One day as I was walking along the main street of a large city I came to a small store or office. Inside sat a woman dressed in white; but what arrested my attention was a large sign over the doorway that read, "Have your blood pressure tested." This set me to thinking about the various phases of pressure under which mankind seem to live: atmospheric pressure, blood pressure, the pressure of business, social, and political affairs.
On reaching home I turned to the writings of Mrs. Eddy to learn what she says on the subject. A search of her published works with the aid of the Concordances revealed that she uses the word "pressure" but once. On page 451 of Science and Health, she states, "Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate."
The only pressure recognized by Christian Science is the pressure exerted by Truth upon the human mind to make it give up its materialistic beliefs. This is not exerted on the real man, God's image and likeness, for he has never been entangled in the erroneous beliefs of matter and mortality. He knows and acknowledges only one power, that of Spirit. He lives in the serene atmosphere of Love, where the only activity is the constant unfolding of good.
Jesus made a demand upon mankind similar to the apostolic command when he declared to Nicodemus (John 3:3), "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Many individuals today find it difficult, as Nicodemus did, to accept this requirement and live up to it, for they are so steeped in false theology and material thinking that the allness of Spirit seems incredible.
Christian Science shows that many of one's inharmonies, sicknesses, limitations, and frustrations are the direct results of one's conscious or unconscious resistance to the unfolding of Truth in one's consciousness. As one ceases this resistance and with consecration and humility takes the necessary mental footsteps "to come out from the material world" and to separate himself from the mesmeric beliefs of materiality, the pressures of mortal existence will gradually diminish until there is nothing left to oppose the glory and honor of Love or to challenge the allness of the one divine Mind.
In one's progress out of materiality, one finds that it is not enough to refuse the ministrations of materia medica; he must also reject every false law of anatomy, physiology, biology, and false theology. He cannot continue to believe in a material body, which Christian Science might heal or make better, and at the same time accept the fact that all creation is divinely spiritual. He must discard the belief that he has a material body, either sick or healthy, and know that man's body or identity is incorporeal, the reflection of Spirit, as perfect as Spirit is perfect. He must realize that even though they may seem to be physical conditions, the seeming illnesses are but beliefs of mortal mind, which disappear as they are replaced in consciousness with Truth.
If one seems to be suffering from what is called high blood pressure or from any of its attendant ills, let him wholeheartedly reject as false the theory that man's life is dependent upon the coursing of material blood, normally or abnormally, in a material body. Let him realize that activity is in reality a function of Spirit, reflected in Mind's idea, man. Let him declare with conviction that he is not made up of flesh and blood, even though he seems to be, but that he is the expression of Mind, right here and right now. As he does this mental work and his consciousness becomes imbued with Truth, the mesmeric so-called force of material suggestions will be proved to be of no effect at all. Then he can rejoice in the fulfillment of Jesus' promise (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
One Saturday evening a Christian Science practitioner was called to the home of a friend by the friend's daughter, who said that something serious had happened to her father. When the practitioner arrived at the house, he recognized the material evidence of what mortal mind has named a stroke of paralysis. He began at once to mentally refute the evidence of the material senses with the facts of man's true being.
He declared with conviction that man is not material but spiritual, the expression of infinite Spirit; that he is not subject to inharmony or discord of any kind, for there is only one power, the power of omnipotent and omnipresent Love; that he lives and moves and has his being in infinite Mind and can therefore experience only that which is Godlike; that he is the emanation of Life and is therefore the serene and perfect evidence of perfect activity. The practitioner also declared that a belief called high blood pressure is not true of man but is only an illusion of mortal sense and therefore has no being, no power, no presence; that this illusion cannot maintain itself in the presence of the truth of man.
The practitioner's thought then turned to what Mrs. Eddy says of man on page 475 of Science and Health. One statement stood out above all the others, namely the one which describes man as "that which has not a single quality underived from Deity." He realized that this truth actually applied to all those around him, including the friend's wife and daughter.
After about twenty minutes of prayerful work, the practitioner felt a calm and serene sense of good. He then offered to help his friend to go upstairs to bed. They went up the steps at first with difficulty; but by the time they had reached the top, the weakness had disappeared. The friend undressed himself and got into bed, talking and acting normally. The next day he was at his appointed post as usher in a Christian Science church, and there was no evidence of the experience of the night before.
The practitioner did not try to use Christian Science to make matter well. He separated human consciousness from the errors that could claim to mesmerize it. Then the darkness of error disappeared, revealing man as the perfect son of God, as he has always been. This divine perfection was then shown forth in what human thought has determined to be humanly normal.
After an experience of this kind one is certain he can "come out from the material world" and separate himself from any sense of pressure, disease, and discord. He is grateful to Mrs. Eddy for pointing out the necessity of human evangelization. Her promises and instructions take on new meaning, including those given on page 516 of Science and Health where she writes, "The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere."
