"The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man's origin,"Science and Health, p. 262;says Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health. It follows from this that the remedy for mortal discord lies in the understanding of man's preexistence as the divine idea of God, coexistent and coeternal with Him.
Acceptance of the belief that we are born into flesh leads inevitably to acceptance of the load of mortal discord, the beliefs of material existence plaguing mankind from the cradle to the grave. The ills of the flesh, of childhood, adulthood, and old age, are part of this syndrome of error. Besides, there are beliefs of ecclesiastical damnation attached to sinning mortals, as well as environmental, psychological, hereditary, astrological, electrical, chemical, and biological limitations.
Against all these theories stands the truth of man's spiritual and immortal status as the child of God, endowed with all good from the Father-Mother Love. Man has no material inheritance. Supposed laws of heredity, of ecclesiastical condemnation, of medical and environmental theory, have no force or reality except insofar as they are accepted in mortal belief. And in proportion as we recognize and hold to man's true selfhood as the immortal idea of God, such beliefs lessen their hold in human consciousness. Prayerful realization of the truths of spiritual being operates as law in human experience to loosen the hold of false beliefs with which mortals have been indoctrinated. The only place error can find lodgment is in mortal thought, the ignorant belief that we live in material bodies in a material universe and have private, brain-centered minds. If we believe in material birth, we ipso facto accept its corollaries of disease, lack, decrepitude, and death.
