WILL an appeal, by the afflicted, to the subconscious mind, result in mental or physical harmony? In other words, is the subconscious mind, so called, a healer of disease? Let us examine for a moment this claimant to healing power, and scrutinize more or less closely its credentials. What is the so-called subconscious mind?
Assuming for the moment the hypothesis of the academic psychologists, with its classification of mind as the "conscious, the subconscious, and the superconscious," to be "scientific" the subconscious mind must of necessity abide in or be exemplified by the lower strata of consciousness; in other words, in the under, or lower, or imperfect state of consciousness. But consciousness, according to Watts, "must be an essential attribute of Spirit" (implying that Spirit must be the source of all life, without which there can be no consciousness), which implies reason, coherence, coordination, intelligence; subconsciousness must therefore necessarily constitute a condition or state of life expressed by lower intelligence, an imperfect or limited consciousness, a consciousness which is not able to exemplify reason. The mind of the animal propensities is of imperfect consciousness, falling below coherence, mental coordination, intelligence; the radical opposite of the super or spiritual consciousness, the "oversold" of the transcendentalists.
The subconscious mind, then, is the mind expressed by the verdict of the material senses,—the five physical senses, —unmodified by the correctives of reason, coherence, mental coordination or intelligence, and represents in varying degree all forms of life not able to cognize reason, intelligence, or any of the attributes of Spirit, and no other conclusion is logically or scientifically possible if the academic classification of mind is scientifically correct. Webster, however, also defines mind as "the intelligent power in man;" the "subconscious" is therefore not mind at all, because it falls below "intelligent power." But as this "subconscious mind" is, by its own limitations, confined to the material, the things revealed to or cognized by the senses, it could by no possibility have been the Mind that was in Christ Jesus,—the Mind that enabled him to perform his mighty works, for they were done in absolute defiance of all so-called material "law," which he never recognized as law.
The supporters of academic psychology may object strenuously to this introduction of the theory of the divine economy into a scientific inquiry, and to having it dissected by other than its own terminology, but in the modern scientific investigation, where theory is but the small change of human thought and demonstration the only scientific legal tender, no philosophy or so-called science may be exclusively measured by its own foot rule. To do otherwise might have placed the atomic theory above the mutations of time and of human experience. In itself the annihilation of the atomic theory by its own friends, the material scientists, through their accidental discovery of superior but unexplained material phenomena, would not in itself constitute a matter of large moment, but it at once becomes a matter of great moment to humanity when it is known that the science of chemistry is based upon the atomic theory, and that the modem science of the theory and practice of medicine is based on the science of chemistry. There is, then, no scientific basis for chemistry or medicine, since no scientist living can define matter except in the symbols of a science which has no determined basis, but which consists in fact of an infinite mass of unexplained phenomena, which at the present moment is not symbolized as matter, but the basis of which is force,—unknown, and at present undetermined; except in the suppositional terminology of radio-activity, ions, etc.
This is not an attack upon the devotees of these sciences, medical practitioners and their aides ranking with other high-class types of humanity; it is a mere explication of the austerity of truth as a master; and it is pertinent to mention here that chemical action and reaction are not absolute, —that the so-called material "elements" are not ultimate, that the transmutation of metals is no longer a mere dream, that the "natural" forms of matter are the invisible or gaseous forms ("the earth was without form, and void"), revealing themselves unerringly in solar spectrum, in unvarying order, in lines of color; order indicating intelligence, Mind, and the Mind necessarily superior to the cosmos with its milli-myriad phenomena!
The scientist, then, who insists exclusively on the materialistic philosophy as a working formula, is by his own limitations debarred from any scientific discussion of Mind, for having no scientific definition of matter,—it being indeterminable by material science,—how can he discuss Mind, which is superior to matter? Even "force," which is a manifestation of intelligence, is, in physical science, scientifically undetermined, while intelligence, without which force is not understandable or indeed even thinkable, is self-evidently an attribute of Mind. That matter should precede Mind, and thus be superior to it, would not be an intelligent proposition; neither would be the proposition that the lower or imperfect forms of consciousness are superior to the higher,—the subconscious to the superconscious. The discussion of the obvious is not usually considered profitable.
