with us; teaching us, guiding us, healing us! The Bible admonitous us a thousand times to trust our loving allmighty God.
This SpiritView Blog is so wonderful; it impells us to think more deep or more thoroughly about Evan’s daily spiritual topic! And the comments are very interesting and lovely – thank you all. ♡♡♡
I just finished listening to Alex Fischer’s very practical and well expressed
lecture. Thank you so much for sharing it with us, dear J . There were so
many wonderful ideas brought out, but he kept touching on the power of
light and how darkness is nothing, really. I was reminded of this quote I had
written down …
“Don’t try to fight with the darkness. There is no way, because the darkness
does not exist – how can you fight with it? Just light a candle and the darkness
is gone. So forget about the darkness, forget about the fear. Forget about all
those negative things that ordinarily haunt the human mind. Just burn a small
candle of enthusiasm” – Osho
Yes, thanks dear Carol, wonderful clear. We must not fear and fight with darkness (error), just light a candle and darkness vanished. This truth I needed just now a lot.
And this evening I lit 3 adventscandles and next sunday we Germans light 4 adventscandles on a wreath standing in the middle on of our livingroom table. Advent means announcing the coming of the Christ.
It’s 2 am already on Monday here and I thank God for a wonderful day and sleep and rest in God’s arms of love.♡
Honestly, if a person hasn’t found a love for God, and the Christian Science view of that word, most of any of these discussions would sound very strange.
I think Mrs Eddy is teaching us that our thoughts and beliefs are more powerful than we realize. What we idealize, or think about the most “if our belief is strong enough” is bound to happen. In olden times bad things happening were imputed to be caused by “spirits”, the devil, evil powers. Good things attributed to chance, luck, possibly “God”.
So the imperative to “watch our thoughts”, or “stand porter at the door” of our thoughts, “admitting only what we know to be beautiful, good and true.” Choose a cancer, or a healthy body? or a flower.
I’m so glad to have been introduced to Christian Science.
“Stand[ing] porter at [our] door of thought” is so necessary, yes, P,
Thank you. Being critical thinkers and like Evan’s message yesterday with
the little rascal saying “No”… but sometimes we do need to say No … that
is, to eroneous thinking that would try to invade our thoughts. But, like a
flock of true spiritual angel messages, we must overcome evil with Good.
Oh, and those chal lenging thoughts – a lot that go over our head –
when we tune in to the Truth, we will eventually get the gist of all the
details needed to let our spirit soar into understanding… and our
thoughts will be filled with delightful Peace and harmony .
Hi Bill
To me that confusing sentence reminds me of when people used to go to seances and try to get “in touch” with their ancestors. Many charlatans were found to be preying upon people’s emotions. Reading some biographies of Mrs. Eddy opened me up to the culture of her time and her writings also sometimes include what the culture was. To me, very historically interesting.
so, in the words from this week’s lesson,
MBE S&H 381:27-28. Let us banish sickness as an outlaw, and abide by the rule of perpetual harmony, – God’s law
This is a very powerful statement of comfort from “Christian Healing”, and I thank you for reminding us of it.
Merry Christmas from all of us in the Hawaiian Islands.
Thank you for this declaration of divine Truth. It brings home the present unconditional
Love of God’s Being.. that is with us today, a year ago, actually for decades and on into
eternity.
No matter where we are in our journey to discover harmony in our lives, the flowers of
life are always with us, even in a snow storm in the cold of winter. Our garden of Mind’s
connection to Perfection is and always has been with us < We just need to be aware of
these bouquets of flowers (heavenly thoughts), like the snowflakes of angels gently
descending upon our thought… blanketing us with the warm comfort of divine Love/God's
ever presence. ( :
God is not conflicted, It is man’s who makes a reality of evil, in thought, as if there can be such a duality. The worse idea we can make for ourselves is to see God as some sort of man having a outline of a spiritual body. This idea would instantly limit the spiritual eternality and the monthesist basis for a self-existence expression based upon the infinite principle of one Mind having Life, Truth and Love manifesting many ideas, identities spiritually in Soul.
I believe Mary Baker Eddy clearly realized this aspect elaborating how our relation to God was wholly spiritual. There is no greater idea than realizing our perceptions in this relationship restores the individual to wholeness making the temple, idea of body, holy instead of governed by evil forces identified as sin, disease and death.
