"IT is no more Christianly scientific to see disease than it is to experience it," Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 421). Christian Science reveals that Christianly scientific seeing means seeing that all reality is the creation of divine Mind, God, and is forever included in this perfect Mind; that since God is immutable good, His idea, man, has not fallen and never can fall from spiritual perfection. Mortal failings, then, are not attributable to man, the image and likeness of God, but to an educated belief that man is mortal.
Not only when we experience disease do we need to be healed of it. If we see disease as real, we must be healed. Never indifferent to one who seems to be experiencing disease, we give him all the loving compassion and tenderness we can; yet whatever error we see, must be healed in our own thought. Only as we do this are we being Christianly scientific. Indeed, Christ Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount considered that those are hypocrites who behold the error in another while indulging it themselves. He said (Matt. 7:5), "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
Christian Science teaches that disease is never more than an image in mortal mind made manifest on the body. An understanding of this shows both the necessity and the possibility of effacing the image of disease.
Christian Science teaches that the cause of disease is in the erring, sinning human mind and that its cure is in the divine Mind, God. Mrs. Eddy tells us (Science and Health, p. 411): "The procuring cause and foundation of all sickness is fear, ignorance, or sin. Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed." And she adds farther on, "Whatever is cherished in mortal mind as the physical condition is imaged forth on the body."
In its very efforts to free itself from disease, the world continues to enslave itself. Radio and television commercials, newspaper and magazine advertisements that offer remedies for the sundry ills of mankind serve to enlarge the image of disease in mortal thought instead of eliminating it. But the only way to free the world of disease is to efface the false image and replace it with spiritual ideas.
One not acquainted with Christian Science might consider this view of the cause and cure of disease as empty theorizing. But Christian Science shows that this view is a provable fact. The proof of Science is healing—not temporary relief, but complete healing.
The student of mathematics does not study in order to learn the answers to a few selected problems. He studies to understand the principle of mathematics so thoroughly that he can find the solution to any mathematical problem with which he is faced. The mere acceptance of the fact that the rules of mathematics are true does not solve the problem. The mathematician must understand the rules and how to apply them in order to get a correct answer.
So it must be with the Christian Scientist. He does not study Christian Science merely to heal a particular physical disease. He seeks to expand his understanding of the Science of Christianity, which Christ Jesus demonstrated, in order to grow in spirituality and approach the scientific certainty of the master Christian in his ability to prove the Principle of Christian healing.
To start from the premise of perfect God and perfect man as the only reality is basic to the effacement of disease. Man in God's likeness does not live in or because of a material body. His health cannot fluctuate; God, divine Principle, is the only source of his being. A mortal is not man: he is a mental misconception of man. The acceptance of this misconception fosters mortal mind's susceptibility to disease. Mankind want to free themselves from disease and its impositions. The key to this release is spiritual understanding. The book of Proverbs in the Bible says (4:7), "Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding."
The world believes that men see and are subject to all manner of discord. But let us remember this: what mortal mind does not see, the material senses cannot behold! To know this will help us to clear out the false images of this so-called mind. Error— sin, sickness, disease, death, lack, discord— must be seen as the thieving product of mortality, the mythology of today. From the human standpoint, it may seem a Herculean task to cleanse mortal mind of centuries of accumulated beliefs, but if considered from the standpoint of divine Science, the problem is not an impossible one. Mythological terrors have no control over the one who recognizes them as mythology, completely devoid of truth, incapable of having any bearing on his being.
Spiritual understanding, gained from consistent, persistent study of the Bible and the writings of Mrs. Eddy, awakens one from the ignorance and fear of modern mythology, alias beliefs of mortality. Man in God's image is spiritual, immortal. How, then, can material, mortal beliefs, even though they are called laws, have any effect on him? Clearly, they cannot.
Mortal mind may be cleansed of all impurity, disease-breeding thoughts, and ignorance if thought is flooded with the pure truths of God and man. The illumination accompanying these truths dispels mental darkness just as light irresistibly dispels darkness. But the light must remain in consciousness. We must keep our mental lamps trimmed, filled with the oil of consecration and inspiration, and burning.
Effacing the image of disease in Christian Science means effacing the image of mortal mind. The student must learn what the error is that needs to be eradicated from his thought, whether it be ignorance, fear, or sin. The error cannot be overlooked. It must be uncovered and destroyed.
Having abandoned the uncovered error, the patient is free to demonstrate the truth, which destroys error. Then he is ready to respond to the healing power of the absolute fact of man in divine Science, namely that God is the only Mind of man. As the idea of Mind, man is forever inseparable from pure spirituality. Man does not have a mind of his own which can lead him away from God, good, a mind which can fear, hate, envy, be ignorant, worried, sad, or depressed. Since God is the forever source of his being, man is blessed with uninterrupted omnipotent Life, which is constant, omniscient Truth and gentle, omnipresent Love.
Though one may have devout belief in the power of God, good, the image of disease may seem to mortal thought ineradicable. But this is not true. The image of disease is not indelible. Indeed, false pictures never have touched and never can touch the consciousness of the real man, who is the reflection of God. Continually supplied with the beauty and purity of Soul, man's consciousness in divine Science can be aware only of God, good, and His creation.
With the spiritual awareness of his immortal selfhood, one may courageously turn on the image of disease and rout it out of his experience. The spiritual actuality that we discern is what matters; the false picture, no matter how dark, will disappear when consciousness is flooded with the bright light of Truth.
Our Leader tells us how our Way-shower, Christ Jesus, healed through Christianly scientific seeing. She says (Science and Health, pp. 476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." Let us follow our Way-shower and our Leader that we too may see the perfect man and heal the sick!
