We hear a lot about psychology today. Articles ranging from food to foreign policy are written on it. Books are devoted to the discussion of it. Films often feature characters who depend on regular visits to therapists. Ironically, even Sigmund Freud himself is now being "reanalyzed" by modern scholars.
The list goes on, but we can stop here. For above the hubbub of headlines and hypotheses regarding mental therapy, Christian Science reveals this irrevocable fact: true psychology is the province of divine Mind, God.
"The prophylactic and therapeutic (that is, the preventive and curative) arts belong emphatically to Christian Science, as would be readily seen, if psychology, or the Science of Spirit, God, was understood," Science and Health, p. 369. writes Mrs. Eddy.
At the heart of human psychology is the erroneous belief that man is a mortal with a mortal past that traps him—often without his knowing it—into behavioral patterns. Through therapy that delves into the so-called subconscious mind, the reasoning goes, an individual is able to confront his past and thus be freed to better cope with his present and future.
Although this type of mortal mind analysis may seem to help some people, it is based on a dead-end flaw: the premise that man is the product of a mortal past that he will never escape. It counsels that the individual's hope lies in learning to understand and deal with this fact.
Divine Science, however, irrefutably explains the real basis of man's being as the perfect expression of Spirit, God. And it exposes the Adam-and-Eve dream—the root of animal magnetism's argument that mortal history is a reality—as an empty, powerless lie.
The effect of the psychology of Mind is to heal troubled human thinking and disturbed human lives on the spiritually scientific basis that man has no mortal past. It proves the nature of being to be mental, but never mortal. It relies on the regenerating biblical instruction "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Rom. 12:2.
Authority for divine psychology grows out of the fact that man, as the pure reflection of God, is governed by Mind only, and not by repressed mortal thoughts and feelings. God alone is the source and impulse of man's being; and because He has no mortal past, man cannot have one either. What God knows, man knows; and this is all he knows.
Mortal belief would argue that our thinking is a complex blend of subconscious, unconscious, and conscious thoughts. Locked within the murky mix of past mortal events and reactions, it claims, are the keys to understanding our feelings and behavior.
But the truth of being is that there is only one Mind, the all-knowing, omnipresent Mind. This fact is the divine law operating in human consciousness to uncover whatever is ungodlike and simultaneously to reveal the eternal truth of man's unscarred spiritual selfhood. This exposure is not the result of materialistic probing. It is the searching, cleansing action of the Christ, which is never a traumatic or depressing experience. "God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" I Cor. 2:10. is one way the Bible describes this searchlight of Christ.
The healing psychology of Mind was immaculately demonstrated by Christ Jesus. On more than one occasion, when confronted with an individual in need of moral or physical regeneration, Jesus specifically forgave the individual's sin and instructed him to sin no more. Perhaps one way of viewing the Master's forgiveness of sin is to see that in forgiving it, he was proving the real man never had been tainted by original sin; that he never had a mortal past which could bind him to present ills—whether such ills appeared as physical, moral, or mental distress.
We, too, have the opportunity to prove the potency of Mind's divine psychology, right where world thought seems aggressively focused on the false belief in man as a psychological creature.
"The tendency of mental healing is to uplift mankind; but this method perverted, is 'Satan let loose,'" warns Mrs. Eddy. "Hence the deep demand for the Science of psychology to meet sin, and uncover it; thus to annihilate hallucination." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 3.
The healing distinction between human and divine psychology was made clear to me when circumstances brought me face to face with a negative self-image I seemed to have unwittingly accepted over a period of years: the notion that I was unworthy of being loved, and somehow had to prove I was capable of winning affection.
At this time a close friend of mine, not a Christian Scientist, was seeing a therapist who explained to her—during sessions that were occasionally emotionally disturbing to my friend—that her problems with romantic relationships were rooted in an unhappy childhood. Although this therapy did not pretend to eliminate my friend's past, it seemed to help her understand herself better as she tried to change her behavior.
As I thought about my friend's experience, I found myself turning to "self-analysis" in an effort to find the root of the unhappy self-image I was faced with. This probing took me nowhere. I soon realized—sheepishly—that I had been turning to human psychology instead of prayer!
Humbly, I acknowledged God as the only Mind. I dropped all interest in sifting through a mortal past, which I knew had never been mine as God's child. I prayed—several times a day—to better understand that I had no such past; and that such an erroneous belief had no power or authority to govern my thought and actions. I held continually to these lines from one of Mrs. Eddy's poems: "The centuries break, the earth-bound wake, / God's glorified!" Poems, p. 79.
One night, after several weeks of prayer, I felt a great stillness and deep peace. In an illumined moment—as bright as if a spotlight had been trained on my thought—I recalled an incident from my early teens. My older brother, whose opinions I considered of great import, had told me—in the teasing way teen-age brothers often use with their sisters—that no one would ever want to go out with me! I remembered, too, that I began dating one of his close friends a short time later; and that I felt I had proved to my brother I was capable of winning someone's affection.
The realization of these past events came swiftly, with a gentle sense of release, because the Christ action that had uncovered the error also reassured me there was in reality no mortal past. I felt a tremendous burden had melted away. What appeared to be a deeply rooted and unconsciously held negative self-image was seen as nothingness in the light of Christ, Truth. It was erased from consciousness, and thus, I knew, from my life. Best of all, I never felt resentful toward my brother; in fact, we grew closer. I had witnessed the healing psychology of Mind.
"The grand verities of Science will sift the chaff from the wheat, until it is clear to human comprehension that man was, and is, God's perfect likeness, that reflects all whereby we can know God," writes Mrs. Eddy in answer to the question "Has man fallen from a state of perfection?"
In the same paragraph she continues, "Immortal man is the eternal idea of Truth, that cannot lapse into a mortal belief or error concerning himself and his origin: he cannot get out of the focal distance of infinity." Mis., p. 79.
These are demonstrable truths. It is our divine right, and privilege, to prove their healing efficacy in our daily lives. Understood and practiced, even in a degree, they reveal in us the spiritual serenity referred to by Paul, who wrote, "The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:7
