Sometimes on TV we see an incidental face, or some other image, superimposed on the picture. This is not part of the main scene and we know it. So with discords, illnesses, obstructions to progress and happiness. Never part of our actual experience as the children of God, they are impositions, neither real nor factual, and we can prove this.
Just where do these impositions come from? Certainly not from God, our eternal Father-Mother. The twofold term referred to in the writings of Mrs. Eddy—animal magnetism—is their mythical source.
What do they impose themselves upon? Surely not on man. Then it must be on the false belief about man. They are of the substance of dreams. Neither the false belief nor the false believer is man. Then, this mixed-up, plus-and-minus mess is never you or me.
The Bible puts it like this: "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Gen. 1:31; Nothing can be added to this spiritual fact. Nothing can be taken from it.
The lies about man come from nowhere. They are uncreated. The spotless image of God, which constitutes one's real being now and here, is the basis from which to reject limitations, weaknesses, fears, doubts; if allowed, these would creep in, in some unguarded moment. But they are substanceless. One can erase them from thought, just as one can erase a mathematical mistake from the blackboard. Whatever cannot be identified with the perfect cause and divine Principle of existence has no substance, power, or entity.
If someone were made to believe he had to carry a twenty-five pound sack of flour on his shoulder wherever he went, and if he accepted the belief, he would be burdened. The burden would not be part of the man, however, or valid in any degree. In the same way, sickness, for example, is a falsity superimposed on thought and never part of one's being.
Animal magnetism, mesmerism, world belief, medical opinion, when seen as superimposed falsities, begin to lose their power and fade from our thought. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says of a case of consumption to be mentally treated: "Show that it is not inherited; that inflammation, tubercles, hemorrhage, and decomposition are beliefs, images of mortal thought superimposed upon the body; that they are not the truth of man; that they should be treated as error and put out of thought. Then these ills will disappear." Science and Health, p. 425;
We are not fighting something real when confronted with discords. They are myths, suggestions, pure fictions of a pseudo mind called "mortal mind" throughout the writings of Mrs. Eddy. As we learn from these writings and the Bible that God is ever present, we can begin to understand that things not in keeping with God, good, are conjectural falsities.
The falsities of a mortal sense of existence can never enter the real man. Insubordination, greed, dishonesty, can only knock at one's mental door. Realizing their fictitious nature, we can keep them out. "Into the real and ideal man the fleshly element cannot enter," ibid., p. 332; Mrs. Eddy reminds us.
The Master, Christ Jesus, was fully aware of the purity of man's being as the child of God. Therefore he could restore health, life, freedom, purity, to those with whom he came in contact who were desirous of healing. For instance, when the adulterous woman was brought to him, through his pure thought he was able to discern her innate purity as God's child and to awaken her to her true dominion. He said simply, "Go, and sin no more." John 8:11.
The heavy weight of error of any nature can be lifted as one sees that it is never part of original, spiritual being. The mesmerism of suggestion can be thwarted when seen as coming from a mythical outside and when joy, gratitude, purity, unselfed love, are energetically activated.
The battle between Spirit and the flesh persists on this mortal scene. But the battle is never with a real opponent. God is one. Being is one. Man is the expression of this oneness.
In the infinite variety of God's self-revelation one can find himself free to accomplish good in marvelous variety of activity. Shedding the tenacious falsities of a mortal sense of man is possible when one sees them as substanceless, not real opponents to harmony or to the fulfillment of divine purpose. Enlightenment in limitless measure awaits one's acceptance of this task. Nothing can check our progress out of the belief of mortality when thought is kept in line with divine Mind.
