On page 462 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy, the beloved Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, asks the pertinent question which has puzzled the thinkers of the ages: "Are thoughts divine or human? That is the important question." True psychology, or Christian Science, teaches that God, divine Mind, is the source of real thoughts, divine ideas. It further declares that material suggestions are the offspring of mortal mind, material sense, illusion. Therefore, real thoughts are divine and immortal, while all finite concepts are fallible and mortal. "Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established." Here is the recognition that God, Spirit, not matter, brain, or nerves, is the source of all true spiritual thought.
Of what avail is it to one burdened by the fear of this or that, harassed by the limiting and limited concepts of mortal mind, to be told that intelligence is circumscribed within matter and is dependent upon it for function and manifestation? Such an erroneous viewpoint ends in the conclusion that one is the victim of some condition beyond his control. Christian Science counteracts this error, and reveals through spiritual sense the allness of immortal Mind and its ideas. As we scientifically reflect divine Truth, Life, and Love, the divine ideas of infinite Principle become established in our thought and act as our thought. This puts to flight the fears and false conceptions of material sense.
A student of Christian Science, while still attending school, listened to a classroom description and verdict of human psychology as to the supposed tenacity of habits or repeated occurrences in one's experience. He had been struggling with a distressing affliction which kept repeating itself in his experience, and this classroom incident greatly increased his fear and, for a period, burdened him with a false sense of the hopelessness of his situation. However, instead of continuing to listen to this aggressive suggestion, he turned to God, Love, as his sole hope of salvation. A sincere devotion to and consistent study and application of Christian Science lessened and finally completely overcame this condition. During succeeding years the student has passed through several trying experiences, yet the truths of Christian Science have proved adequate to forestall and annul every claim of error and to give him mastery over evil.
On page 544 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says: "No mortal mind has the might or right or wisdom to create or to destroy. All is under the control of the one Mind, even God." Accepting these true statements, one must instantly stop contemplating so-called mortal mind as an entity, power, or intelligent, destructive cause; one must stop wondering as to the origin of erroneous, distressing suggestions of evil and, instead, be diligent in keeping out of thought all that does not express the nature of God, all-inclusive good. Only as error is admitted as a reality into human thought does it seem to have influence and effect.
God's thoughts are spiritual, healthful, harmony-producing ideas which admit of no element of affliction because they have no consciousness of error. They never cause distress, for they express the omnipresence of divine Truth and the divinity of good. They are governed wholly by divine Science, which, operating in infinity, forever excludes imperfect concepts from the realm of reality. God's thoughts are at one with divine Life, Truth, and Love, and reflect throughout eternity the substance of Spirit and the beauty of Soul. When human thought responds and corresponds only to divine ideas, harmony will be known to be the only fact of being. The real man can never be known apart from God's ideas, for these constitute the very substance and essence of his being. Man is not a human objectification, severed from infinite Love and vainly trying to reach the Principle of his being. Man is the perfect image of divine Love, coexistent with Life, coeternal with Truth, governed entirely by Principle, and abiding as idea in Mind. Only as we discern and realize true selfhood as the reflection of Soul, Spirit, can we grasp and utilize the Science of harmony which banishes all opposition to this fact from our experience.
Christian Science imbues human thought with the highest morality, which is a necessary foundation for right reasoning. Everything of which we are conscious comes to us as thought, and will appear mortal or immortal, imperfect or perfect, according as the basis of thought is in mortal mind, illusion, or in immortal Mind, reality.
Human existence can be improved only by spiritualizing human thought, for in this way we become conscious of righteousness, wholeness, health, and beauty. If a suggestion of sin, sickness, or disaster comes knocking at the portal of our thought through the five physical senses this is no reason for us to admit and agree with this false mental picture. We can immediately reach out to omnipresent Love, to true ideas of harmony and perfection, and so erase the deceptive materialistic impressions of mortal existence. The real man's oneness with God, Soul, Mind, can never be interrupted even for a moment, for he faithfully reflects the harmony of reality and the perfection of Principle without flaw or deficiency.
Infinite Mind is the creator of all that really exists, and creation, under its intelligent control, is harmonious and right. The basic error of human hypotheses is the belief that man is material and mortal, whereas he is spiritual and immortal. The real man is the individual expression of infinite Mind. The only result of holding in thought and shaping one's course to a false belief or concept is frustration and discord. As we hold in thought the true idea of man as the likeness of incorporeal Life and Love, which is our real and only selfhood, we shall meet with continuous harmony and triumph.
Spiritual discernment and demonstration of the spiritual facts of being so enlarge our capacity for constructive thought that we express more of the limitless abundance of immortal good and escape the enslaving habits and limiting beliefs of materiality. True psychology is the Science of divine Mind, wherein all reality is an emanation of immutable Truth, and it guides human thought to the inexhaustible source of all good. This Christian psychology reiterates these words of Paul: "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." This teaching is the antipode of so-called human psychology, which would make men victims of animal magnetism rather than victors over all error. Christian Science shows that sin and error are illusions, and proves that they have no real intelligence or force to influence mankind adversely.
It is stated of Christ Jesus that in his associations with others he "knew their thoughts." This spiritual process of thought-knowing, as utilized by Jesus, is foreign to human psychology, spiritualism, or psychoanalysis. It was the result of his deep spiritual discernment. The fallacies and errors of the human mind may lurk in secret and work their abominations under the cover of deception and the darkness of materiality, but the light of spiritual revelation uncovers and destroys them. Jesus' only aim in reading thought scientifically was for the purpose of correction, healing, and redemption. He could have succeeded in this work on no other basis.
One can approximate the Master's spiritual discernment only as one rids himself of the false belief of a multiplicity of individual minds. We can attain this discernment only on the basis of the allness of divine Mind—of Mind as conscious omnipresence, the only intelligence. Then whatever reflects not this one Mind is mortal mind, deception, inversion, lie, which has no real identity, personality, or consciousness. A conscious unity with unerring Principle enables one to detect, expose, and expunge the inverted images or fraudulent misrepresentations of mortal mind from human consciousness, the only place where they claim to have existence.
"We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought," writes Mrs. Eddy (Science and Health, p. 248). In the next paragraph we read, "We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives." This is the way to improve mental, moral, and physical conditions. Each one may demonstrate this process and correct the false beliefs of bodily derangement through spiritual understanding, by mental means alone. Spiritual man reflects the glory, beauty, power, and harmony of incorporeal Soul, God.
