SELF-IMMOLATION is necessary to the process of salvation. Originally the word "immolation" stood for the sacrificial rite of sprinkling meal upon an animal which was to be placed upon the altar for sacrifice. The human mind, misinterpreting the divine demand, and placing the process of self-purification upon a material basis, lost sight of the fundamental spiritual significance of sacrifice.
In Christian Science we learn that self-immolation, or self-sacrifice, is the giving up of the material for the spiritual, that is, exchanging material thinking for spiritual thinking. The method is spiritual, for error cannot save itself from error. We give up the unreal as we understand what is real. Jesus prayed, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth."
When we sacrifice a false sense for divine Truth we may also surrender a material object; but even the giving up of some material thing involves a mental process. For example, a person who has been healed of the tobacco habit may at the time believe that he is merely giving up tobacco, but what he has actually given up is his belief that there is any real pleasure in indulging this habit. The human mind has educated itself to attach undue importance to matter. How much more simple and practical would be self-sacrifice if we thought more of mentally giving up a false belief than a material thing!