But if mankind fall into a consciousness of disease, by what avenues of approach or sensation does it come? Most certainly not through the super or most intelligent or spiritual consciousness, for sickness being a matter of sense testimony or sense material experience, it could not come by the superconsciousness, the consciousness which is "an attribute of Spirit," for Spirit does not bear sense testimony, else it would not be Spirit, and Spirit and spiritual consciousness is not of the senses—between them a great gulf is fixed. "Disease consciousness," therefore, being a matter of sense testimony, must inevitably be the testimony of that state of consciousness farthest removed from and most unlike the super, or spiritual; viz., the subconsciousness, the lower or imperfect state of consciousness which is not mind at all.
It is not only scientific but eminently in accord with the divine order of things that disorganization, disintegration, discord, should be the sign manual of the lower, the imperfect, the subconscious, the unreasoning, the incoordinate; of that which is wholly unlike spiritual consciousness; of that which is unlike the perfect, infinite Mind,—God, good. The subconscious being the procurer of all disease, and being manifested in that imperfect unreasoning, incoordinate, unspiritual state of consciousness which is not mind, but dis-ease, sickness, how then can it reverse itself and become the healer of its own discords? Can the imperfect, the discordant, become the perfect, the harmonious? It is like an imperfect mathematical statement whose terms do not agree with the basic truths of mathematics; having neither principle, coherence, coordination, reason, intelligence, nor harmony, it has no right to be nor can it be expressed in the terms of the scientific.
Christian healing is the phenomena of Mind, not matter, the Mind which was manifested in Christ Jesus, the Mind revealed in Christian Science. That Christ Jesus performed the mighty works attributed to him in Holy Writ, through Christian Science, rests not solely on Biblical authority or history contemporaneous with his time, for the same works are being done now, in the same way, by the same means; viz., by Christian Science,—the power of the perfect, the divine Mind. The "subconscious mind" (so called) may by the endless repetition of its own formula hypnotize itself into temporarily forgetting its own functional discords; but it cannot heal, because it does not redeem, make whole.
The ultra material scientist, while admitting the operations of the human mind (with its psychological corollaries), because its operations may be measurably seen, measured, or determined, may protest against this introduction into a scientific inquiry, of the divine Mind,—"that which cannot be seen, measured, or determined, by material sense,"— but the whole structure of physical science is built upon the atom, which does not now and never did exist except as a mere theory—a supposititious entity, upon which the effort has been made to build a system of science which is independent of infinite Mind as First Cause. Did the atom exist, it could not be "seen, measured, or determined," while the operations of infinite Mind in Christian Science amount to scientific demonstration, and may be seen and determined by all men: thus scientifically demonstrating the law of Mind (Spirit) to be superior to the supposed laws of matter.
If intelligence be superior to unintelligence, if mind be superior to matter, then the higher the intelligence, or the more perfect the mind, the greater the dominion over "matter" and all the discords of other so-called "intelligences" not equal to itself. This includes all the man-made classifications of mind, with their assumption of conscious life or existence separate from or independent of God, and their inevitable resultant discords of disease and death. The essential teaching of Christian Science as set forth in all the writings of Mrs. Eddy, notably in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is that in proportion as we understand, become like, or at-one with divine Mind, to that extent we rise above sin, sickness, and death,—the phenomena or phantasma of false sense or mortal mind. Says Mrs. Eddy, "God is infinite, the only Life, substance, Spirit, or Soul, the only intelligence of the universe, including man.... Mind is not both good and bad, for God is Mind; therefore there is in reality one Mind only, because there is one God" (Science and Health, p. 330). These truths demonstrated in our dominion over the discords of the human and imperfect sense of life,—a sense of life separate from, God or perfect Mind,—wins for Christian Science the respect, or at least the unprejudiced consideration of all.
Forty years ago the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science anticipated the most advanced science of today when she declared the nothingness of matter, and said (Science and Health, p. 273), "There is no material truth;" and that "deductions from material hypotheses are not scientific." She thus impeached the atomic theory, with all the necessarily erroneous "sciences" built thereon, and through demonstration made known—determined, classified —the undefined "force," the present-day scientific formula, of the ultimate, to be God, "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." "Jesus of Nazareth," she declares, "was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause" (Science and Health, p. 313).
The demonstrations of force by Christian Science in the healing of organic disease and the destruction of evil involve the manifestation of an adequate Cause,—that intelligence is infinite, changeless, omnipresent good; no other cause would be adequate. It demonstrates Truth as one Mind, one God; it destroys the unscientific material hypothesis of minds many,—the modern unscientific psychology of the schools,—and sets a new mile-post in the scientific progress of mankind toward the goal of absolute Science, for as the Master said, "The kingdom of God is not in word but in power." Thus Science and revelation meet, and lo! they are one, and that one is Christian Science!