“What are you believing?” by Steve Cole:
https://sentinel.christianscience.com/shared/view/2gzsgfqm5w8?s=copylink
Thank you, Evan, for today’s topic and to everyone’s thoughts of Truth to contemplate.and keep close to our hearts. Mrs. Eddy’s choice of words to give us a fuller understanding of God’s perfect universe which He alone created were truly devinely chosen; pearls of great price.
Merry, joyous Christmas to all and a special Mele Kalikimaka to Leigh Ann in Hawai’i.
Thank you, Evan.
What an interesting sentence by MBE… I can understand how Bill feels, however, I often put myself in the shoes of a non-CS when I read S&H and other writings of Mrs E and I find this one to be very good from that point of view. Christian Scientists often get so so picky and “correctional” about words and phrases because we look at everything from OUR point of view, but most other people would simply read this “spirits” word with the lower case “s” as meaning the inner spiritual essence of each of us , so when you read it like that, it makes perfect sense. We really do have to stop being so “correct and by the book” and see ourselves from the non CS point of view so that we can communicate instead of being so caught up in our own ” private language” that there is no meeting point between us and others of other faiths (or no faith)
Your comment inspired more reflection, Diane W. Thank you. Sometimes we, as CS, can
get quite confused ourselves in knowing the meaning of things – or at least I do… and things
we Thought were “understood”, can seem very puzzling as to what changed in perception
or what is going on with the meaning as we try to interpret it. We are not “there” (wherever
there is), so it can be difficult to grasp a meaning of what Mrs. Eddy was thinking when she
wrote certain things and it can seem very perplexing and frustrating … mortally.
Certain things just do not seem to make sense CS way or the “other” way, sometimes. The
One Mind can seem invisible/distant? in comprehension, humanly speaking at these times.
But I guess we just need to try to delve into a deeper revelation of what was intended.
Coming here to Spiritview helps to understand better in acquiring a better knowledge of
what is meant.
Thank you all for the inspired divine Love which, despite the seeming lack of understanding,
sometimes, is always with us, ever present wherever we are and whatever we do. What a blessing!
One night at a Wednesday testimony meeting, I was ushering and wanted to pray for the people at the service as the Manual of The Mother Church states we should do. But what? How? So I asked God. What do I need to pray, to think about, to hold reverently in thought? The answer was soft and clear, but the message was that it had to be FIRMLY held to. It was that all at the meeting were loved by God who had a good plan for each one there, and would give just the right inspiration and guidance and understanding to each one individually in just the right way. Just what they needed at that moment and going forward. I did firmly hold to that the entire meeting.
The next week a visitor got up and said the week before they were mentally churning about a problem in their life that seemed unsolvable and unsettling. During the service, they felt a calm and in the mental quiet a clear direction to take came to them. They implemented it in the coming days and here, a week later it was on the way to solution to the benefit of all. She was grateful and knew it was the grace of God.
God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.
But it is essential to ASK God, KNOCK and the door will be opened, SEEK the answer from God. Ask for understanding of what you read even if you don’t know what it is that you need!
This is lovely Kay, thank you so much for sharing it. I really enjoyed reading how you prayed and the answers you received. As I’m thinking about your experience, it’s coming to thought that there is also another part (that we can struggle with), and that’s an expectation of an answer. Jesus said, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” (Mark 11:24). So your prayer had to be one of obedient listening, humility and an expectancy of an answer. What a wonderful example of answered prayer!
That was So Beautiful, Kay! Thank you for that wonderful inspiration!
I had a small experience of gratitude the other day. A dear friend had given me an
online Christmas advent calendar like she has done for several years now. However
this time, my computer was not working with it properly. I could see parts of it, so
went to their website to see if there was a hint of what to do. It said that with some
computers, the compatibility may not work. That was so sad, as there were a lot of fun
things that were not able to be accomplished. Several days later, they had sent out a
download to everyone – that they had upgraded the site. I thought.. Great, perhaps this
will fix the glitch! Trouble is, after the upgrade, Nothing!! worked at all no matter what
I did. Two windows kept jumping back and forth and nothing was working. I prayed
that this kindness that was shared, should not go unrewarded. Then the thought came
to restart the computer and Every thing was working the way it should and had in the
past.
It was such a delightful demonstration of the Truth, which was Always there, but I just
wasn’t tuned in (able) to access it.
It is like our True Being. We are Always held in God’s dear Love and care… even
in the times when things Appear to be so muddled in our limited understanding.
Thank you again, dear Kay, for your very helpful and loving inspiration!